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Chapter seven

Eric

T he kiss lingered in my dreams and followed me into waking—the memory of Wes's mouth against mine, warm, uncertain, and hungry all at once.

I stretched beneath the wool blanket, muscles pleasantly sore from yesterday's work at the rink, and let myself float in that drowsy early morning liminal space.

Coffee was already brewing. The rich scent wound through the cottage like an invitation, and I heard the familiar sounds of Wes moving around the kitchen—cabinet doors opening and closing and the soft clink of ceramic against the counter.

I pulled on yesterday's jeans and a clean flannel shirt, running fingers through my sleep-mussed hair as I padded toward the living room. My whole body buzzed with anticipation that something good might happen again.

"Morning," I called out, rounding the corner with a ridiculous grin.

Wes stood at the kitchen window, shoulders rigid beneath his gray henley, studying something in the distance that required his complete attention. He didn't turn around.

"Coffee's ready."

The tone landed with the force of a slammed door. His voice had none of the warmth that had been there yesterday.

I poured myself coffee from the pot, adding a splash of the vanilla creamer I'd found tucked behind the sugar. I was suddenly back to feeling like I was borrowing someone else's kitchen instead of sharing space with them.

"Sleep okay?" I tried for casual.

"Fine."

One word. No elaboration. Wes continued his intense examination of whatever fascinating development was happening outside.

I sipped my coffee, searching for the right approach. Yesterday, his distance had dissolved. Now, it was like he'd rebuilt every wall overnight, reinforced with fresh mortar.

"Got work to do." Wes turned, but he didn't look at me. "Net repairs. Down by the bluff."

The avoidance was worse than his usual gruffness. At least when he was surly, he was present.

"I could help. You know what I can do with the rope work."

"Don't need help."

The words came out clipped and final. Wes headed for the door, pausing only to grab his jacket from the hook.

"Going to be out there most of the day. Don't wait on me for meals."

The screen door banged shut behind him, leaving me alone in the kitchen with my cooling coffee. I watched through the window as he disappeared down the path toward the bluff. His stride was purposeful like he couldn't get away from the cottage—and me—fast enough.

I couldn't unfeel his hunger when he kissed me. He'd needed my lips more than air.

The cottage suddenly felt too small. Every corner reminded me of the kiss.

I spread research materials across the scarred wooden surface of the kitchen table. Interview transcripts, field notes, and sketches of coastal erosion patterns—all the raw material that was supposed to coalesce into something profound about community resilience and economic adaptation.

When I fired up my laptop, all my words blurred together.

Mrs. Pelletier's voice played through the speakers, describing how the island had hung on after the fishing industry collapsed, but I kept losing the thread of her story.

My mind wandered to the flex of Wes's shoulders as he'd worked on the lobster traps and how his hands guided mine on the hockey stick.

Focus, Callahan.

I hit pause on the recording and started to type, determined to capture at least one valuable insight. The screen remained stubbornly blank.

I pushed back from the table and moved to the kitchen window. I saw the path that led toward the bluff where Wes was allegedly repairing nets. I considered walking down there to bring him a thermos of coffee. I'd pretend nothing happened yesterday.

It was a bad idea. He'd see right through my ruse.

I'd kissed him. He'd kissed me back. Now, he was treating me like I had some contagious disease that spread through mouth-to-mouth contact.

My phone buzzed against the table, a welcome distraction from the spiral of my thoughts. Ziggy's name lit up the screen.

Ziggy: How's island life treating you? Still collecting fascinating data on crusty old fishermen?

I stared at the message, thumb hovering over the keyboard. Ziggy and I had shared everything since we were kids—first crushes, college anxieties, and my confused, stumbling path toward understanding my sexuality.

Somehow, this was different. More fragile.

Eric: So... I kissed the guy.

The three dots appeared immediately, disappeared, then reappeared. I envisioned Ziggy dropping whatever he was doing.

Ziggy: Whoa. DETAILS.

Ziggy: Wait, the grumpy caretaker? Hot mysterious guy Wes?

Eric: That's the one.

Ziggy: Dude. How? When? Was it good? Are you dating now? Is this why you've been radio silent for three days?

I laughed, imagining Ziggy pacing around his dorm room, probably already planning how to turn this into a poem.

Eric: Yesterday. At this old hockey rink we were clearing out. And yes, it was good. Really good.

Eric: Now he's ignoring me. Total emotional ghosting.

The enthusiasm in Ziggy's responses died immediately.

Ziggy: Shit. I'm sorry, E.

Ziggy: Callahan rule #1: If a guy ghosts you post-kiss, don't chase the ghost.

I set the phone down and rubbed my temples. Ziggy meant well, but he built his dating philosophy and rules around college hookups. This wasn't that. Wes wasn't a closeted hockey player working through his issues at a Friday night mixer.

The phone buzzed again.

Ziggy: Also. Don't dig into pain, E. Sometimes pain buries stuff for a reason.

Don't dig into pain. I thought about Wes's expression when I'd found those skates under the bench and how he'd shut down completely when I'd asked about his past. Maybe Ziggy was right. Perhaps some things were meant to stay buried.

Then, I remembered how Wes had looked at me right before the kiss—like he was seeing something he'd forgotten existed.

Eric: What if the pain is what's keeping him stuck?

Ziggy: What if it's what's keeping him alive?

I didn't have an answer for that.

The cursor blinked at me, waiting for words I didn't know how to type. Was I trying to understand him, or was I selfish to want more of what had flickered between us?

The phone buzzed again.

Ziggy: Don't make this your project, E.

Don't make this your project.

Too late for that advice. Somewhere between the coffee-spill introduction and yesterday's kiss, Wes Hunter had become more than a faded background to my research. He'd become the story I couldn't stop trying to read, even when half the pages were deliberately torn out.

I turned back to my laptop and tried to focus on Mrs. Pelletier's interview, but every sentence I typed was full of academic jargon that missed the real story. Instead, I picked up a pen and sketched the outline of a hockey rink in the margins of a printout.

Some stories, I was learning, refused to be ignored.

By afternoon, the cottage walls felt like they were closing in. I needed air, distance, and something to photograph that wasn't connected to the emotional minefield I'd stumbled into with Wes.

I grabbed my camera gear and headed toward the ferry dock, telling myself I was documenting coastal erosion patterns for my thesis. The walk would do me good. Clear my head. Help me remember why I'd come to Ironhook in the first place.

The ferry was due that afternoon—one of only two weekly runs that kept the island connected to the mainland. As I approached the weathered dock, I spotted a small cluster of residents gathered near the loading area, probably waiting for packages or groceries they couldn't source locally.

Perfect. I could capture some shots of how the dock infrastructure handled regular use while staying far enough away to avoid awkward conversations about my living situation. I crouched behind a stack of lobster traps, adjusting my camera's exposure settings.

A voice from the dock drifted over to me.

"That the mainland boy staying with Wes?"

I froze, suddenly very interested in the technical specifications of my telephoto lens.

"Must be." The voice belonged to an older woman. "Heard he's doing some kind of research project. College kid."

"Research on what? How to live like a hermit for sixteen years?"

A few people chuckled.

I shifted my position slightly, trying to get a better view of the speakers without revealing myself. Three people stood near the dock's edge—an older man with a grizzled beard, a woman in her sixties wearing a paint-stained fleece, and a younger guy who looked like he might be in his thirties.

The older man spoke quietly. "Boy's been through enough. Hard not to feel sorry for the kid."

The kid. Wes was thirty-five, hardly anyone's definition of a child. Something in the man's tone suggested he was talking about someone much younger—maybe the person Wes had been when he'd first arrived on Ironhook.

I lowered my camera and crept closer, still using the lobster traps as cover. It was eavesdropping, but it was also the first real information I'd heard about Wes's history from anyone other than Wes himself.

The woman spoke again. "Still can't believe how that whole thing went down. Wesley Hunter. Best hockey player this part of Maine ever produced, and everyone was so quick to write him off."

"Wasn't his fault," added the younger man. "His cousin was driving. Everyone knew that."

Derek. The cousin Wes had mentioned. He was the one who hadn't walked away from the accident.

"Try telling that to the rest of Whistleport." The older man gazed out over the water. "Kid was guilty by association. Easier to blame both of them than admit Derek had a drinking problem."

I thought about Wes's careful words about the night of the storm—how he'd said perception was reality in small towns.

"The parents didn't help matters." The woman lowered her voice. "Wesley's own parents washed their hands of him when the scandal hit. Too embarrassed to stand by their son."

I processed this slowly—no wonder he'd ended up on an island twenty miles from anywhere.