Something fierce and protective surged in me, a desperate need to soothe the fear I had put in her eyes. I reached out and rested my hand on the side of her face.
“Iris.” I waited until she met my gaze. “When I’m with you, there are no ghosts. There are no other pieces. There’s just you. Only you.”
I could see her processing the words, a flicker of hope battling with doubt in her eyes.
“I know I’ve got a lot of crap to sort through,” I continued. “And I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know how to prove it to you, other than to keep being here.Whenever you need me. Because what I feel for you, it’s not left over. It’s new. And it’s all yours.”
It was the most I’d ever said about my feelings to anyone. Clumsy and inadequate maybe, but it was the truest thing I had to offer. I couldn’t bring myself to say those three words. Why? I had no idea. I just couldn’t.
But somehow, my halting, stumbling sentences were enough. With a faint smile, she leaned forward and brushed her lips over mine. Though I wanted to grab her and deepen the contact, hold her close and keep her safe, I accepted what she offered me.
She pressed her forehead to mine. “I know it’s not easy for you to say all that. And it’s enough for now.”
The last two words hung in the air between us, a quiet acknowledgment that this wasn’t over. It was a truce, not a surrender. The doubt was still there. And as I held her, the weight of needing to prove myself, to be the man she could trust without reservation, felt heavier than ever.
The next day,my charter was a nice, easygoing couple from Michigan who were more interested in enjoying the breeze and getting some sun than they were in serious fishing. It should have been a relaxing day. Instead, my mind was a churning mess. I went through the motions, finding them a few small snappers and pointing out a pod of dolphins. But my voice and actions were on autopilot while my thoughts were back on that porch with Iris.
Her words echoed in my head, a gentle, insistent refrain. Her soft sincerity had been more devastating than any angry accusation. She wasn’t blaming me for my past. She was asking me if we had a future. And though I tried, I had no damn idea how to answer her.
When I got back to the dock, I went through my usual routine of cleaning the boat. I retreated to the cabin, the place that had been my ultimate sanctuary, but even here, Iris’s presence now lingered. I sat at the cramped desk and stared at the scarred wood, not seeing any of it.
How do I prove it to her? How do I make her see that my feelings for her, this all-consuming thing that has taken over my life, have nothing to do with a ghost?
I sat up and sighed, stating the inevitable conclusion out loud. “How can I convince her when my own brothers don’t even believe me?”
They were the ones who had planted this seed of doubt. They were the ones who had looked at Iris and seen the past. And if I couldn’t make them understand, how could I hope to convince her?
The anger I’d felt in the back room of Tidal Hops resurfaced. But beneath it, a new, cool resolve began to form. I couldn’t sit here and let this fester. I couldn’t solve this alone in my head. I had to talk to one of them and make him see.
So I could figure out how to make Iris see.
Not Eli. Eli was a great brother, but he approached every problem with the well-meaning but sometimes overbearing authority of a big brother. He’d try to fix it, to manage it.
But Braden was different. He had a way of cutting through the bullshit, of seeing the real heart of the matter, a skill honed by years of listening to drunks and tourists tell their life stories over his bar. He was the one I could talk to, the one who knew how to listen without trying to steer the boat.
I stood up, the decision made.
Tidal Hops was quiet for a weekday evening, just a few regulars nursing their beers at the far end of the bar and acouple of tourists picking at a plate of conch fritters. Braden was smiling behind the bar, polishing glasses with a clean white towel.
He looked up as I approached, his smile faltering as he took in my expression. He put down the glass and towel. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not here for a beer?”
I shook my head and slid onto a stool in the corner, away from the other patrons. “No. I need to talk.”
Braden’s expression shifted, the bartender facade replaced by the concerned brother. He nodded once, then called out to a server. “Can you cover for a few minutes?” Then he poured two glasses of water and led me back to his office.
It was his command center, a crammed, windowless room that was pure Braden—functional, overflowing with ideas, and smelling faintly of malt and opportunity. A whiteboard covered one wall, a scribbled roadmap of his plans for the future. He didn’t offer me one of the seats at his desk. He pointed to one of two simple chairs in the corner. The door clicked shut behind us, and the familiar sounds of Tidal Hops faded into a low, distant thrum.
After handing me one of the glasses, he sat across from me and steepled his fingers. “What’s up?”
I stared at my water for a long moment, trying to gather the right words, words I wasn’t even sure I possessed. “You and Eli’s comments. The other day in the back room. About Caitlin.” Just saying her name was like swallowing broken glass. “It’s… it’s caused a problem.”
Braden didn’t flinch. He just nodded slowly, his gaze steady. “I was afraid it might. I’m sorry if we upset you, Austin. We were just worried. We still are.”
“I know,” I bit out, the anger still a simmering ember. “I told Iris about it. All of it. And now she’s worried. She’s scared that I don’t see her, that I just see a memory.” Theadmission was humiliating, a confession of a failure I didn’t know how to fix. “She wonders if I’m trying to rewrite the past with her.”
“Are you?” Braden asked, his question direct, with no trace of judgment.
“No!” The denial was explosive, torn from somewhere deep inside me. “I’ve never once… when I’m with her, it’s just her. She’s nothing like Caitlin. She’s Iris. She’s quirky and messy and she bakes things that are way too good. And she has these ridiculous sayings… She’s a disaster. But she’s my disaster.”
