Page 142 of At First Catch

My voice roughens, but I force myself to finish.

“Something permanent.”

I can picture it too clearly once I let myself.

A kitchen bigger than this one.

Hadley’s books stacked on every available surface.

Her brother’s dog, Rook, asleep near a back door.

Her family showing up without warning because apparently boundaries don’t exist in Coral Bell Cove.

Her coffee mug beside mine every morning.

“You’ve never had that before,” she says.

I shake my head. “No.”

No house I belonged to.

No place where someone expected me to come home.

No permanent address that ever felt permanent.

Hadley’s look shifts.

“What?” I ask.

She hesitates. “I pictured it.”

“The house?”

She nods.

Hope moves through me so sharply it’s almost painful.

“Yeah?”

She threads her fingers through mine.

“Yeah.”

That one word builds something inside me.

A foundation.

A future.

The kind of hope I’ve always been smart enough not to entertain.

We lie for a while after that. The silence isn’t awkward or heavy. It’s the kind that only exists when two people no longer feel the need to fill every space between them.

The apartment grows brighter as sunlight finally breaks through the clouds. Unfortunately, reality begins creeping back in.

The marina.

Reopening meetings.