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Chapter twenty

Wes

C hoppy water slapped against the ferry's hull in irregular bursts, sending salt spray across the deck. We were on our way back to Ironhook. I hadn't quite processed what happened in Whistleport but was smiling.

Eric stood beside me, one shoulder pressed against mine as my—our—rocky island approached. The wind nearly obscured his contemplative voice. "Feels different coming back this time."

I agreed. The island looked the same—granite cliffs with a scruff of scrub pine and the lighthouse standing sentinel on its rocky perch, but something had changed. Ironhook wasn't merely my refuge anymore. It was where I was living—for now—with Eric.

"Home," he whispered.

The ferry bumped against the dock pilings with a hollow thump that vibrated through the deck planks. I shouldered my overnight bag and waited for the handful of other passengers to gather their belongings.

We walked up the dock side by side, our boots thumping against the wood planks. The harbor smelled like diesel fuel, overlaid with the green scent of seaweed drying on the rocks.

The path to the cottage wound through brittle beach grass, browned by the hard frosts of October. The cottage soon appeared, its windows dark and patiently awaiting our return.

Still, Eric was right. It felt different.

I climbed the porch steps ahead of him, fishing keys from my jacket pocket. The screen door protested with its usual squeal of hinges. When I pushed open the main door, the cottage exhaled the familiar scents of wood smoke and coffee grounds.

I held the door open and watched him step inside.

He didn't pause in the doorway or look around like a visitor getting reoriented. He simply walked in, dropped the bags beside the kitchen table, and started lighting the oil lamps with unconscious ease.

When he glanced over and caught me staring, his mouth curved into a gentle smile. "What?"

I stepped inside and let the door swing shut behind me. "Nothing. Just... you look like you belong here."

"I think I do."

Eric was always honest and direct. He didn't traffic in meticulous diplomacy or pretty lies. When he said something, he meant it with every fiber of his being.

Rain began to fall on the cottage roof, individual drops finding their way between the cedar shingles to lay the groundwork for a storm's arrival.

The sound was soft at first—barely more than a whisper against the windows—but I knew it would build.

Weather always started politely on Ironhook before showing its teeth.

Eric moved toward the kitchen. I could have started the familiar evening routine of checking the generator fuel and banking the wood stove for the night. Instead, I stood rooted in the living room.

The words rattling in my head demanded that I speak. I couldn't hold them back. Eric had systematically dismantled every defense I'd constructed.

"I want to stay here. With you."

I hadn't planned on the confession.

Eric froze halfway to the kitchen, one hand still reaching for the coffee pot. His shoulders tensed beneath his flannel shirt, and he didn't breathe for a heartbeat.

He turned slowly, and his ocean-blue eyes searched my face.

The silence bore down on me, and I had to pierce it again. "I'm not good with words. Never have been, but at the rink, watching you light up when I managed not to fall on my ass—" I dragged my fingers through my hair. "I don't want to go back to being alone."

Eric stepped up close, and I shivered slightly.

"You're sure? Once you say something like that, you can't unsay it."

"I've been sure since the meteor shower. Maybe since the day you showed up and spilled coffee on my boots." I attempted a smile. "Just took me a while to work up the guts to admit it."

Eric reached out and took my hand. He didn't squeeze or grip or try to anchor me in place. He simply held on.

The cottage held its breath around us. Rain drummed steadily against the roof, and the oil lamps flickered in their glass chimneys. Outside, the storm was building toward something substantial, but inside, we were warm and safe in our cocoon.

When Eric spoke again, his voice was steady and sure. "Guess we should probably figure out what this looks like."

"Probably." I squeezed his hand gently. "But not tonight. Tonight, we're just... us."

He smiled with joy. "I can work with that."

The kitchen radio above the sink whispered fragments of dinner music—something with violins that kept dissolving into white noise—while Eric rummaged through the pantry.

"We've got pasta," he announced, emerging with a box of penne that I'd forgotten existed. "And there's that jar of marinara sauce from your last supply run. Plus some of those mushrooms from the co-op that Mrs. Pelletier insisted you needed."

I watched him assemble ingredients on the counter. Everything had its place, its purpose, and its contribution to the larger project.

"Mushrooms were her idea of improving my nutrition," I pulled a cutting board from the drawer beside the sink. "Apparently, I look too pale for October."

The radio crackled, interrupting the music. The familiar cadence of a National Weather Service announcement cut through the static like a foghorn.

" This is NOAA Weather Radio, broadcasting on a frequency of 162.475 megahertz. The current time is 6:45 PM Eastern Standard Time. We have updated marine weather information for coastal Maine and the maritime provinces. "

I paused to listen.

" Storm advisory now in effect for the outer islands of Penobscot Bay… Winds increasing overnight. Gusts to forty-five knots. Small craft advisory remains."

Eric filled a pot with water and set it on the stove. "There is something kind of perfect about a storm tonight. Like the island's throwing us a housewarming party."

The observation was so typically Eric—finding meaning in coincidence and turning ordinary circumstances into something worth celebrating."

The water began its slow climb toward boiling, steam starting to rise from the pot in lazy spirals. Outside, the wind picked up speed, testing the cottage's construction.

Eric moved closer, arm brushing mine as he reached for olive oil. "Think we'll keep power long enough to finish cooking?"

I glanced at the lights overhead, still burning bright and steady despite the wind beginning to rattle the window frames. "Probably. And if we don't, there's always the camping stove in the utility closet."

I turned the radio off, and Eric brought his laptop over to the kitchen counter. He hit a key, and some folk singer I didn't recognize filled the kitchen with acoustic guitar and a voice like warm honey.

The music felt exactly right.

The kitchen wasn't designed for two people to work simultaneously. When the cottage was built sometime in the 1940s, cooking had been a solitary endeavor—one person, one pot, minimal fuss. Adding Eric required delicate improvisation.

"Behind you." He slid past me to the stove, where the pasta water had achieved a proper rolling boil. His palm grazed my lower back as he moved.

"How much salt?" Eric held the pasta box in one hand.

"Until it tastes like the ocean." I glanced over my shoulder to find him studying the back of the box. "Or just follow the directions. Either works."

"The ocean it is." He measured salt with his palm, sprinkling it into the churning water. "My grandma always said pasta water should taste like tears of joy."

"Your grandma sounds like a poet."

The oil I'd sprinkled in my cast-iron skillet was hot, and I added the mushrooms with a satisfying hiss. They released their earthy moisture immediately. I stirred them with a wooden spoon, watching them shrink and concentrate their flavor.

Eric moved closer, drawn by the aroma. "Those smell incredible. What's your secret?"

"High heat, don't overcrowd the pan, and resist the urge to poke at them every thirty seconds." I nudged the mushrooms to one side of the skillet. "They need space to breathe, like people."

"Philosophical cooking advice. I like it." Eric leaned against the counter beside me. "What else can mushrooms teach us about life?"

"Patience. They'll tell you when they're ready." I added minced garlic to the hot oil, which immediately began to perfume the air with sharp sweetness. "And they'll say the best transformations happen under pressure."

"Pasta's almost ready," Eric announced, testing a piece between his teeth. "Maybe two more minutes."

"Perfect timing." I poured the marinara sauce into the skillet with the mushrooms and garlic, where it began to bubble and reduce, concentrating into something richer than the sum of its parts.

Eric drained the pasta with theatrical efficiency, steam rising from the colander in cloudy billows. "Sauce ready?"

I spooned a small amount onto my finger and tasted it, noting how the mushrooms had released their earthy depth into the tomatoes while the garlic had mellowed into sweetness. "Ready."

After we devoured our rustic creation, the dishes surrendered to hot water and soap with minimal protest. I scrubbed the cast iron skillet with salt and a brush, working oil into the metal's pores to maintain the seasoning built up over decades of use.

Eric folded the dish towel with precise corners and hung it on its designated hook beside the sink. "Coffee? Or something stronger?"

I considered the options while drying my hands on my jeans. "Whiskey," I decided. "The good stuff."

I retrieved two glasses—mismatched like everything else in the cottage—and poured generous measures of amber liquid that caught the lamplight like liquid gold. The whiskey smelled of peat and honey.

Eric accepted his glass with both hands, warming the liquor between his palms before carefully sipping. The whiskey caused his cheeks to flush.

He quietly rolled the glass between his hands. "I keep thinking I'm going to wake up. That this whole thing—you, me, whatever's happening here—is too good to be real."

It was an honest and vulnerable confession. I sipped my whiskey. "What makes you think it's too good?"