Epilogue - Sol
The Sirona didn’t sink. A salvage crew found her three weeks after the storm and towed her in.
She was more wrecked than me. Still halfway lost, and even with my dad’s terrible life choices off my plate for a while, I couldn’t see a path where I’d ever have the money to fix her.
Then Oscar told me he’d renewed an insurance policy I’d thought had lapsed. That he’d used the extra cash I’d been slipping him to add more protection, and by some godly miracle, not only was the Sirona covered, but her loss of earnings were too.
I didn’t even need the money Jack had hoarded for me.
Not with the piles of crumpled cash Saint Malone brought me one night when I was searching for storms and terrors in the calmest waters I’d ever seen—every penny I’d paid the Kings over the years.
But it took months to rebuild her. Weeks of whining grinders and welders spitting sparks well into the night.
Days and days of sanding and sealing new boards.
Long nights of painting over scars that would always be there if you knew where to look.
Story of our lives.
All of us.
And now it’s summer and she floats—she sails—and the engine purrs under my boots as she cruises though an easy swell, cutting through the water into a breeze that tastes like salt and diesel, humming a song to the spinning gulls.
She’s happy to be back, I feel it. I breathe it in. I face the horizon with no fear. I’m happy too.
And I’m not alone.
I turn as a shadow moves behind me.
Jack.
He leans against the rail as if he’s always been there. As if this isn’t the first time he’s been to sea with me since before he got hurt.
Wind in his hair.
Sun in his eyes and glinting off the pewter at his wrist.
One hand wrapped around the mug of fake coffee we’re sharing, the other already reaching for me. “Is it everything you dreamed?”
“How do you know I’ve been dreaming of this?”
He smiles. “I sleep next to you every night and old age has you talking in your sleep.”
“We’re the same age.”
“Never said I was young.”
I snort as Jack kisses my temple. Because he is young. We both are. We’ve just lived a lot, is all.
Jack brings the mug to my lips.
I take a sip.
Then he sets it aside, winds his arms around me, and holds my gaze with so much love and desire in those Gallagher greens, it’s hard to believe I didn’t die in that storm and land myself in paradise.
We’re together.
Best friends. Lovers. Soulmates.
Gods, maybe I am asleep, but even my dirtiest dreams are no match for the heat rising in me as Jack kisses me.
He loves kissing. Still loves blowing me more than he’s bothered about his own pleasure.
And as the sea rolls gently beneath us, steady and blue, I’m here for all of it.
I’m giddy with the sheer joy flowing through me. Which is why it takes me a second to read Jack as his rough palm slides to the back of my head and holds me in place as he deepens the kiss, narrowing my world to the taste of coffee and him. As he pulls back and rests his forehead to mine. “Sol.”
There’s so much weight in that gravelled murmur. So much promise.
There’s no air in my laugh, though. “You want to mess around on deck?”
“I want to fuck you.”
Damn. I toss a pointed glance at the ocean slipping past us and the froth in our wake.
Jack shrugs. “So stop her.”
A suggestion, not an order. But it feels like one, and sharper heat sparks in my blood. “You’re trouble, Gallagher.”
“Aye.”
He doesn’t deny it. How can he when he’s as aware as I am that he’s a filthy git? A surprise to us both once we found the time and space to truly explore the attraction we’d fumbled all these years, but I’m here for that too.
I steal a glance at the open water—the wide sweep of blue with nothing and no one in sight. Tide’s easy. Wind light. Could it be more perfect?
Doubt it.
I slip from his arms long enough to ease the throttle back and cut the engine. Quiet cocoons us as I drop anchor, and the Sirona settles, rocking in the soft swell, safe and waiting for when I need her again.
Jack’s waiting on me too, leaning against the cabin door, as close as he ever gets to a smirk on his face. “Nicely done.”
“Yeah? You gonna be nice too, love?”
“Come here and find out.”
I’m so drawn to Jack, always have been, and I go to him as easily as a tide finds the moon.
Let him tug me below deck to the bed in the cabin twice the size of the old one.
And let me tell you, any worries I had about Jack getting motion sickness on the water find themselves fast obliterated by the way he crowds me down onto the mattress as if he’s been waiting his whole life to take me apart to the rhythm of the ocean.
The Sirona rocks gently on her anchor, the soft slap of water filtering through the cabin like a pulse.
I’m on my back.
Jack braces himself over me and it’s how we fuck most often.
How we fit. But he has a different glint in his eye today and I don’t think too hard about it.
Neither of us do—we let instinct guide us, and I find myself over him, taking him inside my body, thankful to every god I’ve ever learned about that I’m not tired and broken anymore.
That I’m happy and free, and my best friend loves me as much as I love him.