Chapter 39 #2
“You guess?” His voice was light, but his eyes didn’t stray from her face.
“I haven’t…thought about my birthday much here.”
“Why not?”
She watched the way the waves lapped at their feet.
“Because it’s not like home.” She sighed.
“In Toronto, we always have a picnic. My mother makes a huge spread of Korean food, and we sit under the autumn leaves in this big park. Just me, Umma, Papa, and Claire.” She smiled, the memory vivid.
“But here, it’s spring instead of fall. I’m sure it’ll be great, it’ll just be… different.”
Gage didn’t say anything, but she knew he was listening. He always did.
She tilted her head up at him. “What about you? Do you always do the formal birthday dinner thing?”
“Usually. Two birds with one stone. Business.”
Bea had always thought of birthdays as something personal. Family, friends, fun. But for Gage, it wasn’t just about celebrating another year. It was also the quiet power of being seen, of reinforcing his place in the world. His birthday wasn’t just for him. It was for them.
That thought made her chest tighten. “I hope you still enjoyed it,” she said softly.
Gage watched the breeze lift the loose strands of her hair. “I did. Because you stayed.”
She blinked. He had never said that before. “You barely knew me.”
Gage’s voice dropped just enough to make her pulse thrum. “That’s been fully rectified.”
She groaned, smacking him lightly.
Gage glanced back toward the beach, where the fires were starting to glow. “Let’s go.”
The scent of salt and burning wood curled through the cooling night air as the bonfire crackled, sending sparks flickering into the dark. Above them, the sky stretched wide, stars pressing against a navy expanse, the ocean shifting in the distance like a restless giant.
Bea settled onto the sand between Gage and Lillian.
Georgina leaned into Hunter, legs stretched out, her bronzed skin still glowing from the sun.
Naomi and Isabel sat in the circle with their boyfriends, animated and slightly tipsy, their laughter high and tittering.
Drinks passed from hand to hand, but no one pushed Bea to take one. Gage saw to that.
Rafael and Sebastian weren’t there. Bea didn’t ask why. But the night felt oddly calm without them, like the voltage had been dialed down.
It was Lillian who spoke first, softly, almost to herself. “This year went fast.”
“Don’t remind me,” Naomi groaned, leaning into Charles’ side. “I’m in denial. I want to stay in this exact moment forever.”
“Oh, please,” Georgina scoffed. “You’ll be fine. We all know where you’re going this summer. Private yachts and champagne breakfasts, right?”
She grinned. “You’re not wrong.”
“Isabel?” Hunter asked.
“Bali for two weeks with this one,” she said, nudging Mason, “then Santorini.”
Georgina turned toward her. “And you, Bea?”
Bea hesitated. Even though it was exactly what they’d been talking about, the question still caught her off guard. Tension sat in her stomach.
She hadn’t told Gage yet. This wasn’t how she’d pictured bringing it up. But maybe with an audience, it wouldn’t seem so unreasonable.
“I think home,” she answered, tucking her hands into her sleeves. “Back to Toronto.”
Georgina asked, brows raised, “Like, for the whole summer?”
“I haven’t been back all year.”
“You must miss your parents,” Naomi said.
The women’s nods were sympathetic. They got that she missed home. Family. Familiarity. A visit made sense to them.
The men seemed to go still.
Hunter’s gaze shifted. Charles glanced. Even Mason—who never noticed anything that didn’t come in a glass or on Isabel’s arm—looked up. Not at her. At Gage.
“What do you miss most?” Lillian asked.
“Umma’s cooking. Papa’s stories.” She chose her next words carefully. “And being somewhere where people aren’t always…watching.”
“Well that sounds almost normal. Tragic,” Isabel said.
The girls laughed. The moment lightened.
But Gage didn’t move.
And Bea felt the weight of his silence.
GAGE
Gage had slipped Bea’s car key to Georgina with a nod, a silent command for her to take the girls home.
He didn’t need to say more. She understood.
Bea was curled up in his passenger seat, tucking her feet into her oversized hoodie.
Minutes passed before he finally spoke up. “So.”
Bea turned toward him, bracing herself. He caught it—the slight tightening of her shoulders, the way she pulled the cuffs tighter around her wrists. She knew what was coming.
His thumb tapped once against the steering wheel. “You hate the cold.”
“Huh?”
“Toronto in the winter.”
She exhaled softly, shifting against the seat. “Yeah,” she admitted. “I do.”
“But you’re going back?”
A reticence. Minute, but he caught it.
“I miss my parents. And Claire.” Her voice was steady.
Gage nodded. That part he accepted, understood. Family was a claim that couldn’t be negotiated. “How long are you planning to be gone?”
A pause. “Ten weeks.”
Almost the entire summer. He measured it out, instantly. Not just days. Consequences.
His tone was neutral. “And you were going to tell me when?”
Her fingers hid in the cuffs of her hoodie. “I didn’t mean for it to be a secret.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
She looked down at her lap. “It’s just…always been the plan. It’s too far to go back for short breaks, so coming back for the whole summer was the agreement.”
“But things changed.”
“Yeah. They did.” She took a deep breath. “But this part…I didn’t think it had to.”
They pulled up in front of Mayfield Hall. He turned off the engine, but neither of them moved.
“I want to see them, Gage. I haven’t been home in a year.”
“I know.”
She waited.
Finally, he exhaled through his nose, slow and mindful. “Seventeen hours.”
She blinked. “What?”
“That’s how far away you’ll be.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “I’m not…I’m not trying to leave you.”
The ache in his jaw eased. He knew that. But the numbers were still there. Seventeen hours. Ten weeks.
“And I’ll come back.”
“I’m not worried about you not coming back.” His voice was steady. “Ten weeks is a long time.”
“Could you…come?”
The question slid between them, unexpected. He hadn’t thought she’d ask. Not like that. Like it wasn’t a big deal and yet with a raw vulnerability.
“I have work,” he said finally.
He saw it—the flash of disappointment she tried to hide, the way her fingers crawled up deeper into her sleeves, like a turtle retreating back into its shell. He hated that he couldn’t tell her yes.
“The deal with Nate…it’s the largest we’ve touched in over a year,” he explained. “I have to be here. All the way through.”
There was no apology in his gaze. But no distance, either. It was the truth. It was the price of being him.
“Yeah. I figured you’d say that.”
He reached out, took her hand in his. Gently. “We’re not done talking about this.”
He didn’t say it with anger. He said it like a promise.