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He meets me right there.

Right here.

Kissing me back as his grip tightens on my arms, soothing and scalding at the same time, and I feel it—I feel him—everywhere. Electric. Consuming. As if I’ve stepped into another world and the way back is sealing shut behind me.

My chest presses to his. I catch the breath between us, and then he deepens the kiss and any belief I had that I could control this riots away from me.

Poet isn’t soft.

And he isn’t careful with me. He kisses me like I’m his to own and I like the rasp of his jaw. The low growl he makes as he brings a hand to the base of my neck and a rumble of my own escapes me.

I’m caught in a mind-blowing rush.

Dying a sweet and glorious death.

I reach for his hips on instinct, digging my fingers into the unyielding flesh there, gripping him as if I can hold onto the moment itself for as long as it takes me to remember Poet Whitlock’s magical mouth isn’t my permanent residence.

I’m hard. Velnias, I’m hard. A reality that descends on me in the same split second Poet eases back.

We pull apart and the air is thinner.

I’m still holding onto him.

I let go.

Slowly.

He does the same, his gaze unreadable. Then he gifts me that smile again and I’m flying as he pushes a wayward lock of my hair back from my face and tucks it behind my ear. “It’s just a kiss,” he whispers as if he hasn’t just rearranged my entire existence. “You’re still straight if you want to be. It was nice to meet you, Oscar.”

Soft lips brush my cheek. He dazzles me with a glorious grin, and then he’s gone. Leaving me with my hand still half reaching for him, the taste of him on my lips, and no coherent way to explain to Skylar why I’m not the same man who left a double wedding three hours ago.

3 OSCAR

NOW

Early summer—my favourite time of year in Porth Luck. When the sea and the sky blur together and the evenings stretch out in that soft, diffused way that reminds me of home. It’s nice to work with the weather when you have spent a long winter fighting it.

Most winters, anyway.

This year has been different.

“You don’t have to work the pop-up tonight.” Sol is in front of me on the Sirona, hauling creels while I keep her braced. “I have it.”

“I don’t mind. Aras is with Hanna anyway.”

Sol grunts his disapproval and heaves the last of the lobster pots in, ropes biting into his palms. I knock the Sirona into neutral, let her find her place in the swell, and join him on deck.

I flip pots open as he brings them in. Drop keepers into the crates and throw back anything undersized or berried.

It’s fast work for Sol and me. Quiet and timeless. Our hands move in sync, bodies adjusting around each other. Sometimes it makes me wonder what other things we’d be good at if our fraternal bond had been something else. Not because I want to have sex with Sol, more that I’ve never questioned where the line sits. Never felt it shift, with him or anyone else.

That is…not true.

I silence the thought before it settles. Keep working. Grafting, Sol calls it. Rebuilding the business I’m now an equal partner in since he and I nearly died in these waters last Christmas. When they were as cold as they ever get and my body fought me when I needed it most.

Numbness.

The slow, creeping defeat of it. Sol howling to the gods as the sky closed in on us. And after, Aras, small and frightened in a way he should never have to be. I would be lying if I said it didn’t haunt me some days. That it didn’t take up so much space in my mind there isn’t room for much else.