“Talent and avoidance. That beach day only happened because Neve bribed me with food.” I take a step and wince. The wet sand clings and grinds, and it’s exactly as awful as I knew it would be.
Peter turns around, squatting slightly in the water, and looks at me over his shoulder. “Hop on.”
“What?”
“Get on my back. I’ll carry you.”
“Peter, I’m not—You’re standing in the ocean. You’ll fall. We’ll both fall. This is a terrible idea.”
“Ninety percent of what you think about never happens. Hop on.”
I stare at him, crouched in ankle-deep water, peeking at me over his shoulder, like this is the most reasonable suggestion inthe world, and I think, this man used my own tattoo against me, and I have never been more in love with anyone in my entire life.
“If you drop me, I’m breaking up with you.” The words land like an anvil in my stomach.
Breaking up with you? You can’t break up with someone you’re not in a relationship with.
He doesn’t seem to care one bit, grinning widely at me. “Noted.”
I jump onto his back, wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. He stands with the same easy strength that undoes me every single time. He lowers again until my feet dip into the water, effectively washing off all the sand once clinging to them. The water splashes as he walks us toward the shore, his hands hooked under my thighs, and I’m laughing—reallylaughing, the kind that shakes my whole body and makes it hard to hold on.
“You’re heavier than you look,” he says on a laugh, because he has a death wish.
“I will end you, Peter Darcy.”
“Worth it.”
He carries me across the sand, steady and sure-footed. I press my face into the back of his neck and hold on: the sun is warm and the wind is cool and my feet are clean, and the ten percent is so,sogood.
He sets me down on the rock next to our shoes, and I keep my arms around his neck for a second longer than necessary. He turns his head and kisses me—salty and windblown and tasting like bad chips and good dip and the kind of afternoon you remember forever.
“Thank you,” I say.
“For the piggyback or the chip consumption?”
“For asking about my tattoo.”
He brushes the sand off his shorts and looks at me with those caramel eyes that are the best thing I’ve ever seen. “Anytime, Beth.”
We put our shoes on and walk back to the car, and I don’t think about Toronto or partner tracks or the fact that three weeks isn’t very long. I think about the ten percent. I think about the water and the rock and the man who carried me across the sand because I told him it bothered me, and he just—did something about it. No questions. No judgment. No,have you tried getting used to it?
He picked me up.
CHAPTER 40
FUCKING STORAGE UNITS.
BILLIE
On Monday and Tuesday, we prep for the bureau meeting. After I told Neve we needed to cancel our weekend planning, she came over with binders—actual physical binders with color-coded tabs, because Neve approaches interior design and municipal planning with the same terrifying precision—and the three of us spread out across Peter’s dining table with laptops and coffee and enough data to make my skull vibrate.
This is the part where my brain shines. He has the numbers—revenue projections, cost analyses, funding timelines, comparable projects from similar coastal communities. Neve has the visual presentation: renderings, mood boards, and phased design plans that make the marina look like something out of a tourism magazine. And I have the thing neither of them has: I know every inch of that waterfront—I know which pilings are rotten. I know where the tide undermines the foundation. I know which buildings are salvageable and which ones need to come down, and I know exactly how long each phase will take because I’ve been building things in this town since I was nineteen years old.
Together, we’re annoyingly good at this.
“Tim’s going to come with the storage units pitch again,” I say on Tuesday night after Neve’s gone home. It feels more natural to use his first name sometimes. Like it puts an extra bit of distance between us, and makes it a little easier to ignore the fact he’s my father.
“I know.” Peter’s reviewing the harbor master’s structural report for the third time. “We counter with the economic impact comparison. Storage units generate one-time rental income. The marina generates tourism, employment, and ancillary business revenue?—”
