Page 7 of Heatstroke (Private Encounters #15)

The realization should have terrified him.

Instead, it settled between Daniel's ribs like something warm and living, curling there as he stared at the boat ticket on his dresser.

The departure date glared back at him, circled in red ink—a relic from another life, another version of himself who still believed in clean exits and surgical goodbyes.

He picked it up. The paper felt stiff between his fingers. For a long moment, he simply held it, contemplating, suspended between the life he'd planned and the one that had somehow, impossibly, begun without his permission.

Packing was a mechanical act. Shirts folded with military precision. Toiletries zipped into neat compartments. His hands moved without conscious thought, as if his body had already decided what his mind still continued to wrestle with.

Outside, the dawn painted the sky in watery pastels, the air thick with the scent of sea salt and impending rain.

Daniel paused as he was about to tuck a pair of socks into his bag, and looked out the window.

Somewhere beyond the palm trees, the ocean breathed against the shore, steady as a heartbeat.

He zipped the bag shut.

The dock was quiet at this hour, the fishermen already gone, the tourists still asleep.

Daniel's duffel hung heavy from his shoulder, and the weight of it pressed into his flesh like an accusation.

The boat loomed ahead, its engine rumbling low in the still air, a beast stirring to life.

A few passengers milled about—backpackers with sunburned noses, locals hauling crates of fruit, all of them blurring at the edges in Daniel's vision.

Then he saw him.

Thierry stood at the edge of the sand, a surfboard tucked under one arm, his hair still damp from the sea. He wasn't looking at Daniel. His gaze was fixed on the horizon, where the waves rolled in, smooth and unbroken.

He didn't call out. Didn't wave. Just stood there, solid as the cliffs behind him, waiting.

Daniel's feet stopped moving.

The boat's horn sounded, sharp and final. A crewmember shouted something about last boarding. The world narrowed to two points—the ticket in Daniel's pocket, and Thierry's silent silhouette against the dawn.

His bag hit the sand with a soft thud.

The boat pulled away in a churn of foam and diesel, its wake fanning out across the turquoise water. Daniel watched it go, his chest curiously light, as if some invisible tether had snapped. He'd expected panic. Regret.

Instead, there was only a quiet certainty, the kind that came with stepping off a ledge and finding out that the air could hold you after all.

He bent to pick up his duffel, then stopped. After a moment, he toed off his shoes instead, leaving them beside the bag as he walked back up the beach, the sand warm and yielding underfoot. The wind tugged at his shirt, the salt stinging his lips. He didn't look back.

Thierry hadn't moved.

Daniel approached slowly, the surfboard still resting against Thierry's hip like an extension of his body. Up close, he could see the faint sunburn across Thierry's shoulders, the way his pupils dilated when Daniel stepped into his shadow.

"You missed your boat," Thierry said.

Daniel huffed a laugh. "Yeah."

Thierry studied him for a long moment, his eyes dark with something unreadable. Then, without a word, he turned and started walking down the beach, the surfboard balanced effortlessly under his arm. Daniel followed.

They didn't speak. The only sounds were the crunch of sand and shells underfoot and the distant cry of gulls. After a while, Thierry stopped near a half-buried log and set the board down, brushing sand from his hands.

Daniel watched as he crouched, gathering driftwood with practiced ease, stacking it into a loose pyramid.

"You're building a fire," Daniel observed.

Thierry struck a match, the flame flaring to life between his fingers. "You're staying."

It wasn't a question.

Daniel swallowed, the truth of it settling into his bones. He crouched beside Thierry, close enough that their shoulders brushed. The fire caught, the smoke curling upward in lazy spirals, carrying the scent of salt and burning cedar.

Thierry reached over, his fingers threading through Daniel's, their palms pressed together. No promises. No grand declarations. Just this —warm skin, the crackle of flames, the endless murmur of the sea.

Daniel exhaled, slow and steady. "I'll need to call my job."

Thierry squeezed his hand. The fire burned brighter.

Somewhere down the shore, the waves broke against the sand, again and again, relentless as time.

Shattered

Outside, Amsterdam was waking up. People were having breakfast, reading newspapers, complaining about traffic. Normal lives continuing their normal rhythms, blissfully unaware that somewhere in the city, a woman had died and left a hole in the world that could never be filled.