Chapter Seven – Bailey #2
But all I can think about is how solid doesn’t feel the same as alive.
I used to tell myself that what happened with Crew was ancient history. A bad high school chapter I’d long since closed. But then he came back, looking like temptation and redemption in one very inconvenient package, and suddenly, the past doesn’t feel that far away.
And the worst part? I don’t even hate him for it anymore.
I tip my head back, look up at the stars peeking through the cloud cover, and whisper to no one, “You’re going to ruin me again, aren’t you?”
The wind doesn’t answer, but the lighthouse hums softly—a low, steady sound like the sea remembering something it promised to forget.
I take a long sip of tea, the cinnamon faint now but still there, haunting the edges of every thought.
Later, upstairs, the house creaks the way old houses do. I try to distract myself with busywork: folding laundry, organizing receipts, alphabetizing romance novels by author. But my brain won’t stop wandering back to the way his hand felt against my skin.
It wasn’t even a kiss. It was nothing. A touch. A second. A heartbeat.
And somehow it’s everything.
I sink onto the couch, wrap myself in the blanket, and stare at the window. From here, I can just barely see the glow of Otter Creek Farm across the bay. One warm light still burns in the distance.
It feels like he’s looking back.
“Don’t do this,” I whisper. “You know better.”
But my heart doesn’t care about rules. It’s already moving—stupid and soft and hopeful—toward the one man who’s both my biggest mistake and my favorite memory.
I close my eyes, let the sound of the waves pull me under, and pretend I don’t want what I want.
But I do. God help me, I do.
Saturday mornings in Coral Bell Cove smell like peaches and audacity.
The farmers’ market unspools along the marina in tidy rows—pop-up tents like little circus hats, strings of pennants doing their best against the wind, and everyone pretending they didn’t read the town thread speculating about the quarterback and me over breakfast.
I tell myself I’m here for apples and honey. I tell myself I’m not scanning the crowd for six foot two in a navy Henley that did dangerous things to my judgment last night. I tell myself a lot of lies before 9 a.m.
Lila appears at my elbow with a smirk. “Hydration, sarcasm, and the knowledge that Holt is selling T-shirts that say LIGHTHOUSE LOVE with your face on them.” She hands me an iced coffee like a peace offering.
I choke. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
She points. Holt waves from three stalls down, wearing his own merch. It’s…a caricature. My hair looks like a shampoo ad, and Crew’s jawline could cut rope. Daisy is in his space, swatting him with a tea towel. “He printed six,” Lila says. “We’ll burn them at noon.”
“Make it eleven.”
We weave through the booths. Everybody has opinions.
The high school principal pretends not to stare and then asks if the library can host an author talk “with…ambience.” Two teenagers in Wright jerseys take a selfie and whisper, “Do you think they’ve kissed?
” One of them sees me looking and mouths, “Sorry,” with the terrified sincerity of a child who’s seen a ghost.
I laugh because the alternative is moving to a cave.
We stop at Sawyer’s produce stand. He tips his cap. “Book witch. Heard you’re keeping dangerous company.”
“I keep excellent company,” I say. “Gala apples, please.”
He bags the apples like he’s defusing a bomb. “Remember, the town can smell a story from three coves away.”
“I hate you all.”
“You don’t,” he says easily, passing me the bag. “You love us so big it makes you mean.”
Lila plunks peaches into her basket. “Speaking of mean love, my brother is—oh.” She breaks off, smile tilting. “Never mind. He’s already here.”
I don’t turn. Don’t need to. My skin tells me before my eyes do—the little electricity that wakes up under my ribs. I face the basil instead, because I am strong and mature and definitely not rattled by a man who can make a crowd vanish just by looking at me.
“Morning, Bailey,” Crew says, voice warm enough to melt butter but somehow not my spine. I turn, and there he is: jeans, T-shirt, a baseball cap shading eyes that still find mine without asking permission. He’s holding a paper bag and a bundle of sunflowers.
“Morning,” I say, proud that my voice doesn’t crack. “Running errands for your mother?”
“Two kinds,” he says. “The ones she asked for and the ones she’ll pretend she didn’t.” He holds out a small jar. “For your tea. Local honey. For medicinal purposes.”
“Bribery,” I say, taking it anyway. Our fingers brush. One second. Maybe less. My stupid heart files it under Evidence.
Sawyer, traitor to all privacy, clears his throat like a gong. “Quarterback, you gonna help me load up the empty crates or are you just here to buy flowers and make my customers swoon?”
Crew sets his bag down and reaches for the crate. His shirt pulls just enough to be rude. Daisy, who sidles up beside me quietly, makes the face of a woman who still enjoys the art of flirtation. “Unhelpful,” I hiss.
“What?” she says.
“Haul that to the truck.” Sawyer nods at Crew. “And try not to flex about it.”
“I’m not flexing,” Crew says, flexing.
I should leave, but of course I don’t. We migrate down the row together like the tide decided we were a matched set.
Holt intercepts us and attempts to put a LIGHTHOUSE LOVE shirt over my head.
I duck. Crew takes it across the chest like a bodyguard and glares until Holt backs away, muttering, “Art isn’t appreciated in my lifetime. ”
Daisy pops up between us, flour on her cheek, a tray I missed earlier balanced like a miracle. “Taste test,” she declares. “New maple bars. Bailey first.”
I bite, and my eyes roll back in my head. “I hate you.”
“You love me,” she says, then turns to Crew with a brand-new tone that makes me narrow my eyes. “And you—how’s the shoulder? Do I need to fight Marcus for you?”
“I’m fine,” he says, and Daisy flicks the edge of his cap.
“Men are never fine,” she says. “Okay, children. Be adorable on your own time. Some of us have capitalism to perform.”
She vanishes into the crowd, leaving the two of us with one maple bar and too much air. I break it in half and hand him the bigger piece. He looks at it, then at me. “Rule two says I should ask, but…can I lick the sugar off your lip?”
Heat detonates low in my stomach. He’s teasing. He has to be. My mouth betrays me and curves. “Absolutely not.”
“Worth a try,” he says, his grin quick and private, and takes a bite like he didn’t just weaponize food.
We’re three steps from freedom when a local news camera materializes. The reporter—bangs, blazer, relentless—plants herself in our path. “Bailey! Crew! Quick question for the Harvest Minute—how does it feel to be Coral Bell Cove’s favorite love story?”
I choke, swallowing air. Crew’s jaw ticks. He schools it into a smile before I can say run.
I beat him to the mic. “Feels like a town with great pie and poor boundaries,” I say, nice as a church lady holding a knife behind her back.
The reporter blinks. Crew bites back a laugh. “We’re just here for fruit,” he says. “And honey.”
“And basil,” I add, because why not. “And discretion.”
The camera guy bites his lip like he wants to clap. The reporter pivots to a safer target (Mrs. Winthrop, who is always a quote machine), and we slip away toward the end of the pier where the wind is louder than people.
We stop by the railing. The sun glints off the bay in hard, pretty shards. For a second, the noise falls off the edge of the world.
“Thank you,” I say.
“For what?”
“For not…selling us. For not feeding the rumor mill.” I twist the honey jar in my hands. “It’s not that I’m ashamed. I just—”
“Want what’s yours to be yours,” he finishes. “Me, too.”
We stand in that soft agreement, the closest thing to quiet we’ve had all day.
A gull screams profanity in the middle distance.
A kid drops a strawberry and wails like it betrayed him personally.
The market roars back to life. I look at Crew’s hand on the rail—big, scarred, careful—and realize I’m the one who breaks our no-touch détente first.
“Crew,” I say, voice steady. “Can I—”
He looks at me like he heard the rulebook rustle. “Where?”
I slide my fingers over his wrist—light, brief—and feel the jump of his pulse under my fingertips like a secret. “Here,” I say, barely above a whisper. Two seconds, the way I allowed him last night. I let go before I change my mind. “Thank you. For the honey.”
His eyes go softer than I’m ready for. “Anytime,” he says, and it lands like a promise he didn’t mean to make out loud.
We head back into the chaos because real life always wins. Ivy texts a photo of our joined shadows with the caption: Tell me you’re not in love without telling me you’re not in love. I text back a single pumpkin emoji because I refuse to be bullied by pop royalty before lunch.
By the time I lug my bags up the lighthouse steps, the day has worn me down to the necessary parts.
I unload fruit, rinse basil, and set the honey by the kettle like a dare.
The shop bell rings twice with late stragglers.
I recommend a thriller to a man who wants to be scared and a historical to a woman who wants to be seen.
I hold a baby for a minute while a mom digs for her wallet and try not to cry when the baby sighs like the ocean.
When the door finally clicks shut, and the sign flips to CLOSED, the quiet comes back—the good kind this time.
I take the honey down from the shelf, unscrew the lid, and let the scent float up—warm, floral, stubborn.
I dip a fingertip and taste it, sweet and golden, and think about a boy who didn’t defend me and the man who is learning how.
I make tea and take my mug to the porch.
The light sweeps the water. Somewhere across the bay, in a farmhouse I know too well, another light turns on.
I don’t need to see him to know he’s there.
I feel it—the same way you know when a storm has chosen a direction, the same way you know a book is going to end happily, even when it’s still making you work for it.
“Okay,” I say to the horizon, to the rules, to myself. “Okay.”
I don’t text him.
I don’t need to.
Tomorrow is soon enough, and for the first time in a long time, soon feels like something I can live with.