On Midnight Shores (Never Harbor #3)

1. Touching Other People’s Art

Bonnie

When I paint Rafe Cohen, I always use indigo and mauve. Cool tones. They’re the only ones that suit him.

A touch of spruce for under his eyes. Thick, effortless strokes dipped in ink for his hair. A brush of gray for the trail of smoke arrowing up from the sizzling tip of the cigarette between his tattooed fingers.

The only warm thing about him is the whiskey in his hooded eyes, but it’s not like he looks at me enough for me to feel it. All I have is the Never Harbor heat and the stifling crowd of people around me.

The Spring into Summer Festival is our annual vendor event in May to celebrate the change from frigid winter to a breezy coastal summer. One block from the rocky shore, our town’s park is crowded with white booth tents, local restaurants giving out samples, and people forgetting it’s officially sunglasses season.

It’s a sea of squinting eyes and accidentally bumping elbows. I love Never Harbor events, but I hate when our park gets this crowded. I’m just as guilty of bumping where I shouldn’t, though, because I keep staring at the last booth in the aisle.

Rafe’s lonely booth is nothing fancy. He kept the default black tablecloth. Propped canvases and art prints run along the top beside pricing signage scrawled in block-letter Sharpie. If his art wasn’t so colorful, his booth might blend into the background. Maybe that’s the point. But it’s impossible to overlook the lean, tattooed man stalking behind the table.

Rafe’s expression is always lazy, but only in the way I imagine cruel gods are, like he has too much time and even the little bit he can spare is reserved for a limited few. But Rafe isn’t lazy—not when he owns and operates an art gallery on Main—and Rafe could never be cruel.

I know because I see how he acts when nobody else is watching.

“Here for more candles?” Moira asks.

I jump, twisting around at our local chandler’s voice. I adjust my sunglasses and let out a peep of something that might be an answer. Thankfully, Moira is too busy stacking her candle jars to notice.

“Always,” I say, forcing a teasing tone and straightening my posture, as if I’d been looking at the candles the whole time.

“These are great for focused work,” she says, pointing at the parchment-scented paper. “It’s supposed to replicate that library scent you might need.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“Mags says you’ve been working real hard lately.”

My mom—Maggie Davies—is sure of it.

I tense. My smile is rigid as I joke, “I try to anyway.”

Moira leans in conspiratorially. “Is it bad I’m crossing my fingers for bad news? We sure love having you back home.”

I laugh, but that’s forced too.

Moira is joking, of course. The whole town likes to tease me about staying in town for the summer. I might laugh about it if the idea of not getting an internship didn’t send the volcanic lava of embarrassment down my spine.

“We’ll see,” I answer with a grin. I fidget with a small candle jar. “I’m still waiting on a few responses.”

One. I’m waiting on one final response to no doubt join the plethora of rejections sitting in my email.

I shouldn’t be here this summer. I should be in a big city, interning for some corporate art director who will demand I make a specific type of coffee or take notes at a meeting or, heck, do his laundry. I should be at a desk. I should be wearing business casual.

But this semester … didn’t go as planned.

“Any company would be nuts not to hire you,” Moira says as her palm pats the back of my hand. “Oh, and I have more cedar.” She shuffles to the opposite side of the booth, picking up a jar in each weathered hand. “I made sure to carry your favorite, sweetie.”

I clear my throat in embarrassment, but nobody knows why cedar is my favorite scent.

“I’ll, uh, take both,” I say.

“They’re yours for free.”

“God, Moira, no ,” I scold on a laugh. “Please let me pay you.”

I sift through my purse for loose cash—bypassing tubes of ChapStick and crunching receipts—to find enough bills to shove at her. I have no clue what dollar amount it is, but I think I spot a twenty-dollar bill. Definitely more than the cost she charges for two small jars, but Moira deserves more anyway.

She pushes my bills away. “They’re free . But only if you promise to come back to visit us for Taste of Never Harbor. Or the Music Festival. Or Kite Day!”

I laugh. “Those are some heavy terms.”

“And I know you’re good for them. Plus, you don’t have to worry about it because you’re getting an internship. I just know it,” Moira says with a wink. “Because you’re you, sweet little Davies.”

I swallow and straighten my spine. “Of course.”

Sweet little Davies.

I’m the only Davies girl in my family of six brothers. Nobody lets me forget that.

As if having a life of their own, my eyes swivel toward that booth on the end again. Always wandering back to Rafe, like an addiction. I’ve been searching for Rafe at every Never Harbor event since I was fifteen and realized tattoos and unavailable men did something funky to my mind, heart, and the confusing area between my thighs.

I’d really hoped this habit would break when I hit college. I would grow up. Broody, tattooed boys were a dime a dozen in art school.

Except they were boys, not men.

They are amateurs; he’s a master.

Rafe Cohen made a career out of his art. Beautiful, captivating illustrations, built from acrylic and oils under his watchful gaze and focused breath. I’m stumbling through design, but Rafe exhales passion. I want that—to illustrate as I see fit without practicality involved. But I couldn’t do that to Ma.

Rafe purses his lips, blowing a train of smoke out of his tent, away from Bobbi, who’s perusing his new screen prints on display. When the beaming middle-aged woman hands him a free steaming mug of licorice coffee—her coffee shop’s specialty in town—Rafe cups it between his palms. Subtly, his fingers stroke down the cardboard sleeve. A thick onyx ring, nestled at the base of his index finger, bumps over the ridges.

God, his hands. Rough fingers—well, one can imagine—that stroke charcoal over canvas. Hands that caress the gift given. Fingers that cherish.

People don’t see the twitch of a smile at the corner of his lips when they’re nice to him.

But as I’m still staring at his vacant brown eyes, they suddenly flick over and meet mine.

Oh sh ? —

I jerk my head in the opposite direction. My heart pounds. I can almost see my necklace thumping against my sternum.

I swallow, looking from the corner of my eye again.

He’s still looking.

He’s. Still. Looking.

Goose bumps prickle the back of my neck.

I take my brown bag of candles and tuck it in the corner of my arm.

Be cool.

The Never Harbor park on Main is filled with familiar faces walking between aisles of beige tent booths. Colorful bunting is strung between lampposts along the outside. After almost a month of April showers, the sun is keeping guard overhead, warming the ground and cutting the breeze coming off the ocean one block over.

I carry on through the crowd, trying to maintain my bubble of space and failing. Such is the way of Never Harbor events. Everyone is in good spirits, waving or nodding a greeting in my direction. I smile politely. I’ve known these people since I was a baby, and my red hair sets me apart from most. Everyone knows the only Davies girl.

Everyone knows everyone in Never Harbor.

Except nobody truly knows the lonesome, tattooed artist who lives above his gallery.

I slow my pace a few feet before entering Rafe’s booth. He’s distracted, writing something on a stack of papers. He’s partially hidden behind his display of propped-up illustrations, paint-stained mason jars holding flowers, and a metal business card holder.

I smooth down my hands through my hair, hitting just below my breasts. I hook my fingers through my denim belt loops to subtly adjust the fit, leaving a sliver of space between the hem and my cropped black T-shirt. Then, I finally cross the invisible threshold into his booth.

The space smells like him. Acrylic paint. Lingering smoke. Cedar.

A candle from Moira’s burns in the corner. Flowers from Florally Yours soak in water beside it. On the table is an open notepad with art names and prices. A few items are crossed out. Beside them are local names I recognize, like Bobbi, Starkey, and Noodler. Beside them is a zero, slashed through the center. The open cashbox is empty.

Did he give his paintings for free?

Rafe peers up at me through shadowed eyes, head still tilted down at the tablet in his hand. My heart thrums in my chest. I can feel it crawling up my throat.

Dad always says when he met Ma, there was an undeniable spark —like a jolt of lightning through his veins that hasn’t subsided since. He told us we should settle for nothing less. That spark is telling you to love against your better judgment. Love against all the odds.

Rafe sends skittering sparks all over my chest when he looks at me. Nobody else ever has.

I saunter from canvas to canvas. Each painting is of Never Harbor landmarks, brushed in bold strokes. Prints line bankers boxes, separated by plastic sleeves.

Finally, I clear my throat and say, “This is lovely.”

The words almost echo off the tent walls.

I swivel my eyes to his. He’s still staring.

“Did you change up your style?” I continue. “You normally paint in saturated colors. These are more muted.”

He slowly nods in affirmation, eyes still planted on me.

“Cool,” I muse. “Well, I like what you’ve done with it.” I move to the next canvas and ghost a finger over the ridges.

Finally— finally —Rafe speaks. “Do you always touch other people’s art, Bonnie?”

My hair stands on end. The sentence—my name —is slow, lingering on each syllable, like melted wax dripping from his tongue, solidifying into something tangible.

I whip my hand down to my side and smile. His eyebrows rise.

“Only when it gets the artist to talk,” I answer.

They always say confidence is a fake it till you make it trait. And I’ve been faking it hard ever since college beat it out of me.

I’m gifted an infinitesimal twitch at the corner of his lips.

Score.

From the corner of my eye, I see a small sign that reads HELP WANTED in cursive.

“Oh, are you hiring?” I ask. I sound too eager.

He follows my line of sight to the sign. With almost a growl, Rafe picks it up and hides it behind the table.

“I didn’t put that there,” he says.

“So … you’re not hiring?” I deflate, and I could cringe on the spot for making it so obvious.

Internship aside, I’d kill to work for Rafe. Though I’m honestly not sure my nerves could take spending each day with him.

Rafe crosses his arms and leans his hips against the table, continuing to stare. Capturing his undivided attention turns me to stone. He’s a mythical creature; I’m sure of it.

“No, I’m not hiring,” he says. His eyes scan from my head, down to my neck and booted feet, and back up. “Aren’t you looking for an internship anyway?” He clicks his tongue. “Out of town?”

My stomach drops. How is it the entirety of Never Harbor knows my business, including Rafe? I didn’t think I existed to him at all. I can’t tell if I’m disappointed or thrilled.

“I’ve got some bites,” I say.

“But you’re here.”

I swallow and tilt one canvas to the side. “Wow, I really like this one.”

Rafe lifts a single eyebrow and continues to blink at me.

“Is it for sale?” I ask.

He doesn’t respond. He only stares.

Clearly, I’m trying to change the conversation. He’s not having it.

Finally, I sigh. “What?”

“Well,” he drawls, “you say you have bites, but then you ask about my hiring status.”

“It was just an observation.”

“But you seemed interested.”

My face heats.

Suddenly, I feel too seen by Rafe.

It sucks that the whole town will be disappointed in me when I’m stuck here because no company wants me. But Rafe being disappointed in me will feel like the universe laughing in my face.

Since I was a child, everyone told me I had a bright future in art. At first, I believed them. My portfolio got me acceptance into the most prestigious art school in Boston. I won awards for on-campus art shows my first two years. I aced everything. But then the intro design classes happened, and my barely passing grades said I was the smallest fish in the biggest pond.

I knew graphic design would be a tough major, but I’m a tough girl. I grew up with four older brothers and two hellion younger twin brothers. But graphic design is a different type of difficult.

I don’t need the fiftieth reminder of it.

But it’s there. And I can’t shake it.

Without thinking, I clench my jaw and exhale.

“I’ve only got one response left, okay?” I say, the words quick and murmured low. “The rest are rejections. So, there. That’s why I asked.”

The words were harsher than I’d have liked.

Rafe’s crossed arms flex with tension. His eyebrows rise once more. I’ve never talked like that to anyone outside of my family.

I can feel my face reddening. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I am,” he says. “It wasn’t my place to ask.”

I blink at him. He gives a knowing nod back.

In the silence, I scramble for words.

“Anyway, are you going to the Main Street Night Crawl tomorrow? Pete’s putting it on.”

He doesn’t respond.

“It’s gonna kick off the summer,” I stammer on. “I bet Izzy will be there. She’s your friend, right? So, I assume that means you’re going?”

That jumble of words couldn’t have been more awkward if I tried.

I’m gonna go jump off Deadman’s Drop.

See ya later.

R.I.P.

Rest in Pity.

Rafe softly hums, drawing in a breath, then darting his eyes away on the exhale.

“No,” he says. “I don’t really like crowds.”

“Well, me neither,” I throw in. It sounds desperate, but it’s true.

Rafe blows air through his nose—the closest thing to a laugh I’ve ever gotten from him.

Definitely came across more desperate.

“But I’m still going,” I toss in, as if it matters.

Spoiler alert: I know it doesn’t matter to Rafe freaking Cohen.

I huff out a breath. “I mean, it could be fun. You can have fun, right?”

Slowly, Rafe gives a small smile. He even looks to the side, as if worried someone might see the annoying little twitch beside his lips.

“I can have fun,” he answers through a soft chuckle.

I can’t hide my smile practically beaming back at him.

I made him laugh ?

“Good.” I straighten my spine. “Well, me too. So, I’ll see you around then.”

“See you?” he says, but it’s almost a question.

I leave the booth faster than I can figure it out, faster than he can clarify—not that he wanted to anyway.

I’m honestly amazed I survived a conversation with him.

That I was, dare I say, actually confident?

But the moment that thought enters my head, I instantly rethink it.

Oh God, I told him about my internships.

Nobody knows I have only one internship out there pending. I ratted on myself to Rafe . He’ll probably never talk to me again.

But when I steal a glance behind me, those hooded eyes are still watching me walk away.

Oh.