Page 24 of Second Chance with the Half-Elf

AERON

T he smell of fresh paint clings to my skin like guilt that won’t rinse off.

My shirt’s streaked with it—sage green and chalky white—every shade we scraped from council-approved palettes trying to make the boardwalk look like it’s something worth saving.

Half the lantern hooks are bent, the new ones don’t match, and the wind coming off the water keeps snapping the banner lines like a warning.

It’s Lantern Night. And the whole damn town is holding its breath.

I’m tying string lights above the east-facing vendor stalls when Drokhaz climbs up beside me, all quiet bulk and a cup of coffee that smells criminally better than what I’ve had this morning.

“You know,” he says, “you could let someone else hang lights for once.”

I grunt, looping the wire tighter around a beam. “They don’t get high enough.”

“You mean ‘they don’t get moody about symmetry.’”

I shoot him a look.

He shrugs. “Same thing.”

Down on the boardwalk, Rowan’s organizing a group of kids trying to hang paper lanterns without setting themselves or each other on fire. Jamie’s darting between them with a bucket of sand in one hand and a plastic shark in the other, hollering about “monster safety protocols.”

The whole thing looks like chaos.

The good kind.

Still, I can’t shake the thrum in my chest, the sharp awareness that I’m waiting for something—someone—to knock the air out of me again.

Word spreads fast in Lumera.

And this morning, it came to me sideways through Goff’s smug grin: Evie’s not selling the house.

She’s staying.

I nearly dropped a box of copper tacks when I heard it. Had to walk it off, past the loading crates and into the sea wind until the burn in my lungs matched the one in my chest.

I’ve spent so long preparing myself for her to leave. Now I don’t know what the hell to do with the possibility that she won’t.

Hope isn’t something I let myself feel lightly.

It’s dangerous. It’s got teeth.

And right now it’s pacing just beneath my ribs like a thing ready to bite.

Drokhaz hands me the coffee and climbs back down to help rig the lantern poles near the pier. I stay on the ladder a second longer, just watching the tide edge in beneath the planks and listening to the gulls scream like the sky owes them a favor.

I’m halfway through tying off the final string when I hear her.

Her voice behind me.

“I figured you’d be up here hoarding symmetry and smoldering in silence.”

I freeze. Every muscle goes taut.

Then I look down.

She’s standing just beyond the vendor tents, hands stuffed in her coat pockets, hair wind-tangled and eyes sharp with something I haven’t let myself believe I’d see again.

Ease.

She walks toward the ladder slow, like she’s not sure how this will go but she’s doing it anyway.

I climb down, boots hitting the planks harder than I mean to.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” I answer.

There’s a beat where neither of us moves.

“You’re really doing it,” I say finally. “Staying.”

She nods. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

“What changed?”

Her jaw tightens like she doesn’t want to say it. But she does anyway.

“I got tired of running from things that matter.”

My fingers curl around the edge of the ladder, grounding me. “That include me?”

She looks up at me, and there’s no armor in it. No dodge. Just this raw, messy truth she lays down like a card on the table.

“Yeah,” she says. “It does.”

The wind picks up, tugging at the lights strung overhead. The paper lanterns flutter like breath.

“I don’t expect it to be easy,” she adds. “I’m still figuring things out. Who I am here. With you.”

“I don’t want easy,” I tell her. “I want honest.”

She exhales, shaky. “That’s scarier.”

“I know.”

She steps closer, until there’s barely a foot between us.

“I thought staying meant giving something up,” she says. “Freedom, maybe. Or control. But it’s not that. It’s choosing to stay. Even when it hurts. Especially then.”

I nod slowly. “That’s the kind of staying that matters.”

We’re quiet again.

But it’s the kind of quiet that feels full. Like something’s finally settled in the right place.

Her eyes flick up to the lights overhead. “They’re crooked.”

“They’re not,” I grumble.

“They are.”

“You’re just standing at the wrong angle.”

She smiles. That sharp, sideways grin that used to wreck me when I was twenty and hasn’t lost any of its power.

Then her voice softens.

“You still gonna fight for me?” she asks. “Even now?”

I step closer. My hand brushes her wrist, slow and deliberate, like a question.

“Always,” I say. “But I won’t fight you for you.”

She closes her eyes. Just for a second.

She leans into me.

It’s not dramatic. Not a scene.

It’s just real.

Her forehead resting against my chest. Her breath warming the fabric of my shirt. My hand sliding up to the back of her neck, grounding us both.

“I’m scared,” she murmurs.

“I am too.”

“But I’m here,” she says.

And that’s enough.

For tonight.

For whatever comes next.

She pulls back just enough to look at me.

Her hand finds my wrist—light, but steady.

“I need to say this clearly,” she says. “So there’s no confusion. No ‘what ifs.’”

I nod, bracing. Every muscle in my chest feels like it’s wound tight, waiting for the crack.

“I’m staying,” she says.

I swallow, but my throat’s too dry to make it smooth.

She takes a breath, slow and deliberate. “Not for duty. Not for guilt. Not because I feel obligated or broken or because this town expects something from me.”

She leans in just a little more. Voice softer now, but fierce beneath it.

“I’m staying for me.”

The words drop like a stone in water—sharp, real, rippling through everything I didn’t even realize I was holding back.

And it’s like something inside me gives out.

Not like breaking.

Like I’ve been clenching my jaw for months and finally exhaled without it shaking.

My hand curls around hers. Just holding. Not gripping. Like if I squeeze too hard, this moment might shatter.

“You don’t have to be anything but who you are,” I say, voice low, gravel-dragged. “I don’t want a version of you shaped by weight you don’t want to carry.”

She searches my face, like she’s trying to make sure I mean it. Like maybe for the first time since I don’t remember when, someone actually does.

And then, just for a second, her shoulders drop. That tension she wears like armor? It lets go.

“I’m scared,” she whispers again.

“I know,” I murmur. “So am I.”

“But I think I want to try.”

My voice catches. Just a little. “Yeah?”

She nods.

And the relief that hits me is a flood.

Not loud. Just... deep.

Like warmth in cold bones.

Like coming home after being lost too long to remember which way the sun sets.

“Okay,” I say.

She lets out a breath. A real one. Unburdened. I think she actually means it this time.

We stand there a little longer under the half-lit boardwalk.

The town behind us buzzes with life—kids yelling, strings of lanterns swaying, the scent of roasted fish curling through the air.

But for this moment, it’s just us.