You felt Familiar

Chapter 1

NOAH

The storm had been clawing at Greyhaven since before sunrise.

Rain rattled the apartment windows, rushed through the gutters, and struck the skylights in restless bursts. Every gust shoved another sheet of water against the glass, as though the weather had developed a personal objection to anyone leaving bed.

I stood in the kitchen without socks, both hands wrapped around an empty mug, waiting for the coffee machine to stop groaning and produce something useful.

Across the island, Reid studied the day’s service schedule.

He had already showered. Of course he had. His dark hair was combed back, his beard neatly trimmed, and his charcoal work shirt stretched across shoulders that belonged in a much less practical occupation.

Most people looked vulnerable first thing in the morning.

Reid Callahan looked capable of reorganizing the sunrise.

His attention remained on the tablet. “You’ve been watching me for nearly a minute.”

“I’m gathering evidence.”

“Of what?”

“Unreasonable competence before dawn.”

“It’s six fifteen.”

“Exactly. Suspicious.”

The coffee machine spat into the mug.

Reid glanced toward the windows. “Take the enclosed van.”

“I thought I’d strap my equipment to my back and float north.”

“Saltwater is bad for the meters.”

“Thank God you’re here.”

His mouth threatened a smile but didn’t quite surrender to one. Reid’s amusement came slowly in the morning. A shift at the corner of his lips. A faint narrowing of his eyes. The smallest crack in all that maddening composure.

Outside, the harbor dissolved into streaks of gray.

From the apartment above the office, we could usually see most of Callahan Marine Works: the slips, the covered haul-out, the roofs of the service bays, and the long curve of the channel beyond. On clear mornings, the water caught the dawn and turned bronze.

Today, Greyhaven Harbor looked drowned.

Reid slid a plate toward me.

Eggs. Toast. Two slices of tomato. Everything arranged with the precision of a wiring diagram.

“I can’t eat yet.”

“You can.”

“My stomach doesn’t accept visitors at this hour.”

“It accepts coffee.”

“Coffee has diplomatic immunity.”

He set the tablet down. “You’ll be irritable by ten.”

“I’m delightful at ten.”

“You called a chart plotter a vindictive little bastard last week.”

“It kept dropping the transducer.”

“You threatened to bury it.”

“It needed consequences.”

Reid finally looked at me.

His eyes were the color of deep seawater beneath cloud—gray, green, and impossible to look away from. Even after five years, being the full focus of his attention made something in me tighten.

“Eat,” he said.

At work, that voice could stop an argument halfway across the yard.

At home, it usually made me want to either obey him or drag him back to bed.

Sometimes both.

In the beginning, being his employee and his boyfriend had felt precarious. I had worried the two versions of us would bleed together until there was no room to breathe. Reid worried about it too, though he rarely admitted fear in words.

So we built rules.

In the yard, he assigned the jobs, signed the invoices, and expected the same standard from me that he expected from everyone. Upstairs, I stole his blankets, criticized his grocery choices, and reminded him regularly that owning a boatyard did not make him sovereign over the kitchen.

Five years later, the balance felt less like a negotiation and more like muscle memory.

I lifted the toast.

“Good,” Reid said.

“You’re intolerable.”

“You’re eating.”

“That doesn’t make you right.”

“It usually does.”

I bit into the toast and glared at him while chewing.

He picked up the tablet again. “The Halvorsen trawler lost shore power overnight.”

“The blue boat at North Quay?”

“The freezer alarm woke several people.”

“That electrical system belongs in a museum.”

“You told Halvorsen you could keep it running until haul-out.”

“I’m compassionate when elderly fishermen look frightened.”

“You’re reckless when elderly fishermen flatter you.”

“Also true.”

He scrolled. “After that, Bellweather Marina. Cabin cruiser with a hot smell near the distribution panel.”

“Nothing says a pleasant morning like possible electrical fire.”

“Kill the battery banks before you open the panel.”

I lowered the toast. “Did you just explain isolation procedure to a certified marine electrician?”

“I reminded the man I love not to electrocute himself in a flooded marina.”

He delivered it calmly, almost absently.

That was Reid’s way.

He rarely announced affection. He embedded it in instructions, wrapped it in practical concern, hid it inside packed lunches and weather warnings. Another man might have said I need you.

Reid said Check the voltage twice.

The tenderness of it still caught me off guard.

I took another bite.

His gaze dropped briefly to my mouth. “Thank you.”

“You enjoy managing me.”

A spark appeared in his eyes. “You enjoy being managed.”

The toast went down wrong.

I coughed into my fist while he watched me with infuriating innocence.

“At six twenty in the morning?” I asked.

“I wasn’t aware your preferences followed business hours.”

Heat unfurled low in my stomach.

“Well,” I said. “That was dangerously close to flirting.”

“Don’t tell Caleb.”

“He’d never believe me.”

Reid came around the island.

I had chosen the stool in front of the utensil drawer on purpose. Usually, he would stand between my knees and pretend he needed something behind me.

This time, he didn’t bother pretending.

His palm settled against my waist.

The warmth of him seeped through my thin shirt.

“Are you finished sulking?” he asked.

“I wasn’t sulking.”

“No?”

“I was expressing refined dissatisfaction.”

“You were glaring at breakfast.”

“The toast started it.”

His thumb moved once over my side. “Difficult man.”

“Discerning.”

“Stubborn.”

“Selective.”

His voice softened. “Beautiful.”

Every clever answer deserted me.

Reid stepped closer until my knees bracketed his hips. He bent his head, touching his brow to mine.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

The apartment smelled of coffee, rain, toasted bread, and his clean skin. Wind pressed at the windows. Pipes clicked softly in the wall. Somewhere below us, the old building shifted with the tide.

Then Reid kissed me.

Slowly.

The first brush of his mouth was warm and familiar, but familiarity had never made him careless. Reid kissed with intention. His hand tightened at my waist. His lips parted mine, and the taste of coffee and mint slid over my tongue.

I caught the front of his shirt and pulled him in.

A quiet sound escaped him.

It was barely more than breath, but I felt it everywhere.

The kiss deepened. His beard rasped against my jaw. His thumb slipped beneath the hem of my shirt and traced a line of bare skin that made my spine arch.

My pulse began beating in inconvenient places.

“When is your first meeting?” I whispered against his mouth.

“Seven.”

“Reschedule it.”

“The insurance adjuster is coming.”

“Tragic.”

“He’s driving from Astoria.”

“Then he has plenty of time to reflect on his choices.”

Reid kissed the corner of my mouth. Then my jaw. His lips lingered just beneath my ear, where he knew I was sensitive.

My fingers tightened in his shirt.

“Reid.”

His hand slid around my back, broad and possessive, holding me against him.

“Tonight,” he said.

The word was low enough to make my breath hitch.

“Is that reassurance,” I asked, “or an order?”

He lifted his head.

Desire darkened his eyes.

“You won’t have to ask.”

A bark echoed from the hallway.

We froze.

Marlowe shuffled into the kitchen with the grave disapproval of a retired judge. His muzzle had gone almost entirely gray, and one of his ears folded more than the other, but age had done nothing to diminish his talent for interruption.

He looked at Reid.

Then at me.

Then at my plate.

“You ate,” Reid told him.

Marlowe sat.

“He disputes your account,” I said.

“He has had breakfast twice.”

“Perhaps he’s emotionally depleted.”

“By what?”

“The decline of civilization.”

Marlowe thumped his tail.

I tore off a corner of toast and passed it down.

Reid sighed. “That is why he doesn’t respect me.”

“He respects kindness.”

“He exploits weakness.”

Marlowe swallowed the toast whole and stared at my hand.

Reid checked the time. “We need to go downstairs.”

The journey to work required one flight of stairs.

It was one of my favorite things about living above the yard—the way our life remained close enough to hear through the floorboards.

At night, metal halyards struck the masts outside in uneven notes.

The building groaned when the tide changed.

Diesel, cedar, and salt found their way upstairs no matter how often we shut the windows.

Reid had bought the property from his uncle twelve years earlier.

Back then, Callahan Marine Works had been little more than a collapsing shed, a few rotting slips, and a reputation for missed deadlines.

Reid rebuilt it piece by piece. He added the haul-out, restored the sail loft, expanded the service bays, and earned enough trust to keep six people working through the slow season.

The apartment above the office had not received the same attention.

The floor leaned toward the harbor. One bedroom contained boxes of parts Reid intended to inventory during a mythical period called when things calm down. Layers of old paint showed around the kitchen hinges like geological strata.

I loved every crooked inch of it.

I pulled on wool socks, waterproof boots, and my work jacket. Reid clipped Marlowe’s leash to his collar, though the old dog could have navigated the stairs in his sleep.

The moment we opened the downstairs door, the storm hit us.

Cold rain blew beneath the covered walkway. Puddles flashed beneath the security lamps. The open service bay framed a slice of black water, restless beneath the wind.

The yard smelled of wet wood, fuel, brine, and steel.

Caleb Moss stood inside the main workshop with a coil of cable over one shoulder and a paper cup clutched in his hand.

“There they are,” he called. “The ruling class.”

Reid checked his watch. “It’s six twenty-eight.”