“Thank you for sharing all that with me.”
He nods, eyes drifting away. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”
“What do you mean?”
“About naming the children’s center The Hive. It was something Daisy and I kept to ourselves.”
Warmth flows through my veins. This man showed me a secret part of himself. A part no one on this earth has seen. Yet atthe same time, a nagging ache clutches around my heart like a vise.
Carrying this precious information is a privilege, and I know exactly what to do with it.
Asher once informed me that lake houses are meant to be seen from the water, not the other way around, which makes sense now that I’m viewing it from this vantage point.
After we tie up the boat, I expect him to usher me inside. Instead, he plops onto a beach chair. He dusts debris off the identical one beside him, then motions for me to sit too.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” he says, looking out over the water.
That ache in my chest flares. “What do you mean?”
He picks up a plastic shovel that was left behind and mindlessly scrapes it across the sand. “Earlier, in the kitchen, I gave you mixed signals. I didn’t mean to. I was in a mood and needed a release and I… I shouldn’t have used you like that.”
“I didn’t feel used,” I reply.
In fact, the feral look in his eyes had ignited all my nerve endings.
“And let’s be honest,” I add. “Isn’t that sorta what this whole thing has been? Us using each other for sex? I don’t mean that in a bad way either. Like, we agreed from the beginning that this was mutually beneficial. Right?”
He purses his lips, his jaw ticking, but he doesn’t reply.
After a long, quiet moment, I ask, “Why’d you bring me to the cove?”
“I’m not sure.” He scoops up sand and spreads his fingers so it cascades back onto the beach. “No. That’s not true. I brought you there because you don’t treat me like I’m broken.”
A wave of emotion washes over me. “Ash…”
He huffs. “I feel like that kintsugi vase in your apartment. Only I’m the version before it’s filled with gold.”
Let me be your gold, I yearn to say.
But our conversation is cut short when Bea comes racing down the path, holding tight to a head of lettuce.
Natalie trails behind her at a slower pace. When she sees us, she cups her hands around her mouth and calls out, “You got her? I have food in the oven.”
“We’re good,” Asher yells back.
“Daddy!” Bea squeals, kicking sand up and onto his lap.
He immediately breaks into a giant smile, complete with his two signature dimples. “Hey, Dolly. Are you here to feed the ducks?”
“Yup.” She leaps toward the shore and tears off pieces of lettuce, tossing them into the lake.
A flock of puddle ducks hustle over, and they lap up the leaves, but soon, there’s way more food than fowl, and Asher tells her to ease up.
He catches the lettuce when she tosses it at him, then she sits on the ground and buries my feet in the sand with the shovel.
“When I was your age,” I tell her, “my brother and I had a pet duck.”
“You did?” both Asher and his daughter exclaim.
