The three of them carried the supplies towards the calm area. The small quiet-zone marquee sat slightly back from the main bustle, exactly where Rowan had suggested, its opening angled away from the busiest part of the beach. Marcus watched asRowan walked the perimeter, not rushing, not speaking unless he needed to. When he did speak, people listened.
Jack shifted a safety cone after Rowan pointed out the lead traffic.
Tom moved a table without question.
Old Po hammered in two extra pegs and muttered that no marquee of his was going airborne unless the Lord Himself decided to take it.
Marcus stood in the middle of it all, clipboard pressed against his chest, and felt something strange open inside him.
Relief, maybe.
Or pride.
For days, he had thought accepting help meant admitting he couldn’t cope. But this didn’t feel like failure. It felt like Seagull Bay doing what Seagull Bay did best: gathering around, each person carrying a piece until the whole thing became possible.
And Rowan fitted into it.
That was the dangerous thought.
Rowan, with his quiet competence and careful eyes. Rowan, who noticed blocked exits and nervous dogs and Marcus’s silences. Rowan, who had kissed him in the parlour and then turned up at his front door with sandpaper as if showing up could be practical as well as romantic.
Marcus looked across the beach and found him talking to Jack near the exit route. Atlas sat beside him, calm as anything while tourists passed along the seafront above.
It was absurdly easy to imagine him staying.
Too easy.
Marcus turned away and busied himself ticking items off his clipboard. Dog blessings tent. Refreshments. Quiet zone. Safety stall. Haunted hounds tour. Entry table. Rosettes. Water station.
For once, the list was not terrifying.
Then Rowan’s voice drifted towards him, carried on the sea breeze.
‘I’ll stay until the competition is finished,’ he was saying to Jack. ‘After that, it depends what happens with the next contract.’
Marcus’s pen stilled.
Jack said something Marcus couldn’t hear.
Rowan answered, quieter this time, but not quiet enough. ‘I was never meant to be in Seagull Bay for long.’
The words hit harder than Marcus expected.
He looked down at the clipboard until the neat black ticks blurred.
Never meant to be here for long.
Of course. He knew that. Rowan had told him. Temporary rental. Yorkshire contract. A house somewhere else. Marcus had no right to be surprised.
No right to feel as if someone had reached into his chest and pinched something tender.
Across the beach, Rowan laughed softly at something Jack said. Not much of a laugh. Barely one at all. But Marcus heard it because, apparently, he was already tuned to every impossible piece of the man.
He forced himself to tick the next box.
Rosettes.
There. Done.
