Chapter Fifteen – Crew
The sound it makes when it hits the floor is how I feel most mornings lately—solid but slightly cracked. I’d been waiting to hear from Marcus for a few days after spending a couple of hours in Norfolk getting tests done on my shoulder. A necessary evil in the process of being the best I can be.
Marcus: MRI cleared. You’re good to start throwing again.
I stare at the screen, then out the window where the fields are still wrapped in fog. It should feel like good news. It does, a little. Mostly, it feels like a coin flipping in slow motion.
I toss back the covers, stretch until my shoulder protests, and mutter to the ceiling, “Guess we’re back.”
The ceiling, being a professional at ignoring my drama, offers no comment.
By eight, I’m down on the far end of Otter Creek Farm with Rowan. He’s on the tractor. I’m supposed to be helping, but end up leaning against the fence, coffee in hand, pretending deep thought instead of actual work.
“Marcus said I’m cleared,” I tell him.
He whistles low. “Hell of a thing. Thought you’d be happier.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s complicated.”
He cuts the engine, wipes his forehead, and gives me that brotherly look that means don’t make me drag it out of you. “Complicated like you don’t wanna go back?”
“Complicated like I don’t know what going back means anymore.”
Rowan squints. “Ah. Complicated like a woman.”
I laugh. “You’ve been talking to Ivy.”
“Maybe. She says your brain’s about as steady as wet paint.”
“She’s not wrong.”
He grins. “Then stop watching it dry and do something.”
Doing something turns out to mean fixing the railing outside the bookstore. Again.
Bailey claims it’s the sea air. I suspect it’s fate’s way of giving me excuses to hover.
She’s already open when I get there, broom in hand, hair in a braid that makes concentration look better than any runway model ever could.
“You’re early,” she says.
“You say that like it’s a crime.”
“For you, it’s suspicious.”
“Fair.”
I hold up the new bracket. “Figured we’d give this corner a fighting chance.”
She eyes it. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch. Just felt like fixing something that isn’t me for once.”
Her mouth twitches. “That’s dark.”
“Occupational hazard.”
We work in easy silence. Or maybe not easy—more like aware. Every brush of her shoulder feels like a sentence we’ll have to finish later.
When I stand to test the railing, she’s right beside me, closer than she probably meant to be. The scent of coffee and cinnamon clings to her. My hand brushes her hip when I reach for the drill, and her breath catches, small but sharp.
I should step back. I don’t.
“Crew…”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you already know.”
She’s not wrong. I’ve known for years. I just didn’t know what to do with it.
Later, while she’s helping a tourist choose romance novels “that don’t end in trauma,” I wander the shop pretending to browse. My brain’s doing a play-by-play commentary on how easy she makes it look—building peace out of paper and dust jackets.
When she laughs, I feel it in the spot my shoulder used to hurt. When she bites her lip to hide a smile, my pulse trips like it’s late for practice.
I’m doomed, basically.
At lunch, I head to the pier where Lila sits cross-legged with her pen, scribbling in a notebook that looks more like therapy than journaling.
“You look serious,” I say.
“Working on something.” She hums to herself and tilts her head. “Also hiding from Dean. He thinks I’m napping.”
“You’re a menace.”
“Runs in the family.”
I sit beside her, legs dangling over the edge. “How’s Bailey holding up?”
“She’s pretending not to care that the entire town ships you harder than I ship my petri dishes.”
“Noted.”
Lila smirks. “She’s good for you, you know. Even with her being one of my best friends.”
“Pretty sure everyone thinks that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“I’m trying not to screw it up.”
“Then stop trying so hard.” She runs a hand through her hair, twisting the ends just like she did when she was younger. “Just show up. That’s all she’s ever needed.”
I look out over the water where the lighthouse gleams in the distance, its white tower cutting through the mist like it’s showing me where to aim.
“Showing up’s easy,” I say quietly. “Staying might not be.”
“Then make it be,” Lila says. “You’re Crew Wright. You turn impossible plays into touchdowns for fun.”
“Yeah,” I murmur. “But this time, I want more than a win.”
By sunset, I find myself back at the lighthouse with takeout and no plan.
Bailey opens the door wearing paint-flecked jeans and a look that says she hasn’t stopped thinking either.
“Hungry?” I ask.
“You bribed me with Thai food?”
“It’s my love language.”
“Your what?”
“Spicy noodles and poor emotional timing.”
When she laughs and lets me in, the world rights itself just a little.
Dinner turns into talking. Talking turns into her sitting on the counter while I rinse dishes.
At one point, she reaches out to wipe sauce from my cheek with her thumb and doesn’t move it fast enough.
Our eyes meet.
My hand lands on her thigh, light as a question.
The air between us isn’t air anymore. It’s possibility.
She swallows hard. “Is this still a bad idea?”
I whisper, “Probably.”
Neither of us moves for a long, loaded heartbeat. Then she slides off the counter, her bare feet landing softly on the tile, and whispers, “Tomorrow.”
It’s the third time she’s said it, and somehow it hurts worse every time.
That night, lying in bed, I can still feel the warmth of her skin under my hand.
Marcus’s text about throwing again stares back from my phone, but all I can see is her standing in her doorway, light haloing her like she was made to be the thing I came home to.
And that’s when I know I’m in trouble.
Because for the first time in my life, I want something I can’t win by force.
Bailey Hart isn’t a game. She’s the whole damn season.
And I’m still learning how to play it right.
The following morning starts with trepidation and caffeine.
Mostly caffeine.
I’m halfway through my first mug when Rowan strolls in, kicks the kitchen chair like it owes him rent, and drops into it with a groan. “You look like a man with something on his mind,” he says, stealing my toast.
“I have many somethings,” I say. “All equally unhelpful.”
He chews. “So… Bailey.”
“Do we really have to do this before breakfast number two?”
“Yes.”
I sigh. “She’s—”
“Different?” he offers.
“Yeah. And not in the cliché way. Just… grounded. Real.”
Rowan grins. “You mean she calls you out on your crap, and you like it?”
“Something like that.”
He nudges my coffee mug closer. “Then you’re screwed, brother.
Because you only talk like this when it’s not a fling.
” I know he’s referring to the PR relationship I had with his current wife, Ivy, a couple of years back.
We were friends and nothing more, but it took a while to convince my brother of that.
“I know.”
“Does she?”
I glance out the window where the morning fog is still dragging its feet over the bay. “She knows enough. The rest… I think she’s still deciding.”
“Then don’t make her decide alone.”
Rowan stands, pats my shoulder, and leaves me with the kind of advice that sounds easy until you try living it.
By midmorning, I’m pacing outside A Page in Time like a guy auditioning for the role of “emotionally conflicted golden retriever.”
Bailey’s in the window, rearranging a stack of hardcover releases. She looks content in that quiet, dangerous way that makes you want to stay forever just to watch her exist.
I knock on the glass. She glances up, smiles, and gestures for me to come in.
“Good morning,” she says.
“Define ‘good’.”
“You look like you wrestled a decision and lost.”
“I did.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
She quirks a brow. “Then why are you here?”
“Because I don’t know how to not be.”
Her expression softens—barely—but it’s enough to pull oxygen back into my lungs.
“Help me unpack these?” she asks, sliding a box cutter across the counter.
It’s a small act of mercy, but I take it.
We fall into rhythm. She opens boxes, and I stack. She teases me for sorting romance alphabetically by hotness of cover models, and I tell her I’m a man of visual priorities. She tries to look unimpressed but bites back a smile that betrays her.
Somewhere between unpacking and shelving, I find myself watching her. The way she hums under her breath. The way she presses her lips together when concentrating. The way she steadies herself with one hand on the shelf, fingers tapping in rhythm like her body has its own metronome.
It’s domestic and dangerous all at once.
“Stop staring,” she murmurs without looking up.
“Didn’t realize I was.”
“You were.”
“Can you blame me?”
She turns, mock glare in place, but her cheeks have that faint pink that tells me I’m winning the kind of game that doesn’t have rules.
“You’re trouble,” she says.
“Maybe,” I say, stepping closer. “But I’m the kind you like.”
She opens her mouth—probably to argue—but Mrs. Winthrop barrels in just then with a basket of scones and a thousand opinions, and the moment shatters into harmless chatter.
That night, I’m back at the farm, watching game footage Marcus sent me while thinking about Bailey’s laughter echoing in the aisles.
My phone buzzes.
Bailey: Thanks for helping today. Even if your “hot cover” system was questionable.
Me: Questionable? It was flawless.
Bailey: You sorted half the romance section by abs.
Me: You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Bailey: It’s a thing.
Me: You’re smiling.
Bailey: No proof.
Me: Liar.
Three dots appear, vanish, reappear.
Bailey: Good night, Crew.
Me: Good night, Bailey.
It should be simple. It’s not.
I stare at the screen, thumb hovering, tempted to send something reckless like I wish you were here, but I don’t.
Because if I say that, I’ll mean it.
And meaning things around her feels like walking barefoot on glass—painful, grounding, addictive.