Page 29

***
The night air is crisp, tinged with salt and the distant hum of waves crashing below the cliff. I step onto the porch, stretching my shoulders, exhaling slowly as I try to clear my head.
I don’t know why I thought coming out here would help. The past few hours have been too much.
Emma and I working together, falling into a rhythm that shouldn’t feel this easy. The way she looked at me when I liftedthat dresser like I’d done something worth noticing. How her arm brushed mine, brief but electric, like my whole body was waiting for her touch.
I shouldn’t want more. I can’t want more. I drag a hand down my face, turning toward the steps when I see her.
She’s curled up on the old bench, knees tucked beneath her, golden light from the lantern flickering across her face. She looks like a memory, something fragile but stubbornly real.
She glances up at me, her voice soft. "Couldn't sleep?"
I hesitate. I should go inside. Avoid this. Avoid her. But my feet don’t move.
I settle onto the bench, leaving space but not enough. Buddy stretches on the ground below us, sighing in that contented way of his, completely oblivious to the storm raging in my chest.
Emma leans back, tilting her face toward the sky, the stars casting silver against her skin. "Still beautiful," she murmurs, and for a second, I think she means…
I swallow hard. "Yeah."
She shifts, looking at me with something unreadable. "You ever just... think about what you wanted when you were younger?"
My brow furrows. "Like what?"
She exhales, hugging her arms around herself. "Dreams. Plans. What you thought your life would be."
I glance down at Buddy, scratching behind his ear. "Didn’t have time for dreams back then. Just survival. Scrapping for every dime to make Lawson Financial work."
Her lips twitch. "And now look at you."
That catches me off guard. Her voice is warm, soft around the edges, and for some reason, it settles under my skin, pressing into a place I didn’t know was raw.
"I'm proud of you, Bryan."
A shiver runs through me before I can stop it. It’s been years since anyone said that to me, since she said that to me.
I should look away, shake it off, but instead, my throat tightens, and my fingers curl against my thigh. "Never thought I'd hear you say that again."
She gives a small, almost hesitant smile. "Well, I mean it."
And just like that, I’m sinking. The space between us feels smaller. The weight of the night, the hush of the ocean, the steady flicker of the lantern, it’s all pressing in.
She shifts slightly, her knee brushing mine. Just a touch. Just enough.
I should move. I should pull away. But I don’t.
Instead, I glance at her, really looking this time. The way the shadows dance across her face, the way the starlight catches in her eyes, the way she’s staring at me like she’s waiting.
"I regret not pushing harder," I murmur, my voice lower than I mean for it to be.
She tilts her head. "In what?"
I shake my head. "Business. Life. Maybe both."
She nods slowly, her fingers tracing the worn wood of the bench. "Me too, lost time."
It’s quiet then. A thick, weighted silence. No past. No old wounds. Just this moment. And her. She’s close; so, so close.