Page 34

Damiano

The sun’s barely up when I pull into the gravel lot at the bottom of the cliff where Flint lives. My truck rattles against the uneven ground, an old Range Rover that’s seen better decades but refuses to die. Kind of like us, I guess.

I sit for a minute after killing the engine, watching the morning fog drift across the windshield.

The waves crash below, a steady rhythm against the rocks.

Maybe coming here wasn’t the smartest idea, but after yesterday with Briar in the woods, talking about dates and normal things people do, I figured it was time to have the conversation—the one Flint and I have been avoiding since the lighthouse.

Hell, since forever.

His shipping container perches on the cliff edge like it’s daring the sea to claim it. Black paint peeling in places, the solar panels on the roof catching what little sunlight breaks through the mist. So perfectly Flint—isolated, defiant, somehow beautiful in its brokenness.

I grab the paper bag from the passenger seat and head up the narrow path carved into the rock face. My boots slip slightly on the damp stone, and I wonder, not for the first time, how the hell he manages this climb when he’s drunk.

I knock twice, hard enough to be heard over whatever music he’s probably blasting inside. Nothing. I knock again, louder.

The door swings open suddenly, and Flint stands there in low-hanging sweatpants, no shirt, hair a mess, eyes still heavy with sleep. The white streak falls across his forehead, stark against his sleep-flushed skin.

“The fuck, Damiano?” His voice is rough, irritated. “It’s not even seven.”

“Brought breakfast.” I hold up the bag as a peace offering.

He stares at me for a long moment, then steps back, leaving the door open. I take it as the closest thing to an invitation I’m going to get.

Inside, the container is surprisingly neat.

The bed’s unmade, but the rest of the space has that deliberate organization I’ve always associated with Flint—everything in its place, nothing unnecessary.

The huge windows facing the ocean fill the space with gray morning light, turning everything slightly silver.

“Coffee?” he asks, moving to the small kitchen area.

“Yeah.”

I set the bag on his counter and pull out muffins I snagged from Mrs. Fletcher’s cooling rack before leaving the estate. “Mrs. Fletcher’s stress baking again. Cinnamon.”

Flint grunts in acknowledgment, spooning coffee into a French press with methodical movements. His back is to me, the muscles shifting under skin scattered with small scars I could map blindfolded. Some of them are from me. From us.

“So,” he says, not turning around, “you gonna tell me why you’re here at the crack of dawn, or are we doing the strong silent thing?”

I lean against the counter, crossing my arms. “Briar wants a date.”

That gets his attention. He turns, eyebrow raised. “A what?”

“A date. The three of us. Something normal people do.”

He snorts, turning back to the coffee. “We’re not normal people.”

“No shit.” I unwrap one of the muffins and break off a piece. “But she wants something that feels... I don’t know, less fucked up than what we’ve been doing.”

“Less fucked up than fucking on a grave or in a lighthouse?” He pours hot water into the press, watching the grounds bloom. “Low bar.”

“Yeah, well.” I shrug, even though he can’t see it. “It’s not a bad idea.”

The silence stretches between us, filled only by the roar of waves outside and the ticking of the cheap clock on his wall. Flint presses the plunger down slowly. He’s always been like this—deliberate when he wants to be, chaotic when he doesn’t.

He pours coffee into two mugs, sliding one across the counter to me. “So we’re really doing this? The three of us?”

“Seems like it.” I wrap my hands around the mug, letting the heat seep into my palms. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”

“Have you?” He leans against the opposite counter, only now looking at me directly.

“No.” The truth comes easy, surprising me. “I want this.”

Flint takes a sip of his coffee, watching me over the rim. “This isn’t gonna end well. You know that, right?”

“Probably not, but when has anything between us ended well?”

His laugh is short, harsh. “Fair fucking point.”

I break off another piece of muffin, rolling it between my fingers. “We should talk about it.”

“About what?”

“Italy.”

The word drops between us like a stone, heavy with all the things we’ve never said. His face closes off immediately, jaw tightening. “Ancient history.”

“Not to you.” I set down my mug harder than necessary. “Not to me either.”

“What’s there to say?” His shrug is too casual to be genuine. “You left. Didn’t tell me. Came back expecting everything to be the same. It wasn’t.”

“I had to go.”

“You had to run.” His voice turns sharp. “There’s a difference.”

“Erik was dead, Viktor was asking questions, and I... I couldn’t breathe here anymore.” I run a hand through my hair, frustrated. “You were so deep in everyone and everything, trying to forget what happened, and I just?—”

“I was trying to survive.” Anger flashes in his eyes. “You weren’t the only one fucked up by what happened.”

“I know that now.”

“But not then.” He puts down his mug then crosses his arms. “You left me to deal with the aftermath. With Viktor’s questions.

With the nightmares.” His words crack slightly.

“For three fucking months, Damiano. No word, no call, nothing. I thought you were dead. I thought maybe Viktor had figured it out, taken care of you somewhere and wasn’t telling anyone.

Every time a body washed up on the shore, I was terrified it would be you. ”

“Every. Damn. Time.” His voice breaks, raw with remembered pain. “I’d get a call about some body the tide brought in, and I’d have to go down to the shore, see if it was you. Do you have any idea what that was like? Looking at bloated corpses, wondering if I’d recognize what was left of your face?”

The fresh pain in his tone hits me like a punch to the gut. I’d never let myself think about what it must have been like for him during those months.

“And the worst part?” His words spill out now that the dam has broken. “I had no one to talk to. No one who knew the truth. You were all I had, Damiano. The only person who felt like... family.”

I flinch at the word. Family. The one thing he never had. The thing we’d tried to build together, in our own fucked-up way.

“I know,” I say quietly. “I knew you had no one else. That everyone else had already abandoned you. And then I did the exact same thing.”

I was a fucking asshole.

“I’m sorry.” The words feel inadequate, but I mean them. “I should have told you I was leaving. Should have explained.”

“Yeah.” He looks away, out the window toward the sea. “You should have.”

Another long silence falls. I watch him, seeing the tension in his shoulders, the way he holds himself like he’s bracing for a blow.

“And when you came back,” he continues, still not looking at me, “and found me with Connor...”

“I wanted to kill you both.” The admission comes easily. “I was so fucking angry. ”

“I could tell.” His eyes find mine again, a flash of dark humor there. “You broke my nose.”

“You deserved it.”

“Probably.” He picks at a loose thread on his sweatpants. “But Connor didn’t. He was just... there.”

“Like all the others were just there?” I can’t keep the bitterness hidden. “After we broke up, you fucked half the island.”

“And you didn’t?” He raises an eyebrow, challenging. “Don’t act like you were celibate after me, Damiano. I know better.”

He’s right. After we split, I was almost as bad as him. Different body every week, trying to burn away the memory of Flint, trying to prove I didn’t need him. It never worked.

“It was never about them,” I admit quietly. “It was about hurting you.”

“Yeah.” He nods, something softening in his expression. “Same.”

It’s the closest we’ve come to honesty in years. I take a sip of my coffee, buying time to find the right words.

“Briar’s different,” I eventually say.

“She is.” He pushes off from the counter, coming around to sit on one of the stools. “She’s... fuck, I don’t know. She makes things make sense.”

“Even with everything that happened? With Liam?”

“Maybe because of it.” He breaks off a piece of muffin, rolling it between his fingers like I did. “We’re all carrying the same weight now.”

I nod, understanding what he means. The three of us are bound by blood and secrets, yes, but there’s something else, too. Something deeper, harder to explain.

“So what do we do?” I ask.

“About Briar?”

“About us.” I gesture between us. “This thing between us. It doesn’t just go away because there’s a third person involved now.”

Flint looks at me for a long moment, something complicated moving behind his eyes. “No,” he says. “It doesn’t.”

“So we figure it out.”

“How? We’ve been trying to figure it out for years, and look where that got us.”

“This time, it’s different.” I move closer to him, aware of the air shifting in the room as I do. “This time, we have someone keeping us honest.”

“Briar.” He says her name like it’s something precious.

“Yeah.” I reach out, hesitant, my hand hovering near his before finally covering it. “And maybe this time, we don’t try to kill each other when shit gets hard.”

He looks down at our hands, his fingers slowly turning to intertwine with mine. “No promises.”

“Fair enough.” I smile slightly. “But we try.”

He nods, and for a moment, we’re simply two people holding hands, all the history between us still there but somehow lighter.

“So,” he says after a while, “this date.”

“Any ideas?”

“Not the kind she’s looking for.” His mouth quirks up at one corner.

“Flint.”

“What? I’m serious. My date ideas usually involve motorcycles, booze, and bad decisions.”

“Basically your entire lifestyle.”

“Fuck you.” But there’s no heat in it. He’s almost smiling now.

“Maybe the old cemetery,” I suggest. “It’s normal enough but still us.”

“A graveyard? That’s your idea of a normal date?” He laughs, shaking his head. “Jesus, we really are fucked up.”

I draw a deep breath, feeling lighter now, as if I came and got the answer I was hoping for.

“Okay… So we’re really doing this? All of us together?” he asks, as if reading my mind, which frankly, the man has an uncanny way of doing.

“Looks like it.”

“Without killing each other?”

“We’ll try.” I shrug. “One day at a time, right?”

“One fucked-up day at a time,” he agrees.

I glance at the clock. “I should go. Got deliveries to make for the Heathens party.”

Flint tenses slightly at the mention of the party. “Viktor will be there. ”

“I know. I’ll be careful.”

“He’s still looking, Damiano. Still asking questions.”

“Let him.” I stand up, grabbing my jacket from where I tossed it on the couch. “He won’t find anything.”