She laughed and nodded as everyone else slowly filed out of the room. Mom and Chase walked out side by side, and she touched his arm as she laughed at some remark he made.
“Thank you for asking about a new computer for me. That will be heaven when it happens.”
My eyes snapped back to Jules. “Of course. I have to say these things publicly, so you don’t get out your red pen and axe yourself again.”
Our eyes held for a moment that stretched into eternity. Until Jules blinked and said, “Thanks again. I’d better get back to work. See you later.”
Then she was gone.
The door clicked shut, leaving me alone in the sudden, echoing quiet. A ghost of Jules’s smile lingered in the air, the brief spark of connection we'd shared still warming my chest. For that instant, seeing the approval and maybe something more in her eyes, everything had felt right. Possible. Like we were a team again, even without saying a word.
I sank back into my chair, thoughtful. The successful outcome of the meeting should have left me elated. Chaseonboard as a partner, a viable path forward for the resort, Mom actually embracing change… it was everything we’d hoped for. There was cake, for crying out loud. Ishouldhave been popping champagne or at least cracking open one of Braden’s celebratory IPAs.
Instead, the silence pressed in, amplifying the contrast. Theresort'sfuture looked brighter, but mine? It was shrouded in the fog of my own making. That brief moment with Jules just highlighted the chasm between the progress we’d made professionally and the stalemate we were trapped in personally.
My thoughts drifted back, inevitably, to that morning on Mom’s patio. The sun on the water, the scent of coffee, the weight of her question hanging between us.Are you in love with her?
The memory wasn't just painful now. It was clarifying. Today Mom had accepted Chase and taken that leap of faith despite her deep-seated fears about finances and outsiders. It threw my own failure into sharp relief. Shecouldovercome her past pain when faced with solid commitment and a clear path forward. Chase offered that for the resort.
And what had I offered when asked flat out about my feelings? Hesitation. Deflection.
Your hesitation tells me you're not there yet, Eli.
The realization washed over me and left me numb. It wasn't just about a rule. It wasn't just about Mom's fears, valid as they might be. It was aboutme.
A sickening certainty washed over me and left me numb. Suddenly, all this dancing around the damn resort policy looked like nothing more than a smokescreen. And Mom's fears? Deep as they ran, rooted in real pain I couldn't deny, eventheyweren't the ultimate roadblock. No. The real problem, the anchor dragging us down, thereason Jules and I were stuck in this miserable limbo... stared right back at me if I only had the courage to see it.
Me.
My inability to stand tall and claim the most important feeling of my life because I was still chained to the ghosts of my parents' failed marriage, still terrified I was doomed to repeat it. The fault wasn't a rule, or a ghost from the past. It landed squarely in my lap.
I dropped my head into my hands, the smooth wood of the table cool against my forehead. The warmth from Jules's smile moments ago evaporated, replaced by a chilling self-awareness. Mom hadn't blocked us. Ihad. And only I could fix this.
I love her.
The truth screamed silently in the empty room. I loved Julianne Verne. I loved her intelligence, her ridiculous organizational skills, her hidden adventurous spirit, the way she made me laugh, the way she made mebetter. Loved the way she looked at me, like she saw something worth holding onto beneath the jokes and the laid-back facade.
And I had failed her. Failed myself. I hadn't been able to give Mom the certainty she needed because I hadn't fully embraced it myself, hadn't trusted myself not to screw it up.
A surge of something hot and sharp—anger mixed with shame—flooded me. Anger at my own cowardice. Anger at the past that still held me hostage. Anger that the one time something truly real came along, I fumbled it because I couldn't conquer my own demons.
I pushed back from the table abruptly, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. I stalked to the window, staring out at the familiar vista—the pier, the dive shop, the endless blue horizon. My world. My cage.
If I couldn't prove my commitmenthere, within the tangled web of family history and resort expectations, maybe the only way was to break free entirely. It felt drastic, terrifying, like cutting off a limb. But if I needed to make a display of my feelings, I couldn’t think of a stronger one.
I could get a job anywhere. Calypso Key, maybe. Start fresh. Prove to Jules, prove to myself, prove to the goddamn universe that Iwasall in. That my love for her was bigger than my fear, bigger than this place, bigger than the ghosts of the past. It wouldn’t be easy, leaving behind everything I’d ever known. But I didn’t have a choice if I wanted to be with Jules. And I wanted that more than anything.
“If this is how it has to be,” I said to my reflection in the window, “so be it.”
