Chapter Ten – Crew
Sunlight slants across the kitchen table, catching the crumbs of yesterday’s biscuits and the headline of the Gazette: HARVEST FESTIVAL SUCCESS: WRIGHT brOTHERS SAVE THE DAY, BOOK WITCH STEALS HEARTS.
Subtle.
Real subtle.
Mom hums at the stove, spatula in hand, like she isn’t the unofficial PR director for Coral Bell Cove gossip. Hadley’s sitting at the counter, legs crossed, sipping coffee with the kind of smug smile only siblings are genetically programmed to perfect.
“Sleep well?” she asks, knowing full damn well I didn’t.
“Define ‘well’.”
“Define ‘sleep’,” she fires back. “Because I heard you pacing the porch like a ghost all night.”
Mom hides a laugh behind her mug. “He’s been restless since the dance.”
I glare at both of them. “Do you people meet at dawn to coordinate attacks?”
Lila shrugs. “Only on Sundays.”
“Good,” I say. “It’s Saturday.”
She grins. “I’m proactive.”
I try ignoring them, focusing on the paper instead, but the headline’s too much. Bailey’s picture—smiling mid-laugh, eyes crinkled, hair shining under lantern light—sits beside mine. The camera caught something raw, something that looks a hell of a lot like what we’ve both been denying.
And it does something to me I don’t have words for.
“You could just go talk to her,” Mom says, not even pretending she isn’t listening in.
“I have talked to her.”
“Without your usual sarcasm?”
I grunt.
“She’s helping with cleanup,” Hadley offers way too innocently. “At the lighthouse. Something about repairing the donation booth and drying out books that got caught in the cider-flood incident.”
I narrow my eyes. “You’re meddling.”
“Call it divine intervention,” she says, hopping off the stool. “Dean and Lila are coming over tonight for dinner. Bring her, or I’ll invite her myself.”
I hate how easily they see through me.
I hate it more that they’re right.
By the time I reach the lighthouse, the sky’s shifted from blue to the gray that means trouble. The air feels heavy, charged—like even the weather’s waiting for something to break.
Bailey’s outside, kneeling beside a stack of damp boxes, hair in a messy bun, sweatshirt sleeves shoved to her elbows. She looks tired, focused, and utterly beautiful.
She doesn’t hear me at first, humming softly under her breath—something old, maybe Fleetwood Mac.
“You know,” I say, “that humming could summon sailors.”
She jumps, dropping a stack of flyers. “Jesus, Crew. You can’t just materialize like that.”
“I knocked.”
“You did not.”
“Knocking’s implied when you’re this charming.”
She groans. “You’re impossible.”
“Consistent,” I say, crouching beside her. “Need help?”
She opens her mouth—probably to tell me no—but the wind cuts her off, sending a fresh spray of bay air across the dock. The edges of the boxes flap, threatening to scatter.
“Fine,” she mutters. “But only because you have longer arms.”
“Finally, my best feature gets recognized.”
She gives me a look, somewhere between amusement and exasperation. “Pretty sure your best feature is ego.”
“Close second,” I say. “Right behind my self-awareness.”
“Which is nonexistent.”
“Exactly.”
Her laugh slips out before she can stop it. That sound—God, that sound—hits me square in the chest. I’ll take it over applause, over cheers, over the roar of a stadium any day.
We haul the boxes into the shop just as the first drops of rain hit. The air smells like paper and storms, like nostalgia and maybe-love. She pushes a strand of hair from her face and looks around the room, sighing. “Half these books are soaked.”
“Then we’ll dry them,” I say.
“You say that like it’s simple.”
“It is,” I say, finding a towel. “Watch.”
I pick up the top book and start gently patting the pages dry.
She folds her arms. “That’s not how paper works.”
“It’s working fine.”
“You’re smearing the ink.”
“It’s abstract now.”
She groans again, snatching the towel from my hand. “Give me that.”
“Bossy.”
“Competent,” she corrects, kneeling to show me the right way—spreading the books slightly open, fanning the pages, spacing them apart. Her voice softens as she explains. “You treat it gently, or it falls apart. Paper remembers roughness.”
I get the feeling she’s not talking about paper anymore.
I nod slowly. “Yeah. I get that.”
Her eyes flick to mine, then away, cheeks flushing. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know,” I say. “But you’re right.”
The rain gets heavier, drumming on the roof like a heartbeat gone wild. Thunder rolls low, steady. She glances toward the window. “We should close up.”
“Storm won’t last long.”
“It’s not the storm I’m worried about.”
Her voice is quiet, but the meaning’s loud enough to rattle the walls.
We work in silence for a while. She moves around the shop with this quiet grace, collecting candles, stacking towels, making something safe out of chaos. Watching her feels like watching someone build a home one motion at a time.
When lightning flashes, I see her flinch—not big, just a tiny tremor. I don’t think she knows she does it. I move closer, not touching, just near enough that she can feel my presence.
“You okay?” I ask softly.
“I’m fine.”
“Bailey.”
She stops and turns toward me. Her breath catches. “Then what do you want?”
I could lie. I could joke. But the words come out raw, honest.
“You.”
She blinks. “Crew…”
Lightning flickers again, the brightness slicing across her face. I see every line of her expression: defiance, desire, disbelief. Her fingers twitch at her sides like she wants to reach for me but doesn’t trust herself.
And then thunder cracks, sharp and sudden, and instinct wins over caution. She stumbles a half-step forward. My hand finds her waist. Reflex. Reflex that feels like fate.
She looks up. The space between us disappears.
The kiss isn’t careful.
It’s every second we’ve spent denying this, every half smile, every almost. Her hands clutch my shirt, pulling me closer.
My fingers slide into her hair, tangling in the strands, tasting the rain that’s started to leak through the door.
She makes a sound—quiet, broken—and I swear I’ll never hear anything better.
When we finally break apart, both of us are breathing hard.
Her forehead rests against mine. “We shouldn’t have done that.”
“Probably not.”
“Do it again.”
I laugh, half disbelieving, half undone, and then her mouth is on mine again, slower this time, deeper. The world tilts. The storm howls outside, but inside is nothing but heat and heartbeats.
When she finally pulls back, she’s trembling, eyes wild. “Crew…”
“Yeah?”
“This changes everything.”
“Good,” I whisper. “It was about damn time.”
The storm rages for another hour. We stay inside, sitting close on the floor beside the counter, her head on my shoulder, my hand tracing circles on her wrist. We don’t talk much. We don’t need to. The silence feels like something sacred.
When the rain finally eases, she stands, smoothing her hair, trying for composure. “You should go.”
“Probably,” I say, but I don’t move.
“Crew…”
“Yeah.”
Her silence should sting, but it doesn’t. Not this time. Because now her unspoken not yet doesn’t sound like no. It sounds like a promise.
I nod. “Okay.”
She smiles, small and unsteady. “Okay.”
That night, back at the farm, I can still taste her.
The rain, the warmth, the way she said do it again like a prayer.
For the first time in a long time, the ache in my shoulder doesn’t hurt.
But my heart? My heart’s on fire.
Sleep doesn’t come. I lie in bed staring at the ceiling fan, every slow turn syncing to the rhythm of her kiss.
It’s there on my tongue, in the ache of my jaw, in the pulse that won’t settle.
When lightning flashed behind her, she looked like the storm had chosen her as its favorite.
And now my whole body hums with the memory.
Around three a.m., I give up, pull on a T-shirt, and step onto the porch. The air still smells like rain and salt and something faintly sweet—honey, maybe, or her. The fields glitter darkly.
I’m half tempted to text her, but I can already imagine her response: go to sleep, quarterback.
I don’t know how long I stay outside on the back deck, but it’s long enough to watch the sun rise over the tree line.
Inside, the kitchen’s a battlefield of clinking dishes and judgment. Mom’s making pancakes, Dean’s at the counter eating them like he earned them, and Lila’s pretending to help while mostly watching Oliver and Evelyn, Dean’s niece and nephew, who he is now the guardian of, play a game of Guess Who?
Dean looks up. “You look like a man who got struck by lightning.”
“Funny story,” I say. “I did.”
Lila freezes mid-scroll. “Oh my God. You kissed her.”
I blink. “What?”
“You totally kissed her. Gah, why didn’t she tell me?” Her blond hair immediately veils across her face as she types on her phone like a madwoman.
Mom raises a brow but doesn’t stop flipping pancakes. “Finally,” she mutters.
“Do I have no privacy?”
Dean grins. “This is Coral Bell Cove, brother. The gulls probably know.”
Lila leans forward. “Was it romantic? Or, like, ‘oops our faces collided in a hurricane’?”
“Can we not—”
“Was there tongue?”
“Lila!”
She cackles. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Mom slides a plate toward me. “Eat before you pass out from embarrassment.”
I drop into the chair, muttering, “Remind me to never have a personal life again.”
“Too late,” Dean says. “You’re in a Hallmark movie now. Enjoy the montage.”
By afternoon, the rain’s cleared, but the clouds still hang low, soft, and heavy. I drive out to the lighthouse under the pretense of checking on the flooded books. Really, I just need to see her and make sure last night wasn’t something I dreamed up between thunderclaps.
She’s out front, sweeping the porch, wearing cut-off shorts and a sweatshirt that’s two sizes too big. My sweatshirt. She looks up, startled, then wary. “You left this on purpose, didn’t you?”
“Maybe,” I say. “You wear it better.”
“Don’t start.”
“Start what?”