Chapter 19 Austin
NINETEEN
AUSTIN
Golden sunlight slid in through the kitchen window, touching the lip of the coffee mug in my hand.
The scent of dark roast and toast drifted through the air, soft and anchoring.
I went through the motions—cracking eggs, buttering toast, flipping bacon in the pan—not because anyone expected me to, but because it felt good.
Real. Grounded in something that wasn’t performance or duty.
Behind me, I heard the floorboards creak—slow and soft like bare feet on old wood. I turned just enough to catch a glimpse of her.
Selene stood in the doorway, her hair still damp and pulled into a loose braid that hung over one shoulder.
One of her sleeves was slipping off, exposing a patch of skin just beneath her collarbone.
She wore my worn-in T-shirt—washed a hundred times—and a pair of sleep shorts that made my mouth go dry.
Her eyes met mine, still heavy with sleep but softer around the edges.
We’d kept each other awake half the night, but it had been more than worth it.
“Something smells amazing,” she said, voice husky from the morning and lack of sleep.
I cleared my throat and gestured toward the table. “Coffee’s fresh. Sit. I’ve got this.”
She drifted in without a word, pulled out a chair, and curled one leg beneath her as she settled in.
The light caught the edge of her cheekbone, casting a soft glow across her face.
I plated her food, poured a second cup of coffee, and set it down in front of her before taking the seat across the table.
For a few minutes, neither of us spoke.
We just ate and breathed. It was a silence that wasn’t begging to be filled—just existing, like we’d slipped into some secret margin between real life and something slower and sweeter.
“I forgot how nice the quiet could be,” Selene said eventually, slathering the edge of her toast with jelly. “No cartoons, no glitter explosions. No one asking me to watch them do a cartwheel.”
“You wanna watch me do a cartwheel?” I smiled, but I saw the flicker of guilt that crossed her face. It was like a tug-of-war between needing space and missing your child before they even walked out the door.
“She’ll be back tomorrow,” I said gently. “You’re allowed to enjoy the in-between.”
Selene looked down at her plate, then back at me. “How old are you again?”
I scoffed, knowing she already knew the answer to that question and hating that she questioned our eight-year age gap. “Forty-eight,” I answered with a teasing grin. “Why? Are you grossed out that I’m so old?”
She shook her head with a smile. “You’re dangerously good at knowing exactly what to say.”
“It’s a gift,” I said with a shrug.
She reached for her coffee, wrapping both hands around the mug, and I let myself imagine mornings like this as a regular thing. Not a fluke. Not a borrowed moment between what was and what could be.
Just this.
Her. Me. The low hum of something beginning.
I didn’t know what to call it yet, but it felt like the start of something that mattered.
“Can I ask you something?” she finally said, looking at me over the rim of her mug with her pretty eyes narrowed into slits. The inquisition was coming, so I braced for it.
I nodded. “Always.”
She tucked her tongue against her cheek, like she wasn’t exactly sure how to ask whatever it was she wanted to know. “Do you ever miss it?”
I frowned slightly. “Miss what?”
She glanced out the window, squinting at the stretch of blue beyond the trees. “The fast life. Being an untethered bachelor. Meeting whoever you want.”
I stared at her as she barreled on. “It’s just that I don’t really see you go out—on dates or otherwise. You could be doing something big, something exciting, and instead you’re . . . here. Making me bacon.”
There was no bite in her words. Just quiet curiosity.
Maybe even a little surprise that I’d chosen to spend my time with an incredible woman like her rather than waste my nights on someone whose name I wouldn’t remember in the morning.
It was almost as though she couldn’t quite believe someone like me had landed here, in her kitchen, without trying to run.
“At first I thought I’d hate it in Star Harbor,” I admitted. “But I wanted to get to know my brother, so I stuck it out.” I chuckled and dragged a hand across the back of my neck. “There’s just something about this place—the people, the ghost story, they get their hooks in you and don’t let go.”
I let that hang in the air, unsaid things tugging into a knot in my chest.
“But here”—I reached for her hand, brushing my thumb across her knuckles—“it feels like more than just Brody tying me to Star Harbor.”
Selene stared at me, her expression unreadable. Then she slowly turned her hand, palm to palm, letting our fingers slot together. A breeze moved through the screen door, lifting the hem of the dish towel hanging from the oven handle.
The whole world felt quiet at that moment.
Not empty.
Just . . . waiting.
We ended up on the floor.
Not in a tangled, half-naked kind of way—but the kind that came from too many pages spread across the table and nowhere else to set them.
Selene had pulled out a box of old ledgers and archival files after breakfast, mentioning the need to spend time catching up on a few restoration projects while Winnie was away.
We sat cross-legged in a patch of sun on the worn rug in her living room, knees brushing, shoulders bumping as we flipped through delicate, century-old pages and penciled notes.
A playlist played softly in the background—old-school crooners again, like a private joke we were still crafting.
My back was against the couch. Her foot was tucked under my thigh.
She held what looked like a diary across both knees, one hand gliding carefully along the margin of a faded page. Her fingers paused over a line written in cursive so soft it almost disappeared into the yellowing paper.
“She wrote this,” Selene murmured, voice reverent. “Listen: ‘The sea was calm tonight. I pressed a flower in the pages for him. I wonder if he will ever know.’”
She looked up at me, eyes wide, luminous. “Can you imagine being so full of hope it spills onto the page like that? A pressed flower? A whole ocean between you and someone you might never see again?”
I didn’t have an answer.
Not one I could say without telling her that I was beginning to understand that kind of hope. That I was starting to feel it bloom, quietly, when she looked at me like this. Like maybe I was good enough to not fuck this up.
She turned the page slowly, careful not to tear the edge.
“She wrote notes all through this. Tiny details—weather, visitors, little asides about which neighbor was stealing sugar from the pantry.” Selene smiled faintly.
“You really love the work you do, don’t you?” I asked, studying her face as she turned another page.
Her eyes met mine. “It was a time when women kept records of things no one else thought to write down. They weren’t just wives or daughters. They were historians. They mattered.”
I studied the pages most people would deem trash. Selene coveted each scrap of paper like it was her duty to not allow their words to be lost in time. I couldn’t recall loving anything with such delicate reverence as Selene loved old words.
Her delicate voice broke my wandering train of thought. “You’re not what I expected,” she said quietly, not looking at me.
That caught me off guard. “No?”
She shook her head, still reading. “I thought maybe you were just playing house. Like this was a sabbatical or a soft landing after something harder.”
I tilted my head, unsure whether to be offended or flattered. “And now?” I asked.
Selene finally glanced at me. Her expression softened. “Now I think you might be dangerous.”
I leaned in slightly, amused. “Dangerous?”
“Yes.” Her lips quirked. “Dangerous in a way that sneaks up on you and makes you believe in things you swore you’d outgrown.”
My heart kicked once. Then again. “Things like multiple orgasms?” I prowled toward her as I teased and was rewarded with the warmth of her laughter.
Selene leaned back until I was braced above her.
Her hazel eyes shone up at me as her smile widened.
A low growl formed in my throat, and my cock thickened.
I eased her legs apart, then pressed into her, my mouth finding the delicate curve of her neck.
Her back arched and she hummed, turning her head to allow me more access to her soft skin.
My tongue smoothed over her silken flesh, my body begging for more.
With her head turned, something caught her eye.
Instead of reaching for me, she stretched out her arm toward the stacks of old photographs and ledgers.
Her fingers gently pinched the edge of the photograph, tugging it free from beneath a brittle stack of pages.
The paper made a crackling sound as it gave way—like it hadn’t been touched in decades.
I pushed up on one elbow, watching her expression shift from amusement to something else entirely. The room held a stillness that suggested the air had changed around us, even though nothing moved.
The photo was warped slightly at the corners, the finish dulled with age.
Sepia tones bled into one another, edges feathered by time.
It had once been carefully framed, probably, or tucked into a book for safekeeping.
Now it bore the signs of being forgotten—creased lines, water-stained edges, and a faint scent of mildew that clung to the paper like a memory.