Page 30 of Till Orc Do Us Part

The beach house breathes like something alive.

It creaks and settles in the evening wind, the porch groaning softly beneath salt-heavy beams. The windows are thrown open to the sea, letting in the briny air, cool and crisp against the faint warmth of lemon oil and ink. The tide hums steady beneath it all—a low pulse that roots the night.

Inside, life sprawls in joyful chaos.

Books lean in uneven towers against the walls, some half-unpacked, others already dog-eared and loved.

Jamie’s creations are everywhere—a cardboard dragon fort by the hearth, painted sea creatures taped to the windowpanes, a string of “monster safe zone” signs looped over the banister.

His laughter still seems caught in the beams, as though the house remembers.

Tonight feels full in a way no tower of steel ever did.

Jamie is tucked into my side now on the couch, his head resting on my chest, curls tickling my chin. His small fist clutches the edge of our book—a story about a ship made of stars and a captain who refuses to leave lost worlds behind.

He lasted halfway through the third chapter before sleep claimed him. Now his breath is soft and slow, a warm weight grounding me here, in this impossible peace.

I keep reading anyway—low, steady, more for myself than him.

Behind us, Rowan hums tunelessly in the kitchen. I hear the clatter of mugs, the scrape of wood against wood as she rummages through drawers. Every few minutes she mutters under her breath about supplier invoices and misplaced bookmarks.

When something crashes to the floor, her sharp “damn it” floats easily through the house.

I smile against the top of Jamie’s curls. “You’re going to teach him some very creative vocabulary,” I call out.

“You say that like I’m not already three lessons ahead of you,” she fires back.

I glance toward the open kitchen archway just as she appears—shirt knotted at the waist, sleeves rolled up, pen stuck behind one ear. Flour streaks her cheek like war paint.

She smirks. “And for the record, ‘damn it to the dunes’ was all you.”

“Wasn’t me.”

“Liar.”

She crosses the room in three strides, barefoot and certain, and drops onto the arm of the couch. Her eyes flick to Jamie’s sleeping face. Her expression softens in a way that always unspools something tight in my chest.

“You’re good with him,” she says quietly.

I close the book, mark our place with a battered bookmark Jamie made—a green giant cut from construction paper. “He’s better with me than I deserve.”

Her gaze lingers a beat longer, unreadable, then she rises with a small shake of her head. “Come to bed soon?” she murmurs.

“I will.”

She brushes her fingers through Jamie’s curls, then disappears upstairs, leaving the faint scent of lavender and sea air in her wake.

I sit a while longer, listening to Jamie’s slow, even breaths, to the house alive around us.

Eventually, I lift him—careful, steady—and carry him up to his room. It smells of driftwood and crayons, the air tinged with some indefinable boyish magic. I tuck him beneath his sea-creature quilt, place his plush shark in the crook of his arm.

He stirs once, mumbles something about pirates and stars, then settles.

I lean against the doorway for a long moment, watching.

Later, Rowan finds me in the kitchen, barefoot in one of my oversized shirts, hair falling loose. She grins at the sight of me pouring tea with a frown of deep concentration.

“You’re hopeless with steep times,” she teases.

“You’re hopeless at leaving invoices alone after midnight.”

She snorts but slides onto the counter, legs swinging, and watches me prepare two mugs.

We sit on the porch swing beneath starlight, mugs warm in our hands, silence easy between us. The porch smells of cedar and sea, the night air cool on our skin.

She leans against me. “You know,” she murmurs, voice rough with tired affection, “I still can’t believe you built this life.”

“I didn’t,” I say softly. “ We did.”

She exhales slowly, head dropping to my shoulder.

Later still, when Jamie pads downstairs in his pajamas—eyes wide, holding his shark by one arm—we make room for him on the swing.

Rowan pulls a thick blanket around all three of us, Jamie curled between us like he belongs here.

Because he does.

Because we all do.

We watch the stars blink awake one by one, the sea whispering below.

When Jamie’s eyes drift closed again, Rowan presses her face to my chest, fingers curling in the worn fabric of my shirt. Her voice is a sigh, thick with something more than sleep.

“We built this.”

I tighten my arm around her, around them both.

“Yes,” I breathe. “We did.”

And this time, there is no doubt.

Later, after Jamie is sound asleep again—this time tucked in beneath his quilt with the plush shark standing sentry—I find Rowan back on the porch.

She’s leaning against the swing’s worn wooden arm, legs curled beneath her, mug cradled in both hands. The stars above are sharp and endless, stitched across the ink-black sky. The sea murmurs in the distance, each wave a slow exhale.

I step out quietly, barefoot now, the planks cool beneath my feet. The air smells of salt and cedar and her.

Without a word, I sit beside her.

She shifts, tucks herself against me easily, her head finding its familiar place at my shoulder. The swing sways in time with the waves.

For a long while, we say nothing.

Words aren’t always necessary—not anymore.

The stars seem impossibly close tonight, the kind of sky you could fall into if you weren’t careful. The porch hums with the weight of the life we’ve built, every moment etched into the grain beneath our feet.

Rowan’s fingers slip into mine—warm, steady.

She squeezes once. “We built something good,” she whispers.

My chest aches at the simplicity of it, at how easily she speaks the truth we’ve both earned.

I turn, press a kiss to her temple, slow and deliberate.

“We’re just getting started,” I say against her skin.

She exhales softly, smile curving her mouth, and leans into me fully.

And through wars and towers and shadows—I feel it.

Home.

Not in stone or steel. But here.

In the soft weight of her beside me.

The small, steady hand twined with mine beneath a sky full of stars.

In this life we made. Together.