“Yeah.” He looked at the tarpaulin for a moment, listening. “The wind’s dropping.”
“It is,” Willa agreed. “Slowly.”
Another silence. Not uncomfortable.
“Ace,” Willa said.
“Mm.” He turned and looked at her.
“Thank you.” Willa kept her eyes on the fire. “For going in. I know you didn’t think about it. But I need to say it anyway.”
Ace was quiet for a beat. “When that wave hit the dock,” he said, “and you were gone.” He stopped, looking at his hands for a second. “That wasn’t a good feeling, Willa.”
“No,” Willa said. “I imagine it wasn’t.” She tried to make light of it. “I know how I was feeling at that moment.”
Ace glanced at her sideways. “I just want you to know that going in after you wasn’t something I had to think about. There was nothing to think about.”
She looked at him then.
He looked back.
“I know,” Willa said quietly. “You’ve always just jumped in feet first whenever the kids or I needed you.” She patted his firm, muscular shoulder. “I’m sorry I put you in that position today.”
“Don’t apologize for trying to get everyone rescued,” Ace said, and there was the dry, light edge she knew so well, the one that appeared when he wanted to soften something without dismissing it. “That would be a very strange thing to apologize for.”
A breath of a laugh escaped her. “You know what I mean.”
“I do,” Ace said. “And I’m telling you it’s all right.” He held her gaze. “You came back up. That’s all I needed.”
The firelight moved between them.
Willa thought about the morning. About the concert he was going to with Sienna. About the cold, clipped way she’d spoken to him at the table over something that had nothing to do withhim and everything to do with her own unwillingness to look directly at what she felt.
“Ace,” she said.
“Yeah?” He turned and glanced at her.
“Earlier. At breakfast. I was unkind to you.” Willa said it plainly, because he deserved that. “About the concert and Sienna. I had no right to do that.”
He looked at her for a moment without speaking.
“You weren’t unkind,” Ace said at last with a shrug. “You were expressing your opinion, and I know you don’t like or trust Sienna.” He gave her a tight smile. “It’s all good.”
“No, it’s not,” Willa disagreed. “I’m sorry. You have every right to go wherever you want and with whomever.” She sighed. “While I wish it were anyone but Sienna, because I think you deserve better than her, it’s really none of my business.”
Something shifted in his expression. The same quality she’d seen in him on the dock when she’d told him to take the group and go, that look of receiving information and letting it land rather than deflecting it.
“For the record, Sienna is just someone I hang out with sometimes, nothing more,” Ace explained. “And just so you know, I would rather have gone to the concert with you.”
The words were simple. He hadn’t dressed them up or surrounded them with anything. He had just said them, in that quiet, particular way Ace said things when he meant them entirely.
Willa looked at him.
Ace looked back.
The fire pulsed between them, and the storm moved against the limestone, and the cave breathed slowly around the sleeping kids. There was a pull in the air between them that she’d been managing and deflecting and refusing to name for longer than she was prepared to admit.
Ace’s face was very close.
