Chapter Twenty-Six
HARPER
As I staredinto the freezer, the only thing colder than the air nipping my face was the creeping certainty that I was, once again, out of dinosaur-shaped nuggets. Not that Finn would accept triceratops-adjacentchicken friesinstead. Which didn’t matter since I didn’t have any of those either. God, if only things in life were as simple as finding the right prehistoric poultry.
I pawed past a sticky package of frozen edamame, three separate iterations of blueberries, the last surviving bagel from the beginning of time. No dino nuggets. Not even a pizza, and I nearly always kept one for emergencies. Just an ice pack, probably from Finn’s last attempt at the playground monkey bars, wedged where hope should have been.
I closed the freezer with a long sigh and leaned my forehead against a wrinkled paper scrawled in blue crayon. A drawing Finn had assured me was the outline of Florida, and not, as I’d suspected, a representation of an attackshark. It was too quiet with Finn still at the resort Kids Club. Most nights, stillness felt like a gift, breathing space. Tonight, it just pressed in, heavy and empty.
Moving to the pantry, I pulled out a blue box of macaroni and cheese. Our fail-safe, our mutually assured dinner. My mind kept drifting, compulsive and untamable, to Chase. He’d been at the resort most of the day, but we’d only interacted during a site meeting. Just me, him, Jules, and Elena, who was reassuringly competent. There’d been a change in Chase.
He wasn’this usual confident, analytical self. He couldn’t be, not after the termite horrors, the wall drama, and the emergency shoring logistics. But the difference went deeper than exhaustion. He’d looked right at me. Looked, instead of talking around me, or past me, or at the plans. Then he’d looked straight into my eyes with a small, exhausted smile as he announced, “I’m working on a solution, guys. I’ll have more details shortly, but all is not lost. I promise.”
Then, when it was all over, he’d pulled me aside. “We’ll talk soon, Harper. Properly.”
That one tiny moment left a splinter in my side. Because the revised repair costs for Room Block One had landed in my inbox yesterday evening. No positive spin attached—just an email from Chase with two PDF attachments and a subject line that looked as haunted as I felt—Updated Projections.
I’d nearly dropped my phone. The final number was obscene. A figure you’d expect from disaster movies, not a family resort already bleeding from a thousand paper cuts. If I really read those numbers straight, we were looking at either gutting the renovation to a sad shadow of itself or putting ourselves into a level of debt I wouldn’t wish onour worst Yelp reviewer. Worse, I could picture the quiet, analytic way Chase would’ve run every scenario, his face as closed off as a safe. And decided this was the truth.
Yet he said he had a solution.
How?
I didn’t know how, but I trusted him. That was the bottom line. So I’d smiled back at him and waited to hear how he was going to fix this monumental problem.
I dug a rusty saucepan from under the oven and moved to the sink. Every time I thought we’d settled into something real, the world—Finn’s innocent questions, ancient walls crumbling, late-night emails—reminded me just how much distance there still was between Chase and me. How impossible everything seemed right now.
What I missed, absurdly, wasn’t just our flirtation or the late-night texts. Or even the toe-curling sex. It was the stupid, beautiful trust we’d found. But after Finn’s question about Chase being his dad, I had wobbled. And with the termite disaster, Chase had retreated into architect mode. Solutions, not feelings. I understood, but understanding didn’t make it easier to carry the weight of waiting. Just wanting him—wanting us—was starting to feel like trying to hold my breath underwater, hoping the air wouldn’t run out before I surfaced.
I was reaching to turn on the faucet when the doorbell rang. I jumped, almost dropping the pan. Staring at the clock, I frowned. Sometimes a worker from the Kids Club dropped off Finn, but I’d told them I’d get him today. I dried my hands on the closest towel, running through a half-hearted mental checklist—nothing urgent I’d forgotten, right?—before heading for the door.
Our entryway was about as fancy as a broom closet in a model home. The table was a little scuffed, but Finn had decorated the corners with sea turtle stickers, which Istubbornly refused to scrape off. Shoes everywhere. I caught my reflection in the glass before unlocking the door—messy ponytail, a ratty, old resort T-shirt, shorts that had probably seen their best days when Obama was in office. Hardly the fantasy image of a woman whose life was going according to plan.
I swung the door open, bracing myself for the usual barrage of solicitor, delivery driver, lost tourist…
Chase stood on my porch, backlit by the last scrape of golden light, looking about ten percent too tall for the doorway and about a hundred percent less guarded than the last time I’d seen him. Instead of his laptop or a blueprint tube, he balanced two big pizza boxes and a brown paper bag against one hip.
He offered a sideways smile, and his hazel eyes darted to mine, then to the pizza, then back again. His hair was damp—probably from a quick shower. His shirt looked fresh too, his pants crisp and clean.
“Chase? What are you—” The question got tangled up in my throat, embarrassed at my own confusion. “I thought you were working late. On… all the stuff.”
“Change of plans.” He nudged past me, gentle but sure, and walked down the hall to set the pizzas on the kitchen counter. There was a new set to his shoulders.
He rested one hand on the top box. “Figured we deserved something better than emergency budget projections tonight.” His voice had that warm edge to it, teasing at comfort, but his eyes were anything but casual.
I tried to cover the complicated mix of panic and gratitude twisting inside me with a quick snort. “Did you bring antacid too? That’s about all I’ve been having for dessert lately.”
He let out half a laugh and patted the bag. “Should’ve known you’d ask. You’ll have to settle for cake and… well, I’ll explain.” He glanced around. “Where’s Finn? I brought pizza specifically to make up for the night of the play.”
That made me smile. Something soft shifted inside me—hope, cautious but unavoidably there. “At the Kids Club. I was going to get him in half an hour, but should we go over there now and pick him up?”
He shook his head, more serious now. “No. I’m glad we’ve got a few minutes alone because I need to talk to you. About the numbers. About… everything.”
Leavingthe pizzas warming in the oven, we relocated to the living room. The couch beckoned invitingly, and I flopped down on it. But he hovered in front of it, shifting his weight from foot to foot and not looking at me. Something told me this wasn’t about pizza.
Chase glanced at me, then at the lopsided bookshelf in the corner, like he needed a focal point, any focal point, that wasn’t my eyes. For once, I let the silence build. My pulse kicked up, but I stayed put on the end of the couch, one knee curled under me, arms around a throw pillow.
“I know you saw the revised costs.” His voice was low—steady, but not distant. No spin, no buffer. Just the bare, ugly truth between us.
