Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
brADEN
The following week flowed with dangerous ease.
Tessa started showing up at the resort daily, not just for her scheduled dives but for everything else that made up the fabric of life at Sunset Siesta.
Coffees together before heading to the pier.
Quick lunches at Driftwood Grill between data collection sessions.
Late afternoons spent on the pub’s deck, sketching plans for the conservation center awareness event while I worked through inventory spreadsheets beside her.
She kicked off her sandals, tucked her feet under her, laptop balanced on her knees, and the whole scene looked so right it made my chest ache.
It was domestic in a way that scared me even as I leaned into it.
“What about a beach festival?” She tucked a strand of auburn hair behind her ear, eyes bright with the kind of enthusiasm I’d learned meant she was on to something good.
Sticky notes and color-coded tabs covered her laptop, her organizational system as methodical as any scientific experiment.
“Something that brings the community together. We could do presentations but make them casual. Interactive.”
“Food?” I asked, jotting a note in the margin of my notebook.
“Absolutely.” She shot me a grin that hit me square in the chest. “Can’t have a proper Keys event without good food.”
“Tidal Hops could sponsor. I’m planning a special release and could time it to coincide.” The idea had been percolating for a while but saying it out loud made it real.
Her eyes lit up. “A conservation-themed beer?”
I nodded, pride shooting through my chest. “Reef Saver IPA. Ten percent of proceeds go to the center.”
“Braden, that’s brilliant.” She made a note on her laptop. “The fundraiser will be huge for awareness and initial operating costs, but it’s a drop in the bucket for real startup funds—construction, equipment, staffing. The linchpin is the Florida Coastal Conservation Grant.”
I glanced at the tables around me, making sure no one needed anything. “You mentioned it before.”
She stretched, arching her back with a tired groan. “I spent hours submitting the application before the deadline. It’s very competitive, but I think we’ve got a real shot.”
“When will you hear back?”
“Soon, I hope. This foundation moves quickly. Until then, we fundraise like hell and cross our fingers.” She set her laptop aside and twisted to face me fully, a complex expression flickering across her face. “You’re really all in on this, aren’t you?”
“I told you I was.”
What I didn’t say was that every hour I spent planning this event, every dollar I earmarked for sponsorship, every conversation about timelines and logistics was like evidence I was collecting.
Evidence that she was building something permanent here.
Evidence that when she talked about “the center” and “long-term sustainability,” she wasn’t just planning a project.
She was planning a future. My brain kept changing that dangerous word. Our future.
I kept that part to myself.
Over the next week, my life and hers started intersecting like two currents merging into a single flow.
She’d stop by Tidal Hops to pick up my input on the event budget, and Maria would greet her like an old friend, pouring her a sample of the new citrus blonde.
Tessa would linger at the bar, asking Maria about her daughter’s soccer team, laughing at a story about a disastrous bake sale.
Their easy camaraderie made me want things I couldn’t let myself name.
She fit here. Into my world, into this town, into the fabric of the resort that had always been home. The dangerous part was how it was starting to feel like she’d never left at all.
One morning, I found her at the pier with Harper. My sister had a clipboard and was pointing at something on Tessa’s laptop while Finn danced around their legs, clutching a toy boat.
“Miss Tessa, look!” He held up the boat with the fierce pride of a five-year-old artist. “Uncle Chase helped me paint it.”
“It’s beautiful, Finn.” Tessa crouched down to his level, examining the boat with the same serious attention she gave her research data. The gesture was so genuine and so perfectly her that my throat tightened. “What kind of boat is it?”
“A research boat. Like yours.”
“The very best kind.”
Harper glanced up and caught my eye, giving me a slight smile.
Not teasing, not knowing. Just warm. Like Tessa being here was the most normal thing in the world, like she’d always been part of the daily rhythm of resort life.
Maybe that was the problem. It was too easy to believe this was permanent when everything about it was temporary.
Later that afternoon, Harper caught me outside the brewery, arms crossed and wearing her “resort manager dealing with a situation” expression. “Hey, I’m doing a family bonfire tomorrow night. Nothing fancy. Just burgers and beer.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you announce family bonfires? We do them all the time.”
“I wanted to check with you first, so I haven’t sent the group text yet,” she said, her expression softening. “I’m thinking of inviting Tessa.”
My stomach flopped onto the ground. “Tessa? To a family thing?”
“She’s here almost every day, Braden. She’s practically staff at this point.
It’s starting to feel weird not including her.
” She stepped closer, her voice dropping into a gentle, sisterly register.
“But I know that bringing her into the inner circle is a big step. So, I’m asking—are you okay with that?
Because if it’s going to make you miserable, I won't send the invite. You come first. Always.”
I looked at her. Harper meant it. She would exclude the lead scientist of our major partnership just to protect my feelings. The realization made my gut calm down.
“I’m not miserable,” I said, and realized it was true. “Invite her.”
Harper studied me for a beat longer, searching for any sign of hesitation. When she didn't find one, she nodded. “Good. Because honestly? She’s not just some visiting scientist anymore. She’s part of what we’re building.”
The words landed hard. Because Harper meant the conservation center, the partnership with the resort, the community initiative. But all I heard was she’s part of what we’re building. The we in that sentence included me whether Harper intended it or not.
“Yeah,” I heard myself say. “Okay. See you tonight.”
When Tessa and I showed up to the bonfire, I couldn’t pry my eyes off her.
She was in cutoff shorts and a loose white linen shirt that caught the breeze off the water, her hair down and wavy from the salt air.
She brought homemade guacamole—actual homemade, not store-bought with claims of authenticity—and a bag of tortilla chips.
Within ten minutes she was deep in conversation with Austin about tide patterns and reef structures, and my grumpy, hermit brother was actually smiling.
Not his polite being social because I have to smile, but a real one.
Eli got her into a debate about the best dive sites in the Keys, both gesturing wildly and talking over each other. Brenna asked about her research methodology with genuine curiosity. Even Ben engaged her in a conversation about environmental policy that left them both animated and laughing.
She wasn’t a guest at this bonfire. She was part of it.
I watched her laugh at one of Eli’s terrible jokes, watched her help Harper wrangle Claire and Cameron from getting too close to the fire with practiced ease, watched her fit into my family like she’d always been there.
This was exactly the life I’d been imagining in my quietest, most vulnerable moments.
But wanting it didn’t make it real. Imagining it didn’t make it a promise.
“You haven’t taken your eyes off her.” Iris appeared at my elbow, holding a glass of wine and wearing the knowing expression that made her both endearing and dangerous.
She’d become a fixture at family events since she and Austin got together, and her ability to read a room was unnervingly accurate.
“I’m observing.”
“Ahhh, so that’s what it is.” She followed my gaze to where Tessa was now crouched beside Finn, showing him something on her phone. Probably photos of fish or coral, knowing her. “She’s great, by the way.”
“I know.”
Iris shot me a sweet smile, all sunshine. “Does she know you’re in love with her?”
I nearly choked on my beer. “Jesus, Iris.”
“I’m just saying, the way you look at her is pretty obvious.” She bumped my shoulder with hers. “For what it’s worth, the way she looks at you is pretty telling too.”
I wanted to believe that. Wanted to believe the soft glances, the easy affection, the way her hand found mine when we walked down the beach after planning sessions. Wanted to believe that the hours we spent in my sheets meant the same thing to her that they did to me.
The next week brought a rhythm that felt like a relationship, but a quiet alarm clock continued ticking.
We knew the timeline. The fellowship committee wouldn’t make a move for several weeks, and her Scripps assignment was on track to wrap up on time.
Staring at the calendar wouldn't make the days go slower. The application and her project’s end were a grenade with a long fuse, and we made a mutual decision to stop watching it burn.
Instead, we poured every ounce of that restless energy into the one thing we could actually control—the beach festival.
“Have you finalized the vendor list for the event?” Tessa asked one evening, sprawled across my couch with her laptop balanced on her stomach. She’d changed out of her work clothes into one of my old Tidal Hops t-shirts, the navy blue one with the fading logo. Her bare legs draped over my lap.
“Almost. I’m waiting on confirmation from two more food trucks.” I glanced down at my notes, forcing myself to focus on logistics instead of how great she looked in my shirt.
“Perfect.” She tapped something into her spreadsheet with the efficiency of someone who’d organized a hundred events. “Kaia’s working on the educational materials. We’ll have interactive displays about reef health, water quality, and local species. Real hands-on stuff.”
“What about the kids’ activities?”
“Face painting. Temporary sea creature tattoos. A sandcastle competition.” She glanced up with a grin. “Finn’s going to lose his mind.”
“Harper’s going to owe you.”
“I like Finn. He’s a good kid.” She paused, a flicker of wistful and complicated emotion crossing her face. “Your whole family is great, Braden. You’re lucky.”
“I know.” The words came out rougher than I intended.
She was quiet for a moment before returning to her laptop.
But I caught the shift in her expression, the hint of longing that made me wonder what she was thinking.
If she’d started thinking of this place as home again.
If she looked at my family and saw herself woven into it the way I did when I looked at her.
But I didn’t ask. Because I was afraid of the answer. Afraid it would shatter the fragile, perfect thing we’d built these past few weeks.
The few nights I'd spend alone in my cottage after she’d returned to her rental, anxiety crept in like fog rolling off the Gulf.
I’d pour myself a beer and sit on the back deck, listening to the distant sound of waves and the chorus of tree frogs.
The same ritual I’d done for years, one that used to soothe me.
Now it just gave me too much time to think.
The Great Barrier Reef. I’d told her I understood it was a huge opportunity. And it was. It was the validation she’d been chasing her whole life. It wasn’t a choice between me and a job. It was a choice between me and her destiny.
How could I ever win that fight?
Before I knew it, we were in the final stages of planning the awareness event, now just a few days away. Tessa was in full project manager mode, coordinating vendors and volunteers and educational materials with the focused intensity I recognized from my own work.
“We need to run through the setup timeline one more time,” she said, spreading a hand-drawn map of the beach across my kitchen table. The map was covered in her neat handwriting, every detail labeled and color-coded. “I want to make sure we’re not missing anything.”
I leaned over her shoulder, close enough to catch the scent of her sunscreen and shampoo. “Food trucks here, information booths along this line, kids’ area here.”
“Main stage for presentations here.” She tapped the map with her pen. “I’m giving the keynote about the reef research. Then we’ll have a panel with local fishermen, Zane and Kaia, as well as some marine biology students from the university.”
“Sounds perfect.”
She glanced up at me, her expression suddenly serious in a way that made my stomach drop. “This has to work, Braden. If we can get community buy-in now, we can start fundraising for the center.”
“It will work.” I cupped her face, brushing my thumb along her cheekbone, trying to anchor both of us in the moment. “You’re brilliant, Tessa. And you care about this place. People are going to see that.”
Her eyes searched mine. “I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“That I’ll screw this up. That I’ll disappoint people.” She paused, and her next words came out quieter. “That I’ll disappoint you.”
My chest constricted so hard it hurt. “That’s not going to happen.”
She kissed me then, soft and searching, and I let myself sink into it. Let myself believe that this moment, this connection, this life we were building together was real and solid and permanent.
But even as I felt her melt against me, the clock in my heart kept ticking.
That night, after she left, I sat on my deck with a beer I didn’t drink and stared at the dark horizon. My ritual failed to soothe me. The Scripps contract was three months. She’d been here for two. That left four weeks. Twenty-eight days. The number sat in my chest like a stone.
She hadn’t said she was staying. She’d said she was thinking about it and had applied for a job halfway across the world. And the voice in the back of my head—the one that sounded suspiciously like my eighteen-year-old self—kept whispering the same refrain.
She left before. She’ll leave again.
I took a pull of the beer. I could feel myself building walls again. Small ones, subtle ones. Pulling back just a fraction when she reached for my hand. Keeping my voice light when I wanted to beg her to stay.
It was self-protection. And it was poison.
I was sabotaging my chance at happiness because I was too afraid to believe I deserved it.
Because if I held something back, maybe it wouldn’t destroy me when she walked away.
But the problem was, holding back required having something left to protect.
And I couldn’t stop myself from giving her every part of me.