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He’d said it wasn’t wrong.
That I hadn’t given something away—I’d shared it.
Maybe that was true.
But it was hard to silence the voice in the back of my head—the one shaped like my mama, or my daddy, or every modesty lecture I’d ever sat through on a folding chair in the youth room.
Sex before marriage is sin. Desire is temptation. Once it’s gone, you can’t get it back.Blah, blah, blah.
If that was true, then why had it felt like freedom? Why had it felt like I was finally inside my own body for the first time?
Maybe it was grief.
Maybe it was Noah.
Maybe it was something deeper—something cracking open inside me that didn’t want to be put back together the same way.
Either way, the girl who walked into Dominion Hall wasn’t the same one who’d walked out.
I hugged my knees to my chest and closed my eyes, letting the breeze lift my hair, salt-kissed and tangled.The sunlight flickered through my lashes, the kind of light that felt almost holy.
Maybe this was what healing looked like—messy, confused, stretched out on a blanket with the taste of a man still lingering on your lips and the grief of your father lodged somewhere deep in your ribs.
I didn’t have the answers.
Then I felt it—that tickle at the base of my neck. The one that said eyes were on me.
I opened my eyes slowly. Not dramatic. Not obvious. Just a blink, a glance, like I was watching the ocean and not scanning the stretch of beach that curved past the dunes.
Two large men stood maybe forty yards off. Not close enough to be intrusive, but not far enough to be casual, either. One leaned against a wooden piling at the edge of The Soundline’s porch, sunglasses pushed up into close-cropped sandy hair. The other sat on the low wall near the boardwalk, a half-empty cup of iced tea sweating in his hand like he wanted you to believe he’d been there for hours.
They didn’t look like beach people. Didn’t look like locals, either. Too still. Too clean. No towels, no chairs, no books or coolers or sunburned shoulders. Just ... waiting.
And watching.
The one against the post shifted, like he could feel my glance, and I dropped my gaze quick, heart knocking once against my ribs. I wasn’t being paranoid. I knew that kind of stillness. Stillness with purpose.
Stillness that had nothing to do with sand and saltwater and everything to do with control.
A sick feeling stirred in my stomach, low and slow and sour. I’d seen them before. Not here, but somewheremore familiar—more private. My parking lot. Yesterday? The day before? I couldn’t say exactly, but it was there now, clear as day. That same angular jaw. That same too-neutral stance. One of them had been by the dumpster, pretending to check his phone. The other near the mailbox bank, leaning on the hood of a car he didn’t unlock.
I’d clocked it then and dismissed it. Told myself they were contractors or new neighbors or one of the million little things that could go either way and usually didn’t matter. But now?
Now it mattered.
I sat up straighter, blood rushing in my ears. My book still untouched. The ocean no longer soothing—just loud. Covering sounds I maybe needed to hear.
I didn’t want to be the girl who jumped at shadows. But I also didn’t want to be the girl who ignored her gut and ended up a headline.
I looked down at my bag, fingers curling around the strap. I could leave. Walk back toward my car like nothing was wrong. Call Noah. But what would I even say?
Hey, remember that day I let you turn me inside out? Cool. So I think I’m being followed now.
God.
I swallowed hard, mouth suddenly dry.
I needed to move. Not fast. Not frantic. Just enough to put space between me and whatever this was.