Second Epilogue
brADEN
The back door of Tidal Hops slammed shut behind me, the sound a punctuation mark on my hasty retreat.
The cheerful noise of the bonfire—my family’s laughter, the crackle of burning wood—faded, replaced by the familiar, steadying chaos of my kingdom.
The brewpub was humming with its usual night energy, but I bypassed the front of the house.
My usual charming-host persona was currently locked away somewhere deep and inaccessible.
I pushed through the swinging doors into the kitchen, the blast of heat and the sharp scent of onions and sizzling meat a welcome assault. Andy, my best line cook, was bent over the grill, his movements practiced and efficient.
“Hey, boss. Back so soon?” he asked without looking up.
“Had enough of the family bonfire circus for one night. A little bit of Eli goes an extremely long way.” I forced a smile and made my voice soften. “I’ll take over here. You can get a jump on the prep for the weekend rush.”
Andy straightened, his brow lowered with a question he was too smart to ask. “You got it.”
He moved away and left me at the grill. I grabbed the heavy metal spatula, its familiar weight a comfort in my hand. Order tickets were lined up on the rail, a neat row of demands I could meet. A burger, well-done. Fish tacos, no cilantro. A blackened wahoo sandwich.
Simple.
Solvable.
Unlike the mess I’d just walked away from.
The night had started out fine, better than fine.
At the bonfire, seeing Iris propped up and laughing with that bulky walking boot on her leg had felt like a win.
Austin had his arm slung around her like he’d been doing it his whole life.
The rest of us gave them a respectable amount of shit for it, the way Coleridges do when one of us actually looks happy.
Then Eli, with the casual grace of a man dropping a lit match into a puddle of gasoline, had to open his big mouth. Of course it was Eli. Who else?
Tessa.
The name had landed in the middle of our easy family circle and exploded.
I slapped a burger patty onto the hot grill, damn near squishing it to death with the spatula as the hiss of searing meat made a satisfying roar.
I focused on the task, on the physical reality of it.
The heat on my face. The precise timing needed to get that perfect char without overcooking the center.
This was the empire I had built from a half-baked idea and a whole lot of debt.
A place where I was in complete control.
Not her. Couldn’t be. The thought was a frantic, repeating loop.
Eli was an idiot. A lovable, sometimes infuriatingly shrewd one, but an idiot nonetheless. He saw a tourist with red hair and made a leap. He didn’t know what he was talking about.
I flipped the burger aggressively, the sound a sharp smack against the metal. Another ticket came up. Two more burgers, one with Swiss, one with cheddar. I worked with a focused fury, my movements almost violent. I was a machine. Toast the buns, melt the cheese, plate it with a side of fries.
Next.
The kitchen door swung open, and a server called out, “Hey, Cade! Can you run another keg out? We’re out of Hopical Storm!”
From the bar, I heard a woman’s laugh. Bright, clear, full-throated. A sound that was nothing and yet everything like Tessa’s laugh.
I faltered for a second. The spatula paused. My breath halted. The sizzle of the grill faded to a distant hum.
Stop it, I commanded myself, my internal voice yelling. You’re imagining things!
But the damage was done. The castle had been breached. The memories came rushing back in.
The hot, greasy air of the kitchen vanished, replaced by the sharp scent rising off the Gulf. I wasn’t thirty anymore. I was eighteen, standing on the north shore beach with Tessa Donovan, the world new and tasting of possibility.
The memory was so potent it was physical.
The sand was damp and cool under my bare feet, the humid breeze whipping her fiery hair across her face.
It was the summer after graduation, the sky full of clouds and the air charged with electricity.
She wasn’t just talking about the future.
She was inhaling it, her dark-green eyes blazing with intelligence and drive.
“My parents worry that you’ll never be able to get a real job in Dove Key.” Her voice was full of fierce, youthful frustration as she gestured out at the churning water. “They don’t get that you could build something amazing right here.”
A knot formed in my gut, the familiar shame of my family name. “Yeah, well, to them, Coleridge is just another way to say ‘going nowhere fast.’”
It was the truth I’d been running from my whole life.
But she turned to me, her expression full of belief in me I hadn’t yet found in myself. She grabbed my hand. “They’re wrong. You’re going to accomplish whatever you set your mind to, Braden. I know it.”
We were so damn young, standing on the edge of everything.
I’d just started diving after being taught by Eli.
I’d talk to Tessa for hours about it, about the silent, beautiful world beneath the waves.
A world apart from the noise of my family.
She understood. The ocean was a part of her, like it was with Eli and Austin.
And I had this half-formed, impossible dream of a place of my own, a real business that would prove I was more than just another Coleridge.
She squeezed my hand. “And whatever happens with college, we’ll figure it out, right? We’ll make it work.”
The promise had been as real and solid as the driftwood near our feet.
We both believed it. Two kids against the world, convinced that love and ambition were enough to conquer distance.
I told myself I was being noble, letting her fly without trying to cage her.
The truth was, I was afraid she'd eventually realize she was meant for the sky, and I was stuck on the ground.
I was just a Coleridge from Dove Key. Tessa was destined for greatness, a full-ride scholarship waiting for her.
We kissed then, a desperate, salty goodbye that already tasted like the end.
She left and never looked back. I never tried to fight for her. The end.
A sharp, acrid smell—the scent of burning fat and ruined meat—yanked me back to the searing heat of the kitchen.
“Boss, that burger’s a hockey puck.” Andy’s worried voice cut through the memory.
I looked down. A blackened, smoking circle of what used to be a burger sat on the grill, a perfect monument to my distraction.
“Goddammit,” I snarled. “Son-of-a-bitch burger.”
I scraped it off with a sharp, angry motion and tossed it into the trash. The memory of Tessa’s kiss lingered on my lips, a phantom taste of salt and rain and a future that never happened.
All these years, every success with Tidal Hops, every new beer I brewed… in some quiet, unacknowledged corner of my heart, it had all been for her. A silent, one-sided conversation with a memory. A decade-long effort to prove to a girl who was long gone that her parents had been wrong about me.
And now?
The central, agonizing question, the one Eli had so carelessly unearthed, knocked the air from my lungs.
What if he was right?
What if, after all these years, Tessa was back? Not just as a presence in my head, but as a real, breathing woman who had built her own life, her own world, far away?
The thought was a terrifying, exhilarating jolt to my system. The persona I’d built, the easy charm and professional success, was like a sandcastle about to be washed away by the incoming tide.
And I didn’t know if I wanted to run for higher ground or stand my ground and let the water take me.