Chapter 3
Chapter Three
HARPER
Turquoise felt was surprisingly hard to work with. I smoothed a piece over the table and tried again, the sequins catching and sticking to my fingers like stubborn glitter ants. I ignored the tension building in my shoulders and focused on gluing a rogue sparkle into place.
This was for Finn.
Everything was for Finn.
My son hummed a tuneless song from the other side of the table, his eyes soft as he lined up a row of seashells.
The warm illumination of the kitchen lights caught on his brown hair and haloed his small, busy hands.
His abstracted smile told me that his biggest care in the world was this parrotfish costume. Mine was keeping it that way.
The kitchen table was an ocean of felt, sequins, and supplies, a colorful chaos that was giving me hives.
The faintly sweet scent of glue mixed with the last trace of baked chicken from dinner, settling into a weird, not-quite-appetizing aroma that reminded me of how uncreative I was.
It was Finn’s night to choose our activity, and he’d picked costume making, possibly in an effort to bankrupt me in glitter.
“Do parrotfish have teeth, Mom? Like super sharp ones?”
I smiled at his crayon drawing and the determined way he moved shells into a complex arrangement only he could decode. “I think they have more of a beak.”
The sequin slipped again, and I thought briefly about Eli’s offer to help.
But I needed to do this. A small act of control in the bedlam of managing the resort while being a single mom.
The gluey frustration in my fingers was oddly comforting, a tangible reminder that I was doing something for my boy.
I wanted to be the kind of mom who was good at this.
Who made him feel whole and loved and like he wasn’t missing anything.
I triumphantly pinned the sequin to the felt and glanced up. Finn was trying to open a jar of glitter glue with his teeth.
“Hey, no biting the supplies. You already had dinner, remember?”
He giggled. “I wasn’t gonna.”
His enthusiasm was contagious, even if I was hopelessly outmatched by craft supplies.
He glanced at my part of the project and frowned. “Mom, are you sure parrotfish have big scales?”
“They’re huge,” I said, just as the last sequin fell from the felt. I huffed in mock annoyance. “They’re just really hard to catch.”
“I can help you,” Finn declared, handing me an already sticky piece of blue fabric.
I took it from him, brushing a stray curl from his forehead with the back of my hand. “I know you can, sweetheart.”
As we settled into the project, my thoughts wandered to the pile of invoices waiting on my desk at work and the email from the window contractor explaining the delays in the new bungalows.
My head ached at the memory of my day, and I focused again on gluing a row of shimmery sequins, willing myself to enjoy this pocket of time with Finn.
Chase flashed through my mind, that disconcerting combination of competence and pure masculine appeal.
His calm certainty as he walked me through the pool reno plans, the brush of his arm against mine as we huddled over the wood sample for the cabana frame.
His quiet intensity as he smiled at me in that way he had, like I was more than the sum of my obligations.
It had been so long since I’d felt that pooling heat in the belly, that delicious shiver over the skin, that I was surprised I was still capable of it.
Though we certainly weren’t without our frictions.
We’d butted heads multiple times over designs, materials, and schedules, over my desire for practical and budget-friendly warring with his preference for artistic and expensive.
The weird thing was that the disagreements only heightened the connection between us.
The interaction at the pool flitted through my head again.
Was I imagining that moment between us? That frisson of heat, flaming hot out of nothing?
“What’s next?” Finn’s bright and eager voice pulled me back, and I smiled at him.
“We’ve got a way to go with this. What do you think?”
He pondered for a moment, lips pursed in a comically thoughtful expression. “The rainbow tail!”
I reached for the rainbow shimmer fabric. “That sounds perfect.”
We worked together, a slow rhythm of cutting and gluing and adjusting. I let Finn’s delight guide me, and the rest of my worries faded like the soft, gluey light that filled the kitchen.
Finn gave the instructions, moving sequins around the fabric. “Right there, Mom! No, a little more. Right—no—yes! Right there!” He bounced with each word, nearly falling off his chair. I grinned at him, and the warmth of his enthusiasm melted the icy edges of my stress.
“How’s that?” I exhaled, letting the layers of anxiety slip off my shoulders. Even if I was underqualified and overwhelmed and unable to stop everything from sliding into disarray, Finn’s confidence in me was all that mattered.
“Are you going to sew on the big scales?” he asked, pointing at the package of needles I bought in a futile moment of ambition.
“Think I’m going to cheat and use more glue.” I laughed as I reached for the adhesive. “How about this one? Extra strength. It’s a mom’s best friend.”
“You’re my best friend.” He smiled, and my heart squeezed at the absolute, uncomplicated way he loved me.
“We’re a great team. No doubt about it. No parrotfish can stand against us.”
A line of sequins slipped out of place, and I nearly knocked the whole damn thing to the floor in my eagerness to fix it. Finn just laughed, the sound like little bells.
“I meant to do that.” I carefully lined up the blue scale.
“Sure you did, Mom.”
We sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, a soft calm settling between us.
I thought of the day Finn was born, how tiny and fragile and impossibly perfect he was.
I promised myself I would never let him feel abandoned, that he’d never doubt how much I loved him.
I’d made that mistake with his father, and I couldn’t bear the thought of it happening to Finn.
The resort, the costume, all of it seemed like proof. Proof I could do this.
I worked on the last few scales, trying to keep my growing frustrations in check.
Even if it was lopsided and covered in glue, the parrotfish costume was ours.
And if I handed the mess over to one of our housekeepers and expert seamstresses for reinforcement, that was just suitable managerial delegation, right?
Finn scooted closer to inspect it, his breath hot on my neck. “Can I put on the head?”
“Sure thing.” I helped him into the silly cap I picked up at the costume store, his smile filling the room.
He scrambled back, doing a dramatic spin. “Ta-daaaaa!”
I held up the tunic, the garish rainbow and sticky scales somehow looking more right than anything I’d ever made.
“I’m going to be the best parrotfish EVER!” Finn shouted and crashed into me with a hug.
I laughed, letting the sound chase away the rest of my anxiety. This was what mattered. This was the one thing that wouldn’t fall apart, that I wouldn’t fail at.
The costume wasn’t perfect, but this moment was close enough.
The next morning, the sounds of hammering and drilling filled the air around the resort’s two-story Room Block One.
All our guests were installed in the still unrenovated, seafoam green Room Block Two across the pool deck, safely out of the demo zone, though not necessarily the noise.
The simple room block had proved one of the first battles Chase and I had negotiated.
He wanted to do a grand total reno and remodel, where I favored a staged, one-floor-at-a-time approach.
My idea would be less expensive and his would be safer.
In other words, our interaction on this issue encompassed our dynamic completely.
In the end, I won that particular battle, and we were proceeding with demolishing the second floor while the first waited below. And I just kept my proverbial fingers crossed that no major issues would show up on the ground floor. Otherwise, our timeline might get hosed.
I picked my way through the dust and debris of a guest room that currently looked nearly as skeletal as one of our beach bungalows, a familiar tightness settling in my chest. The pressure was back with a vengeance, and I hugged my clipboard like a lifeline.
As I approached, Chase’s voice cut through the noise like a thread of sanity. I ignored the skip of my heart and the annoyance that followed it, quickening my pace toward him and the foreman.
“Harper, over here!” The foreman in charge of the room block remodel, Joe, waved me over to where he and Chase were already standing in the bathroom.
Impatience radiated from the architect. The tangled mess of pipes around them looked about as promising as the growing acid in my stomach.
Joe had sent me a text asking me to come over ASAP, but it looked like I was the last one to arrive at the party.
“Okay, here I am. What’s up?”
Joe pointed with his chin at the bare studs behind the shower, the corners of his mouth pulled down in a scowl that came with news he knew I wouldn’t want to hear. “I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. The copper’s worse than we thought. All the corrosion’s a real mess.”
A mess. That was putting it kindly. The wall behind him was opened up to reveal a labyrinth that even I could recognize as corroded pipes. Everything I didn’t want to deal with was literally staring me in the face.
“Can you fix it?” I asked, already knowing the answer would involve more money, more time, more of everything we couldn’t afford.
“Depends on how you want us to go at it.” Joe shot a glance at Chase, and I had to work to keep my face neutral. Was he in on this with Joe already? “Option A—we replace the worst sections and patch the rest. Quickest way to keep the project going. Minimal disruption. Block Two won’t feel a thing.”