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Chapter eleven

Eric

T he taste of Wes still clung to my lips when I woke. I pressed my face deeper into the pillow, chasing fragments of the night before: his fingers lingering as they touched my jaw and the way he exhaled when I pressed my hand to his chest—shaky like I'd touched something deeper.

When I finally worked up the courage to leave my room, I found Wes at the stove, scrambling eggs. He'd pulled on red-and-black flannel, and his hair was still mussed from sleep, with dark strands refusing to lie flat at the back of his neck.

I tested the waters with a simple "Morning."

"Coffee's ready." His voice was no longer distant like in our early days. It was softer.

I poured myself a mug, adding cream while stealing glances at his profile. The tension that usually knotted his shoulders had loosened overnight.

When he turned to hand me a plate of eggs, our eyes finally met. Neither of us could look away until a gull's cry outside broke the spell.

"Thanks." I accepted the plate.

We settled at the kitchen table. It was the same scarred wooden surface, but somehow, the space had compressed and become intimate. When I reached for the salt, Wes watched my hands. When he shifted in his chair, our knees bumped beneath the table, and neither of us apologized or pulled away.

"Sleep okay?"

Wes's mouth curved into something that was almost a smile. "Eventually."

I focused on my eggs, fully aware of every sound he made—the scrape of his fork against the ceramic plate and the soft exhale when he reached for his coffee.

The cottage creaked around us, settling under the rising sun, and I wondered whether Wes could hear my heartbeat from across the table.

"You know what's funny?" I set my fork down, suddenly needing to fill the charged silence with conversation. "I learned to code because I was tired of being Thomas Callahan's son."

Wes looked up from his plate. He angled his shoulders slightly toward me and paused his coffee mug halfway to his lips. He listened closely.

"Everyone in Whistleport had expectations about who I was supposed to be.

I was the fire chief's kid and an honor roll student.

Surely, I'd follow Dad into public service.

" I slowly turned my mug in my hands. "Then, when I was fourteen, I found this online programming tutorial, and for the first time in my life, I was learning something that belonged only to me. "

Wes set his mug down slowly. "What kind of programming?"

"Started with basic web development. Nothing fancy.

There was something about its logic, how you could build something from nothing using only syntax and patience.

" I leaned forward. "I'd stay up until two in the morning working through problems, and nobody could tell me I was doing it wrong because nobody else in my house understood what I was doing. "

"Your dad didn't approve?"

"He didn't disapprove, exactly, but he'd walk past my room and see me hunched over the computer, and I heard him pause before moving on. I thought he might be wondering where he'd gone wrong, raising a son who preferred screens to service calls."

Wes tightened his fingers around his coffee mug. "That's tough."

"Ziggy was the only one who got it. He'd come over and find me debugging some impossible mess of code, and instead of asking why I was wasting my time, he'd bring sandwiches and sit there while I worked.

" I smiled at the memory. "He could see through my golden boy act better than anyone. Knew I needed something that was mine."

"Smart friend."

"The smartest. He's the one who convinced me to take the assignment here." I reached across the table for the salt shaker. "Said I needed to stop hiding behind other people's versions of who I should be."

Wes reached for the salt at the same moment. Our fingers collided over the glass cylinder, and heat shot through me like I'd touched a live wire. We both froze, hands tangled together.

I wanted to kiss him. The urge was so fierce it made my teeth ache.

I wanted to lean across the scarred wooden table and capture his mouth, taste the coffee on his lips, and feel that soft sound he'd made when I'd touched his chest. When I looked at his face, I knew it wasn't the right moment.

He was already thinking about the work ahead of him, maintenance and repair.

Wes withdrew his hand slowly. The loss hit me like cold water, sudden and shocking.

"Sorry," he whispered.

I nodded and sprinkled salt over my eggs. The electricity that had hummed between us all morning eased, leaving behind the familiar weight of things unsaid.

My phone buzzed against the wooden table, sharp enough to rattle my water glass. Ziggy's name lit up the screen. When it buzzed again, Wes glanced up from his eggs and nodded toward the device.

Ziggy: How's island life?

I glanced across the table at Wes, who was methodically working through his eggs while he gripped his coffee mug with his free hand.

Eric: Might extend my stay. Research is... intensive.

When the three dots immediately appeared, I thought I could hear the wheels turning in Ziggy's head through the screen.

Ziggy: Research, right. Kade thinks you found someone. Mom's making extra chili just in case you bring a mysterious island boy home.

The words were a direct hit. I looked up at Wes again—really looked at him. I tried to picture him in Mrs. Knickerbocker's kitchen, surrounded by the warm chaos of a family gathering.

I imagined him perched awkwardly on one of her mismatched dining chairs, accepting chili, while Ziggy peppered him with questions and his mom fussed over cornbread portions.

The image should have been absurd—Wes with his careful silences thrown into that warm chaos—but instead of laughing, I ached for it.

I could see him there, somehow. Still grounded, still himself, but maybe allowing himself to be cared for in the gentle, overwhelming way that was a Knickerbocker specialty.

Maybe he'd even smile at one of Mr. Knickerbocker's terrible dad jokes or let Kade draw him into a conversation about whatever poetry collection was currently consuming their thoughts.

The fantasy was perfect inside my head.

But Wes was thirty-five. He'd spent more than half my lifetime piling bricks that kept the world at arm's length.

What would he want with all that warmth and noise?

What would he want with the kind of love that came with obligations and expectations and the constant pressure to be present for other people's joy?

What would he want with me once the novelty wore off and I became another person asking him to be something other than what he'd chosen to become?

My phone buzzed again.

Ziggy: You still there, E?

I set the phone face-down on the table without responding.

"Everything okay?" Wes's voice was neutral in tone.

"Yeah. Just Ziggy being Ziggy." I managed what I hoped was a reassuring smile. "He's convinced I'm hiding some grand romance from him."

"Are you?"

The question hung between us like a bridge neither of us was sure we were ready to cross. I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it again, suddenly aware that whatever I said next would matter in ways I couldn't predict.

Wes's gaze dipped for a moment—not away, but inward, like he was weighing his answer and didn't like what he found. His fingers drummed once against the side of his mug.

"You don't have to tell me," he said quietly. "Not if it's going to cost you something."

Before I could find the best words for a reply, Wes was already pushing back from the table.

He gathered his plate and fork in one hand, his coffee mug in the other, and headed for the sink. I watched him rinse his dishes. Water drummed against the ceramic mug while he scrubbed egg residue with more attention than the task required.

"Storm coming tomorrow." His words sounded as flat as a weather report. "If you want the old trail marked before then, we should head out after lunch."

The shift was so abrupt it left me breathless. One moment, we balanced on the edge of something real, and the next, we returned to maintenance schedules and practical concerns. Back to the careful routine that had governed Wes's days long before I'd arrived and would continue long after I left.

"Sure, I'll grab my gear."

Wes made a soft grunt that could have meant anything—acknowledgment, agreement, or complete indifference. He hung the dish towel on its designated hook with mathematical precision, every fold exactly where it belonged.

The gesture triggered a realization. He'd spent sixteen years hanging that towel in the same spot, in precisely the same way. He followed the same coffee routine, the same weather observations, and the same careful maintenance of an island that never changed.

What was I doing here? I was twenty-two years old, just finishing college, and still figuring out what I wanted from life beyond the next research project or graduate school application. Wes had been managing an entire island ecosystem since before I'd learned to drive.

"After lunch." Wes didn't look at me as he spoke. "Weather should hold until evening."

The screen door opened and closed behind him with its familiar squeak and bang, leaving me alone at the table with cold eggs.

Through the window, I watched him disappear down the path toward the generator housing, tool bag slung over his shoulder.

His stride was confident, unhurried. He knew exactly where he belonged and what came next.

When was the last time I'd felt that kind of certainty about anything?

I stared down at my plate. My phone lay face-down where I'd abandoned it, probably collecting more messages from Ziggy about being twenty-two in a world that expected me to have answers I didn't possess.