Tate shrugs. “Yeah, well, it’s what you are, isn’t it?”
“Tate,” Eryn says, her voice weary but laced with quiet authority.
“What?” His grin is unrepentant. “She wanted to know.”
“I really didn’t,” I mutter, shaking my head.
Eryn moves to do her own scan of the trunk, her fingers brushing over the intricate shell crown I spot nestled beside the mermaid tail. “Ignore him.”
“Oh, I plan to.”
She laughs. “Good. Because I’m tired of being outnumbered.”
“Well, I know when I’m not wanted,” Tate quips, his voice rising over the sound of the waves lapping at the dock. “Text me if you need anything or when you’re back on dry land.”
As he heads down the dock, Wren watches him, but when Tate hops aboard, Wren says something that makes Tate’s entire body stiffen. He replies with a sharp gesture, Twizzlers still clutched in one hand. Then, after a beat, he tosses the candy onto a bench and shakes his head, clearly exasperated.
The conversation ends abruptly. Wren exhales, shoulders rising then dropping, as if shaking something off before wheeling toward the other end of the boat.
Tate watches him, his jaw set. A few seconds pass before he moves—slowly, almost reluctantly—into the captain’s chair.
They don’t speak after that.
I glance at Eryn, expecting some reaction, but she’s still rummaging through her trunk, oblivious to whatever just went down.
She straightens a second later, holding a phone in her hand that has a screen so cracked I’d be shocked if it still works.
“One sec,” she tells me, reaching back into her car and pulling out another phone, this one light blue with a golden croissant sticker on the back. She taps the screen and lifts it to her ear.
On the boat, Wren answers his own phone at the same time.
“Hey, babe, can you let Tate know he dropped his phone in my trunk?”
Babe?
I glance between them, an odd realization hitting me. She’s his girlfriend. I don’t know why I hadn’t considered the possibility before. Maybe because he’s kind of on the grumpy side, though I guess not with her. So much for the banter between him and me that I thought I’d picked up on earlier. It’s not like it had been much, just a hint. And a wildly impractical one at that. This is better, I tell myself. I don’t even have to let my mind ever start going there.
“Okayyy,” she says, drawing out the word. “I’ll tell her.” A pause. “Are you sure you don’t just want me to—? Right, yeah. Sure, later.” She flicks her eyes to me and kind of shifts away, voice lowering. “Actually I can’t tonight. I have to be at the café super early, but whatever it is, we can just talk later.” There’s a stretch of silence. “I will, ’kay, bye.”
She tosses the phone into her bag before turning back to me. “Sorry about that.”
I shrug off her apology. “Did you say café?”
Eryn’s expression shifts, a spark of excitement lighting up her eyes. “It’s my other job, my main job. I’m an assistant baker over at the Petticoat Café. I waitress some too.”
“I passed by that place my first day here. There was something that smelled so good I was halfway across the street before I even noticed. Maybe a cinnamon roll?”
“That’s my recipe! They’re called morning buns.” She points back at her car. “Want to try one? I always bring a couple for the guys, but Tate can miss out today.”
The second she opens the door, I catch the scent—warm, buttery vanilla with a hint of cinnamon. It’s better than I remembered.
She grabs a box from the backseat, then spins to reveal pastries that look like the love child of a croissant and a cinnamon roll—golden, sugar-crusted spirals dripping with ooey-gooey vanilla icing. My eyes widen on instinct.
I tear off a piece of one and pop it into my mouth. The crisp, caramelized edges give way to soft, flaky layers, and the sugar practically melts on my tongue. I set a hand on the car door to steady myself.
Eryn laughs. “First time, huh? Yeah, they tend to have that effect on people.”
I tear off another piece, then another, barely chewing before going in for more. “These are amazing.”
