Chapter 1
Willa had forgotten about humidity.
Well, not forgotten about it, but she just never really thought much about humidity living in the temperate state of California. But it was hot, and so fucking humid. She felt damp with sweat ever since her plane landed in Pensacola. She’d rolled down the windows in her Uber, but it did little to help.
After getting over the initial shock of the Leo incident—and releasing throaty sobs into her pillow for what felt like hours—Willa came up with a plan.
She was going to get a fresh start somewhere familiar: her childhood home on Perdido Bay.
She’d spent a few days replaying every moment of her time with Leo—the good and the bad. Enough to realize that she’d never be able to escape the memories of him in California.
Once she promised Charlie she’d find a good therapist, her best friend helped her get out the door. The next week was a blur, which was how Willa liked it.
Between figuring out someone to sublease the room in her apartment with Charlie (luckily, a new instructor at their yoga studio jumped at the opportunity), packing up all her stuff (all of it fit into two suitcases and eleven boxes), figuring out what to get rid of and what to ship to her new address (a shockingly involved process on both fronts), resigning from her job at the yoga studio (they were, unsurprisingly, very zen about the whole thing), and planning her travel out to Alabama (a first class, one way ticket), she barely had time to wallow in her heartbreak and shame.
Until she found herself sitting in seat 2A, drinking a bloody mary and staring out the window, overthinking every moment of their relationship in her head. The six-and-a-half hour trip felt endless, and no amount of movies could make her stop thinking about it.
How she was played a fool.
How he broke her heart.
How much she hated herself for it.
Even now, with the car window open and the salty sea air wafting through her hair, she was replaying a recent conversation she’d had with Leo.
It was their two year anniversary, and he’d scheduled them a sunset dinner cruise. He’d gifted her a gold necklace with a ginormous ruby in the center. She’d gifted him a Giants sweatshirt he’d been eyeballing—and some expensive and complex lingerie she showed off later that night.
“Can you believe it’s been two years since you fell on your ass after attempting to do a headstand?” Willa joked, her eyes crinkling with restrained laughter as she recalled how they first met.
“Hey, I can do a handstand just fine, so I really thought I’d be able to do it,” Leo grimaced. “Clearly, I was very wrong, but it worked out for me, didn’t it?”
She bit her lip.
“It worked out for both of us,” she replied.
He grabbed her hand and gently kissed it.
This was it. The moment Willa had been waiting for to broach a topic that made her… well, jittery as hell. She considered herself a pretty self-assured, confident person. Being nervous? It made her uneasy. It made her feel like she didn’t know herself.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” she started.
Leo looked at her expectantly.
“Yes?” he grinned wickedly at her.
“Two years.”
“We’ve established that,” he continued smirking.
“That’s a long time.”
“Indeed.”
“So I think it’s time that we take a step forward. A big one. A good one.”
He raised his eyebrows, a smile still playing on his lips as he left room for her to complete her thought.
“Do you want to move in together?” she asked.
Willa held her breath as his smile dropped. At the time, she just thought he was caught off guard. She was slightly annoyed that he seemed so shocked by the turn of the conversation because, like she’d prefaced, they’d been together for two years. She wasn’t trying to get married and have babies anytime soon.
So why was he so surprised that she would want to move in together? She thought maybe it was just a guy thing, maybe he was just a little dense.
Of course, hindsight is 20/20.
She knew now that he was trying to figure out how to keep the relationship going without doing anything serious. His apartment—the one they usually stayed at—must’ve been a secret one his wife didn’t know about.
“Move in together?” Leo repeated after a few moments of silence.
“I mean, don’t you think that’s the natural next step?” Willa said. “Then we’d get to spend more time together, and it wouldn’t be so hard with you traveling for work all the time.”
Leo ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. Wheels were turning in his brain, and he looked like he’d just worked an 18-hour day.
“I guess…,” Leo exhaled. “Yeah, you’re right. That is the natural next step.”
Willa beamed. As she reflected, though, she realized Leo never enthusiastically agreed to move in with her. He just admitted that that was where the relationship ought to go.
“So, you’re in?” she asked.
He gave her a too-big smile, one that she thought was overcompensating for his original response at the time, but now knew he was just trying to figure out his next move.
“I’m in.”
Willa squealed, leaned across the table, and kissed him on the cheek.
“Soooo,” she drew out the word. “Wanna start apartment hunting next week?”
“You sure are anxious to get this show on the road,” Leo quipped.
She smirked at him.
“Of course I am,” she said, running a finger down his muscular forearm.
“Apartment hunting next week sounds great,” he said.
They never got around to apartment hunting, though. It was only a few days later that she saw him at Chadwick’s, and she hadn’t heard from him since. She blocked his number and his email, and he hadn’t bothered to show up at her apartment.
Part of her was a little disappointed that he hadn’t tried harder to get an audience with her and explain himself, but then she just got mad at herself for even wanting anything from him anymore.
She shook her head, as if that could get Leo off her brain.
Distractions—that’s what she needed.
But this humidity? She could do without that distraction.
She thanked every god she could think of as the car pulled into the driveway.
“Thank you,” Willa said to her driver as he put the car in park.
“No problem,” he grunted, getting out of the car and unloading her luggage before she’d even fully opened the door.
She grabbed the handles of both of her rolling suitcases and pulled them up the front staircase. The humidity made her hands slick, and she accidentally dropped one.
“Well,” she huffed, speaking to nobody in particular, “I guess I’ll come back for that one.”
She pulled the other suitcase up the porch stairs, then looked under one of the potted plants for the key. She unlocked the door and let herself in, breathing in the A/C and the smell of her family home.
It had been a few years since she’d been back. This was the place where she’d grown up. She learned everything here: how to walk, how to ride a bike, how to read, how to cook, and of course, how to fish. Willa would bet that she learned how to fish before doing anything else. There were pictures of her from old photo albums where she was holding training fishing rods when she was still in diapers.
Sometimes, Willa thought her upbringing on the water was what drew her to yoga. The steady ebb and flow of the waves was like a vinyasa yoga practice, and the self-reliance to fish for her own lunch made her respect what her body was capable of.
Her grandparents died several years ago, giving her fewer reasons to come back. This was their home, the one she came to on most weekends, the one she visited for Thanksgivings and Christmases. They left it to the family, and she and her cousins and aunts and uncles all shared it. Nobody had stayed in it for at least six months, but a cleaning crew came regularly to make sure everything was taken care of.
Willa had emailed them all last week to see if they’d all be okay with her moving in. None of them had any issue with it; after all, the house had ten bedrooms. If they wanted to come visit, they could still do that, and they could avoid Willa if they really wanted to, given the size of the house.
She left the respite of the A/C for a moment to bring in her other suitcase, then dropped them in the room that was always hers. It was simple: just a four-poster bed, a small armchair, a dresser, and a closet filled with trinkets from her grandparents’ travels. She’d unpack and settle in later.
Right now, all she wanted was to breathe in the sea air. She stepped out on the back porch and closed her eyes, salty ocean wind kissing her cheeks, bits of sunlight peeking through the trees, and grinned.
This was the right decision. Coming home, reconnecting to her roots, getting away from all the things that constantly reminded her of Leo. She slipped off her shoes and walked barefoot along the grassy backyard and onto the wharf that had been rebuilt after the most recent hurricane. She took in the view of the hazel bay, the freshwater-saltwater mix, and felt warmth enclose her heart.
Suddenly, she saw a few fish jump playfully over the waves.
Mullet.
She smiled to herself, a decision made. She set off to check for supplies, then to head to the bait shop in the old Jeep Wrangler her family always kept here.
Willa was going fishing tonight.