Chapter 1 #2
Just once.
Just my name.
And every defense I’ve built over five years catches fire like that paper lantern I couldn’t light on my own.
Fuck.
I should leave. That’s what I do. I leave before things get complicated. Before people can use me. Before I have to watch someone I trusted become someone I can’t.
But my feet aren’t moving.
No, they’re planted in this sand like they’ve forgotten their primary function.
He’s watching me. I can feel it even though I can’t quite see his expression in the darkness.
There’s a question in the air between us.
Or maybe an accusation.
Or maybe just the simple, terrible acknowledgment that we’re both here when we shouldn’t be.
“Hi,” I finally manage. “So. This is... awkward.”
Understatement of the decade.
No, the century.
The entire five-year statute of limitations I’ve been running on.
I fold my arms defensively in front of my chest. It’s a tell. I know it’s a tell.
He probably knows it’s a tell.
But I do it anyway because my hands need something to do other than shake.
“I didn’t know you’d be here,” he says quietly.
I force a smile that he probably can’t see. “Well. Same.”
Brilliant. Really bringing your A-game to this conversation, counselor.
He’s still too close.
Or maybe not close enough.
I can’t tell anymore.
The space between us feels like it’s both expanding and contracting simultaneously, which isn’t physically possible but emotionally?
Completely accurate.
“Were you just...” I gesture vaguely toward where the woman disappeared. “On a date?”
Why are you asking that?
That’s none of your business.
You don’t get to ask that.
“No.” He says it simply. No elaboration.
“Oh.”
That’s your follow-up?
Oh?
The silence stretches again.
I should fill it.
I’m good at filling silences.
It’s literally part of my job description.
I talk for a living.
I argue and negotiate and explain complex liability structures to hostile parties.
But right now I can’t remember how words work.
He moves slightly. Not toward me. Just... a shift in weight.
Like he’s deciding something.
“How have you been?” he asks.
And somehow that question is worse than anything else he could’ve said. Because it’s normal. It’s the kind of thing you ask someone you used to know. It’s casual and polite and completely inadequate for what we were.
How have I been?
Let me consult my legal pad.
Item one: functioning.
Item two: successfully avoiding any situation where I might run into you.
Item three: apparently failing at item two.
“Fine,” I say. “Good. Working. You know. The usual.”
“Still at the firm?”
“Different firm,” I reply. “Same kind of work.”
Stop being so monosyllabic.
You sound like you’re being deposed.
Maybe I am.
“That’s good,” he says. “You always wanted to do the work the big firms thought was too small to care about.”
He remembers.
Of course he remembers.
That somehow makes this worse.
I clear my throat. “And you? Still... venture capital-ing?”
Venture capital-ing. Real smooth.
“Among other things,” he replies.
More silence.
“So,” I say, because someone has to say something. “Eleuthera. Small world.”
“Very small.” His voice is dry. The amused kind.
“I’m here for the quiet. Avoiding...” I wave vaguely. “People. Parties. You know.”
I think that’s a grin he just flashed in the dim light? “I do know.”
Of course he does.
Corin Saelinger probably invented avoiding people.
I used to think it was sexy. The mystery. The layers.
Now I just think it was a preview of how he would end up handling everything else.
You know, impossible to fully reach and all that fun stuff.
Stop it.
You’re not reopening that file.
But even as I think it, I know it’s too late. The file’s open. The evidence is right here. Standing three feet away smelling like leather and sea salt and—
“I should go,” I hear myself say.
His expression shifts. But it’s too dark, so I can’t quiet read it. “Don’t.”
It’s one word. Quiet. Not a command. Not a plea.
Just...
A request.
And somehow that’s the thing that keeps me standing there when every instinct I have is screaming at me to leave.
Before he can get too close again.
Before I have to remember why I left the first time.
“Corin—”
“Just sit with me,” he says. “Watch the fireworks. For a minute.”
A minute.
Like that’s all he’s asking for.
Like that’s a reasonable request.
Like a minute with him hasn’t historically turned into hours I can’t get back.
But I’m already lowering myself to the sand.
See?
This is why you can’t have nice things.
You have the self-preservation instincts of a paper lantern in a hurricane.
He sits beside me. Not too close. But close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him. Close enough that if I shifted slightly our shoulders would touch.
We sit in silence.
The ocean rolls in.
Rolls out.
Above us, the night transforms. More lanterns lift into the sky from the resort behind us. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. They drift upward like lazy fireflies, their paper bodies glowing warm against all that starlight.
My lawyer brain reminds me again that these are illegal in the Bahamas.
Fire hazard. Marine life endangerment. Literal beach litter waiting to happen.
I could cite the specific regulation if pressed, because apparently my brain stores that kind of information instead of useful things like how to have a normal conversation with my ex.
But the emotional side of me is actually grateful for the illegal sky decorations. Because watching glowing paper wishes float into the atmosphere is significantly less complicated than figuring out what to say to the man beside me.
So yes.
Thank you, environmental violations.
You’re doing the Lord’s work tonight.
Then the fireworks start.
They explode over the water in bursts of gold and red and blue. The resort’s midnight show. The explosions echo across the beach, rattling my chest, filling the silence.
So we just sit there, two people who once meant something to each other, watching the sky fill with light. Fireworks and lanterns and stars that don’t care about our history.
That one minute he asked for stretches into five. Then ten.
Finally the fireworks and thundering explosions stop.
But neither of us moves to leave.