"Hey." He straightened as she approached. Up close, he was as she remembered. Not classically handsome, but interesting. Brown eyes that paid attention. A slight crookedness to his nose, like it had been broken once and set imperfectly.
"Hey yourself."
"Ready?"
"Always."
They started down the boardwalk, side by side, the wooden planks stretching ahead through the trees. The canopy filtered the sunlight into shifting patterns around them, and the air was cool and damp. Leaves and earth, a trace of honeysuckle. Shaded and still.
"I forgot how much I needed this," Olivia said. "Trees. Actual trees."
"The beach is nice, but it's a lot of... exposure." Michael ducked under a low branch. "Sometimes you want walls. Even if they're made of leaves."
They walked. The trail wound deeper into the woods, the sounds of the parking lot fading behind them. At one point, Michael stopped and pointed. A black snake sunning itself on a flat rock just off the path.
"Don't move," he said, though she hadn't been about to.
They watched it together. The snake seemed unbothered, soaking up the warmth, utterly still except for the occasional flick of its tongue.
"Beautiful," Olivia said quietly.
"Most people would run."
"Their loss."
The snake slid off the rock and disappeared into the underbrush. They kept walking.
Michael noticed things. That was part of what she'd always liked about him. A hawk circling overhead. A cluster of wildflowers she would have walked right past. He asked questions about her work, the art history stuff, and remembered the answers. Remembered details from conversations they'd had months ago.
"How's the research going?" he asked. "The Eakins project?"
She blinked. She'd mentioned the Eakins project exactly once, during a car ride back in March. "Still gathering sources. The archive access has been complicated."
"But you got the grant, right? The one you were waiting on?"
"I did. Last month." She hadn't told Dan about the grant. He hadn't asked.
They walked on. The conversation moved easily. Books they'd read, places they wanted to travel, the frustrations of academic bureaucracy. Nothing that would have looked wrong from the outside. Two colleagues, two friends, enjoying a walk through nature.
But Olivia felt it underneath. The awareness of where he was in space, how close his arm was to hers as they walked. Her pulse quickening when he held her gaze a moment too long.
The trail opened up as they reached the lakes at the end. The trees fell away, and there was sky again—wide and blue, the lighthouse visible in the distance. A pair of swans drifted on the nearer lake, their reflections perfect on the still surface. Beyond them, the second lake glinted in the sun, an egret standing motionless at its edge.
Michael stopped. "This is the spot."
"It really is."
They stood there, taking it in. The quiet was different here. The hush of the woods replaced by the sound of waves beyond the dunes.
"Olivia, I need to tell you something."
She went still. "Okay."
"I'm not just down for the weekend." He was looking at her now, fully, the way he did when he was about to say something he'd been thinking about for a while. "I rented a place. In Avalon. For the summer."
She didn't say anything. The summer had just gotten more complicated.
"I know how that sounds. I know it's—" He rubbed the back of his neck. "A friend had a share in Avalon. He bailed last minute, needed someone to take it. I said yes because I needed to get away." He paused. "Then I remembered you'd be in Sea Isle. Fifteen minutes away. I wanted you to know."
