Chapter 1 #2
The younger two head up the dock—Millie with her nose in a book she pulled from somewhere (the child is a magician), and Aidan trailing behind, regaling no one in particular with a story about a kraken who lives under the marina and only comes out during full moons.
I wave them off to the Andersons’ minivan in the parking lot and head back down the dock.
Paul and I stand in the silence they leave behind. Well, not total silence—Dawson and Jenna are already arguing about something at the end of the dock, and a pelican is making sounds that suggest it’s personally offended by the morning.
“I wasn’t flirting,” he says.
“Obviously.”
“I was discussing maritime safety.”
“Riveting stuff. Very romantic.”
“It’s not—” He stops. Recalibrates. Takes a sip of coffee like he needs it to survive this interaction. “Your light. Fix it or let me repair it. Those are your options.”
“I will this weekend.”
“You said that last Saturday.”
“And I’ll say it next week too, probably. It’s a tradition now. You should appreciate it. We have so few of them.”
He stares at me. I stare back. The marina stretches out around us, boats rocking, water sparkling, the whole absurd beautiful mess of it.
“Fine,” he says. “This weekend.”
“Yes.”
“I’m holding you to that.”
“You hold me to everything. It’s your favorite hobby.”
He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, and then just turns and walks toward the dock office with rigid posture.
I watch him go and absolutely do not notice the way he walks or the breadth of his shoulders or the way his hand runs through his hair in frustration or the fact that he glances back—just once, barely a second—before disappearing into the office.
I notice none of these things, because noticing them would be insane.
Paul Spencer is a grumpy, infuriatingly capable man who thinks running lights are more important than human connection, and I would rather live on this leaky houseboat for the rest of my natural life than admit he makes my stupid heart do stupid things.
I drain my coffee and head back inside to grab my camera bag. I’ve got a shoot at eleven—a family session on the beach—and I need to prep. This is my life now. Photography, kids, a houseboat that fights me, and a neighbor who—
My phone rings.
Delilah’s name lights up the screen.
“Hey, Delilah! How’s wedding planning going? Are you—”
“Emma.” Her voice is buzzing with barely contained energy. “Are you at the marina right now?”
“I’m always at the marina. It’s my permanent address and my entire personality at this point.”
“Stay there. We’re coming to you. Levi and I. We have something to ask you, and we want to do it in person.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It’s the opposite. It’s...luminous. Levi, is that a word?”
I hear Levi’s voice in the background, low and amused. “It’s a word.”
“Just—stay. We’ll be there in twenty minutes. And Emma?”
“Yeah?”
“You might want to sit down for this.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at my phone, then at the dock office where Paul has retreated to do whatever it is grumpy marina owners do at seven thirty in the morning—probably alphabetize safety violations or polish his complaints.
You might want to sit down for this.
In my experience, nothing good has ever followed that sentence. “You might want to sit down” preceded Aidan’s principal calling to explain that my son had convinced his entire second-grade class that a sea monster lived in the school pond.
But Delilah said luminous, which is the opposite of “your child has started a cryptozoology cult in the cafeteria.”
I sit on the houseboat steps and wait. The sun is already brutal, the dock boards radiating heat, and somewhere out on the sound a boat horn echoes across the water.
Summer in Twin Waves is an assault on all five senses—the salt air so thick you can taste it, the cicadas screaming from the live oaks, the light bouncing off the water so bright it makes your eyes water.
I love it. I love every sweaty, humid, salt-crusted second of it, which is something I never would have said in my old life in Chattanooga, where summer meant Matt running the air conditioning in the garage so his model trains wouldn’t warp.
Twenty-three minutes later—not that I’m counting, except I absolutely am because I’m a person who fills anxiety with specificity—a black SUV pulls into the marina parking lot.
Levi gets out first, which is always sort of surreal. I’ve lived in Twin Waves long enough to stop being starstruck, but there’s still a small part of my brain that goes that’s the guy from the radio every time I see him buying bananas at the Piggly Wiggly like a regular human.
Delilah emerges from the passenger side practically vibrating.
She’s wearing a sundress the color of marigolds and her engagement ring is catching the morning light and she looks like a woman who is about to either deliver the best news of your life or recruit you into a very well-dressed pyramid scheme.
“Emma.” She’s speed-walking down the dock. Levi is following at a more reasonable pace, hands in his pockets, grinning.
“Hi, yes, hello, I’m sitting down, as instructed—”
She grabs both my hands. “We want you to photograph our wedding.”
My heart does a little skip. “Delilah, of course. I’d be honored. I was hoping you’d—”
“On a yacht.”
“I’m sorry, on a what?”
“A yacht.” She says it like people say on a Tuesday. Like it’s the most normal sentence in the English language. “Levi bought a yacht.”
I look at Levi. He shrugs in a way that says what can you do and also I’m a rock star and this is what we do apparently.
“You bought a yacht,” I repeat.
“It seemed like the right call,” he says, like he’s discussing a moderately priced sweater.
“He’s being modest,” Delilah says. “It’s incredible. It has a sun deck and a grand salon, and the master suite has a king bed and a soaking tub. I’m pretty sure the galley kitchen is bigger than my entire apartment.”
“The galley is not bigger than your apartment,” Levi says.
“It has a wine fridge, Levi. A wine fridge. On a boat.”
I am still holding Delilah’s hands. I am still sitting on the steps of my houseboat, which has a mini fridge that makes a sound like a dying cat at three a.m. and occasionally freezes my lettuce solid.
“Okay,” I say slowly. “So. Wedding. On a yacht. Here? At the marina?”
“That’s the thing.” Delilah squeezes my hands. “We want to dock the yacht here, at Harold’s Marina. Levi proposed on the pier right down the shore—this whole waterfront is our place. And after the ceremony, we’re sailing to the Caribbean for our honeymoon.”
“You’re sailing your yacht. To the Caribbean. For your honeymoon.”
“That’s the plan.”
I look at the marina around us. The weathered dock. The fishing boats. Justin’s shrimp boat. My leaky houseboat with its flickering lights and possessed coffee maker. Harold’s office that smells like burned toast.
A mega yacht. Here. At this marina.
“Does Paul know about this?” I ask, because apparently my brain’s first response to life-changing news is to think about my annoying neighbor, which is a problem I’ll unpack later with a therapist or a bottle of wine.
“Not yet.” Levi’s grin widens. “We wanted to talk to you first. We’ll need to coordinate with Paul on the dock space and logistics, but—”
“We want the whole wedding team to be people we love,” Delilah finishes. “You for photos. I’m doing my own flowers, obviously—my shop, my wedding, my flowers. And Aubrey Wheaton is coming from Maple Creek to coordinate. She’s handled celebrity weddings before. She’s incredible.”
“Aubrey’s great,” I say, because Jo’s told me all about her. The woman apparently runs events like a five-star general who happens to smell like peonies.
“Emma.” Delilah’s voice goes serious. Her eyes are bright and a little glassy. “I know this is big. I know it’s a lot. But Jo showed me the photos you did for her and Dean’s wedding, and I cried. Actually cried. You captured something I didn’t even know was there.”
I blink. My own eyes are doing something suspicious. “You cried?”
“Sobbed. Levi had to bring me tissues. I went through an entire box.”
“She’s not exaggerating,” Levi confirms. “I bought stock in Kleenex after that.”
“I want that,” Delilah says. “Someone who sees love like that. Who captures it like it’s the most important thing in the world. Because for me, it is.”
My throat is tight. My eyes are definitely not cooperating with my attempt to be professional and cool about this. Professional photographers don’t cry when they’re offered jobs. They say things like “I’d love to discuss my packages” and “let me send you my rate sheet.”
I am not that kind of photographer. I am a woman sitting on the steps of a leaky houseboat in yesterday’s sundress, trying not to ugly-cry while a rock star and a florist offer me the job of a lifetime.
“Yes,” I manage. “A thousand times yes.”
Delilah lets out a sound that’s half-squeal, half-laugh and pulls me into a hug that smells like gardenias and joy. Levi stands there looking pleased with himself, which seems to be his default state when Delilah is happy.
“There’s one more thing,” Delilah says, pulling back. “The budget.”
“Whatever your budget is, I can work with it. I’m flexible. I can—”
“Emma.” She glances at Levi, who nods. “Money isn’t a factor. We want you to have everything you need—equipment, assistants, travel, whatever it takes. Levi wants to make sure you’re taken care of.”
“More than taken care of,” Levi adds quietly. “You’re family. This isn’t a transaction.”
I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again.
The number Delilah says next makes my vision blur.