CHAPTER THIRTY #2
I pressed my forehead against the cool glass and told myself that this was only the end if I allowed it to be.
The Cove wasn’t going anywhere, and neither were the people who made it special.
I just had to get over Teddy, or be a grown woman with three years of therapy under her belt and endure the future awkwardness.
I’d made a promise to a certain five-year-old that I couldn’t break.
Rhett sent me a sidelong glance. “You still doing okay?”
“Peachy,” I lied.
The hum of the tires was hypnotic, nearly lulling me into a midmorning nap, until a flash of yellow caught the corner of my eye.
A Jeep.
My heart fluttered.
It pulled alongside us, tires kicking up water from the shoulder. Same dented fender, same handmade wooden dice hanging from the mirror. Teddy’s Jeep.
“What the—” Rhett swore under his breath as the Jeep honked twice, then sped up to cut in front of us. “Is that—”
“Yes!” I bolted upright. “Pull over!”
We jerked onto the shoulder. Teddy fishtailed slightly before stopping a few yards ahead, hazard lights blinking. He jumped out into the rain—hair damp, flannel clinging to his shoulders, absolutely furious.
Shoving my door open, I landed straight into a puddle and began shouting. “You can’t just—”
“Oh, I can,” he called over the rain. “Because apparently you thought sneaking off without saying goodbye was fine?”
I met him halfway between the cars, traffic roaring beside us. The downpour swallowed our voices—rain hammering against the hoods, the hiss of tires slicing puddles, the world reduced to water and breath and the pulse rushing in my ears.
“What exactly did you expect?” I yelled over the noise.
“A note? A conversation? I don’t know, Margot, but I had to hear the news from Dot, of all people!”
I blinked. “You drove an hour and a half to yell at me about this?”
He ran a hand through his hair, frustration flickering across his face as the anger melted away. “You think that’s what this is?”
“What else could it be?”
He took another step toward me, close enough that I could see the raindrop fall from his hair and trail down his cheek. “You want the truth? The real one?”
I didn’t answer.
“I saw a photo,” he said softly. “Of you. The Summer’s End Festival—the Port Camden paper ran a piece about Bluebell Cove bouncing back after the storm.
You were standing with Georgie unloading sandbags, and you looked—” He paused, breath catching.
“You looked happy. I don’t know why, but it hit me like a gut punch.
Nothing I found on the road was anything close to how Bluebell Cove feels.
I kept thinking about it, over and over, about this place—then the assignment came up, and I thought… well, I didn’t think.”
I wanted to scoff. I wanted to laugh. But the words didn’t come. The conviction in his tone cracked my defenses—not all at once, but enough that the anger started leaking out, replaced by something softer and far more dangerous.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” I whispered.
“Because I didn’t want you to think I came back because of you.”
A humorless laugh escaped me. “Congratulations, that worked out great.”
The sound of it made him step closer. Fearless, just like always.
“I hurt you the last time, Margot. I know I did. And I didn’t want to risk it again without knowing for sure.” He let out a ragged breath. “I guess I failed at that too.”
The silence between us stretched, fragile as glass.
Then, quietly, he added, “You were right, you know. About me. I do chase things. Adventure, stories, whatever. But I’ve never stopped circling back here. Back to you.”
I hated how much I wanted to believe him. How much I wanted to take his words and fold it into the hollow spaces of my chest. I met his eyes, and the air between us shifted. The rain hit harder. My throat burned with everything I refused to say just yet.
“What about Ivy?” I whispered without thinking.
Teddy cocked his head and raised both eyebrows. “Ivy? My cousin?”
“No, Ivy your ex-girl—” I paused, registering the lopsided grin. “Your… cousin.”
The woman I spent years secretly envying was his cousin.
“Is that seriously why you left without saying anything?” he asked, gracious enough not to laugh in my face.
I shook my head and turned away just as the rain intensified. Rhett peered at me from inside his truck, studying each movement like my personal bodyguard. My shoes were soaked and half dipped in mud, my hair dripped into my eyes and on my already sodden clothes, but I was too flushed to be cold.
For one split second, I thought about getting in Rhett’s truck, flying to New York, pretending the last ten minutes never happened. But then Teddy murmured my name again, quiet and certain, and all the reasons not to let him in fell away.
He said his peace. If I didn’t do the same, I might regret it for the rest of my life.
“You’re dangerous. Do you know that?” My voice rose over the sound of rushing tires. “You terrify me, Teddy. Because you make me want things I told myself I didn’t need anymore. And I’m—” The words began to wobble. “I’m the one who’ll get hurt when you move onto the next big thing.”
Something hot mingled with the raindrops on my face. Teddy’s hand darted out to catch it. When his thumb brushed my cheek, it left a trail of heat against skin that had gone numb from the rain.
“It seems I wasn’t clear,” he said, the solemnity in his expression making me lean in.
“I thought I was coming back for Bluebell Cove, for the home I’d been missing.
Then you hit me like a freight train, with your eyerolls and that softness you try so hard to hide.
And I realized it wasn’t the town I missed. It was you. It’s always been you.”
That pesky spark in my chest rattled against my ribcage until it exploded into a wildfire. I didn’t fight the stupid smile that stretched across my mouth as I replied, “Why do you do this to me? Every time I think I’ve finally moved on, you show up and make me forget how to breathe.”
He stepped closer, his hand brushing mine. “Maybe because we have unfinished business.”
The words hung there, shimmering and terrifying.
“Teddy…” I warned, though my voice had lost its edge.
He tilted his head, eyes searching mine. “Say the word, Margot, and I’ll stop.”
I didn’t say it.
He reached up, fingers tucking hair behind my ear. The touch was tentative, reverent.
“I never stopped thinking about you,” he said—the same words he’d spoken on the field, only quieter now, stripped bare. “Not for a single day.”
My breath hitched. “You’re going to ruin me.”
“I think we already ruined each other,” he murmured. “And maybe that’s what makes this thing so permanent.”
He took another step forward. “I’m tired of pretending this doesn’t matter. You can go—get on that plane, chase whatever’s waiting for you—but I had to say it first. I had to tell you what you already know.”
The rain softened everything—the traffic, the sky, the ache in my chest.
“So, what are you saying?” I asked.
“I’m saying I’m going to be selfish this time.” His smile turned crooked, reckless. “I’m saying I’m in love with you, and maybe I always have been. And if there’s even a chance you feel the same, stay. Not for me—for us.”
“I changed my ticket,” I whispered.
His brow furrowed. “What?”
“I made it round-trip.” My voice wavered, but I didn’t look away. “Because I realized I could survive the heartbreak. What I couldn’t survive was leaving again—leaving the people I love, the place that made me. The mess, the hurt—it’s all worth it. They’re worth it.”
A slow smile curved his mouth. “Maybe I could be worth it, too.”
I laughed—a shaky, breathless sound. “You already are, Teddy. You always have been.”
As if it all melted away, I couldn’t hear anything but his breathing. One beat. Then another. His fingers found mine and brushed over the inside of my wrist.
The world went still.
I didn’t think. I stepped forward, closing the distance, and grabbed the front of his soaked flannel. For a half-beat, we froze like that, searching each other’s eyes as his warmth seeped through my clothes and his arms pulled me impossibly closer.
It wasn’t the fairytale kind of kiss—it left rain in my mouth and tears on my cheeks, the kind that meant I was still alive enough to feel it.
Maybe love wasn’t supposed to be clean or easy.
Maybe it was supposed to be the messy kind—soaked-through and imperfect and still, somehow, exactly what I needed.