Thisthingwith Harper, whatever it was, wasn’t going to be compartmentalized. It wasn’t going to stay neatly within the lines I usually drew around my life. It was messy, complicated, and incredibly potent. All the things I tried to avoid, all the things I had no clue how to navigate.
I couldn’t wait to see her again. The thought was a persistent fire, licking at the edges of my ordered life. A deviation from my precisely planned trajectory. A beautiful, terrifying deviation.
But fear clung just as fiercely. Harper was more than just a tempting unknown. She was a mother, a professional ally, a pivotal part of my world and Eli’s. Her history was more complicated than the blueprints I drew up for a living. Finn’s father had left her the moment he found out she was pregnant. As far as I knew, she’d never heard from him again. Which was undoubtedly for the best—any man who would do that to his woman and child didn’t deserve them.
I weighed the risks, logic fighting with emotion in a tug-of-war that left me frayed and exhausted. She was everything I craved but told myself I didn’t need, a thrilling challenge to my sense of control. And maybe the only person who understood the high stakes as well as I did.
The meeting with Eli tonight loomed large in my mind. A simple get-together at my place for drinks that was anything but simple. Not telling him wasn’t even an option. I was an awful liar, and even withholding the truth made me horribly uncomfortable. I imagined the disappointment in his eyes, the confrontation. But I needed his perspective, his acknowledgment, maybe even his permission before this spiraled out of control.
His old warning came back to haunt me. A pact sealedwith a high school promise—his sisters were off-limits. “You break it, I break you.” His words had hung somewhere between truth and humor, but his eyes had been dead serious.
I stared at the clock, my life unfolding in dizzying, exhilarating chaos.
I arrangedthe bourbon glasses for the third time, angling them just so on the walnut side table. The evening air hung heavy with jasmine and salt, a typical Keys combination that usually soothed me. Not tonight. The string lights overhead cast soft illumination across my deck, creating the illusion of calm that contradicted the storm in my chest. Any minute now, Eli would arrive, and I’d have to tell my best friend that I’d had mind-blowing sex with his sister. Well, maybe not quite in those words. I took a deep breath and poured two fingers of bourbon into each glass, watching the amber liquid catch the light. The ice clinked against the sides like a countdown.
The restored house had been my passion project for years—a 1920s conch house with good bones and terrible updates that I’d painstakingly returned to its original charm while adding modern conveniences. The deck had been my final addition, a place to unwind after long days at the office. Usually, sitting here as the sun dipped toward the horizon brought me peace. Tonight, it felt like waiting for my own execution.
I swirled the bourbon in my glass as the sunset painted the sky in streaks of orange and pink. A gentle breeze stirred the palm fronds overhead, their soft rustle a counterpoint to the crickets starting their evening chorus.
The sound of flip-flops slapping against the concretepath announced Eli’s arrival moments before he appeared, grinning and carrying a small paper bag as he opened the solid wooden gate. He stopped just inside the gate, taking an appreciative glance around the deck and the back of the house, all illuminated by the new landscape lighting I’d installed last month.
“Place looks good as always, man,” Eli said, moving toward the chairs. “So, fend off any frantic calls from magazine editors or millionaires begging you to sell it lately?”
Eli wasn’t just joking. The painstaking five-year restoration of the cottagehadwon a state preservation award. It was listed on the local historic register and had been featured inCoastal Livingand even a small spread inArchitectural Digestafter I finished the kitchen. That kind of attention inevitably brought offers, usually polite inquiries forwarded by Marilyn, but Arthur Albright, whose beachfront place on Little Torch Key I’d redesigned a couple of years back, had cornered me at a charity event last Christmas, half-joking but completely serious when he said all I needed to do was ask my price and he’d take it.
“Ha. I’ll take all the publicity I can get.” I laughed, shaking my head as Eli dropped into the chair opposite mine and reached for his glass. “Albright practically offered me his firstborn for it again last month. But no, I’m staying put. Too much sweat equity in these walls.”
“His loss,” Eli said easily, taking a generous swallow of bourbon. He set the paper bag on the table between us. “Speaking of people staying put, I brought some key lime cookies Jules made. She thinks they’ll pair well with bourbon, which sounds disgusting to me, but what do I know? I’m just the guy who drinks beer from a can.”
Despite my anxiety, I had to smile. Eli had the unique ability to dispel tension without even knowing it existed.Tonight, he wore a faded T-shirt from some dive shop in Bali, cargo shorts that had seen better days, and his ever-present flip-flops. His perpetually sun-bleached hair and easy smile projected his usual carefree demeanor.
“Jules let you out on a school night?” I teased, falling into our familiar rhythm despite the weight sitting on my chest. “Must have signed a permission slip.”
“Please. Jules does not tell me what to do.” He took a sip, then added with a grin, “She merely makes strongly worded suggestions that I choose to follow because I value my life and access to her.”
“How is domestic bliss?” I asked, leaning back in my chair and trying to appear relaxed. “She moved in, what, a month ago? And neither of you has killed the other yet. Impressive.”
“It’s good. Really good, actually.” His expression softened. “You know how she alphabetizes the spice rack? Turns out, I find that weirdly hot.”
I laughed. “You’ve changed, man. The Eli I used to know would break out in hives at the mere mention of cohabitation.”
“The Eli you used to know was an idiot,” he countered, raising his glass in a mock toast. “Though Jules would argue that not much has changed. Yesterday she found my wetsuit dripping in the bathtub instead of on the deck rack she installed specifically for that purpose.”
“And you’re still alive to tell the tale? She must really love you.”
“Miracle, right?” He grinned, then took another sip of bourbon, eyeing me over the rim of his glass. “But enough about my domestic triumphs. What’s going on with you? And don’t say nothing because you’ve adjusted those coasters at least four times since I sat down.”
I froze, caught in the act of nudging a coaster intoexact alignment with the edge of the table. For all his laid-back demeanor, Eli had always been perceptive. It was what made him such a good dive instructor—that ability to read people, to sense when something was off.
“That obvious, huh?” I abandoned the pretense, setting my glass down and leaning forward.
“Okay, spill it,” Eli said, his tone shifting from playful to concerned. “You look wound up tighter than a drum. What’s up?”
I took a deep breath, then a long swallow of bourbon, welcoming the burn as it slid down my throat. I’d rehearsed variations of this conversation all day, but now, facing Eli, all my prepared phrases abandoned me.
“There’s something you need to know,” I said in a voice that was steadier than I felt. “About Harper and me.”
Eli went still, his glass halfway to his lips. An expression I couldn’t quite read crossed his face—not quite surprise, not quite understanding. He set his glass down. “Go on.”
