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“They called the ghost hit squad on my friends.”

“Which they wouldn’t have done if they didn’t worry about your well-being. Maybe they don’t understand or like it right now, but you have time to convince them. It’s better than the alternative.” I looked out across the water, observing the bobbing ghosts.

“What’s the alternative?” Owain asked softly. He didn’t look convinced by what I’d said, but he clearly didn’t want to argue about it.

“They could have just dropped you and run. No contact. No answers. Leaving you wondering if you were the problem all along.”

“Your father?” Owain guessed tentatively.

I looked over, surprised. “Do I have daddy issues written on my forehead?”

Owain snickered. “No, still just goo.”

I grumbled and swiped my hand through my hair, then glared at my palm in disgust.

“I just heard you calling your mum,” Owain said. “You seem close with her.”

“I am close with her. She’s the best fucking woman on the planet,” I declared fiercely.

Owain smiled. “That’s really cute.”

“I think you misspoke. I think you meant, ‘that’s really suave and sexy of you.’”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far. Do suave people get covered in flour and ghost goo?”

I gave him a dry look. “You’re secretly a little shit, aren’t you.”

Owain giggled, but it was still far too innocent. I wanted to kiss his giggling mouth and dirty it up a little before licking it clean.

I looked back out across the water, trying to control my natural instincts.

I would have made my move five times over by now in any other circumstance. We’d kissed already too. Rutted against each other like teenagers. But something in my chest was holding me back. It was centred around my heart area and giving me a load of trouble.

We fell into a comfortable silence, Owain picking at the loose rocks under us, letting them sift through his fingers and pitter patter down. It was soothing. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d just…sat with someone and took a breath. Had I been moving so fast this whole time?

It was weird that it took sitting on a ledge of a cliff overlooking a haunted cove of pirates with the strangest person I’d ever met to get me to stop for a moment and take life in.

“I think you’re right,” Owain eventually said. “About my family.”

“Took you a while to get with the programme, love. Haven’t you worked out that I’m always right yet?” Owain shoved me in the arm and smirked, then grew a little more serious. “You’ll bring them around. I think you’re too stubborn to accept anything but complete surrender.”

Owain beamed. It was brighter than the moon and stars in the sky. Brighter than the ghostly aura of a ship in the night. Brighter than the lighthouse in the distance.

The ghosts were right. Owain shone.

“I really think I can make this a success,” Owain said, forehead creased, pleading with me to get it. “You know when you just have that feeling.”

I swallowed, seeing the reflection of my own ambition in his eyes. That fire that had burned so hot in me—too hot, until it had burned everything around me. “Yeah,” I said softly. “Yeah, I know it.”

“Is that how you feel about this job?”

I snorted and chucked a stray rock off the edge. “Not exactly. This was a bad decision wrapped in desperation, masquerading as a bright idea.”

“A last resort?” Owain quipped.

I slanted him a look, but I was smiling, I couldn’t deny it. “I ended up in the right place, I guess.”

Owain grinned, pleased with himself.