Chapter 4
By eleven, Melissa couldn’t take it anymore. The cottage was too quiet, the camera equipment sat on the side table, unused. She’d been staring at the same architecture forum post for twenty minutes without reading it.
She grabbed the camera, slung it around her neck, and walked toward town.
Downtown Starlight Shores was four blocks of colorful storefronts that looked like a postcard trying too hard.
Or not trying at all, which was worse, because it meant the charm was real.
A kid on a bicycle cut across the street without looking.
The smell of fried grouper drifted from somewhere, mixing with salt air and the faint tang of diesel from the marina.
She lifted the camera. Pointed it at a row of painted shutters. Took the shot without checking the frame. Moved on.
The Sandpiper sat at the end of the block with its big covered deck facing the Gulf. Fans turned lazily overhead, pushing warm air around without much conviction. She hadn’t planned to stop here, but she climbed the steps anyway. Maybe she was hungry. She couldn’t remember if she’d eaten breakfast.
Cassidy and Bryan sat at a corner booth with papers spread between them and two glasses of sweet tea sweating onto napkins.
Cassidy had her laptop open and was gesturing at the screen while Bryan leaned back with his arms crossed, wearing the expression of a man who’d been told his opinion was wrong one too many times.
“Melissa.” Cassidy spotted her first and waved her over. “Perfect timing.”
Nothing about this felt like perfect timing. Melissa almost pivoted toward the bar to order something to go, but Cassidy was already sliding papers aside to make room, and Bryan was pulling a chair from the next table.
“I was just going to grab lunch,” Melissa said.
“Sit with us for a minute first.” Cassidy pushed the laptop to one side. “We need to talk to you about something.”
She sat down anyway, settling the camera bag on the floor between her feet.
“We’re putting together the plan for next season’s Harbor Festival promotion,” Cassidy said. “Building on the momentum from this year. Mayor West wants a full visual package. Before and after, behind the scenes, the whole community effort.”
“Sounds ambitious.”
“It’s overdue,” Bryan said. “But the photos from this year’s festival were mostly what people posted on their phones. They’re fine for social media. Not so great for anything else.”
Cassidy leaned forward. “We need a real photographer. Someone who can capture what it actually feels like to put this thing together. Not just the finished product but all the messy parts. The planning meetings, the setup, the volunteers arguing over where to put the stage.”
“I don’t argue about the stage,” Bryan said.
“You argued about the stage for forty-five minutes last Tuesday.”
“That was a discussion.”
Melissa watched their back and forth with the instinct that never fully shut off. The way Cassidy’s hand rested near Bryan’s arm without quite touching it. His body angled toward her even when he was pretending to be annoyed. Frame, focus, click. Except she didn’t lift the camera.
“So what do you think?” Cassidy was looking at her now.
“About what?”
“About shooting it. The preparations, the candid stuff. You’re right here, you know the property, you know the town. And you’re, well.” Cassidy paused. “You’re incredibly talented.”
The compliment landed midway between flattering and uncomfortable. Melissa traced a scratch on the tabletop with her fingernail. “I appreciate that, but my work now is mostly structural. Buildings, architecture. That kind of thing.”
“Town shots are good. It would play up the small-town festival vibe.” Cassidy frowned. “But engagement drops if there aren’t faces in the feed. The mayor agrees. She wants action shots. Volunteers hammering stages, kids painting signs. It’s all about the people, the community.”
She almost winced. Cassidy had said it plainly, summarizing the exact thing Melissa had been avoiding for two years.
“And the mayor would like to have a portfolio of photos to use for all the festivals and town promo. Budget to pay you would be tight.” Cassidy grinned. “But hey, I got volunteered to do town marketing, so I figured I’d try and get you to help with the photos.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
Cassidy nodded and didn’t push. Bryan looked like he wanted to push but caught something in Cassidy’s expression and held back.
“Fair enough.” Cassidy closed her laptop. “The timeline’s flexible. We’re still in early planning, so nothing would start for a few weeks.”
“Stay for lunch at least,” Bryan said. He nodded toward the kitchen. “My mom made her shrimp and grits. The batch she makes when she’s in a good mood, not the Tuesday batch.”
“What’s wrong with the Tuesday batch?”
“Nothing. The good mood batch is just better. Don’t tell her I said that.”
Through the kitchen window, Melissa could see a woman she recognized as Bryan’s mother moving between prep stations, talking to someone out of view.
A younger woman—Bryan’s sister—carried a tray of glasses and nearly dropped one.
An older man at the fryer turned to say something, and the whole kitchen seemed to respond at once, voices layered over the clatter of pans and the hiss of oil.
“I should get going. I’m not really hungry after all.” She stood and adjusted the strap on her shoulder. “But thank you. Really.”
She left through the deck entrance and made it down the steps before her legs decided she wasn’t quite ready to leave.
She stopped on the sidewalk. Through the Sandpiper’s large front window, she could see Bryan’s table.
Cassidy had moved to his side of the booth and was pointing at something on her laptop again while he shook his head.
In the kitchen, visible through the pass-through window above the bar, Bryan’s mother was laughing at something while she stirred a pot.
His sister leaned against the counter, stealing bites off a plate.
An older woman Melissa hadn’t noticed before sat on a stool near the back door, shucking corn and talking to no one in particular, or maybe to everyone.
They were loud and messy and completely unselfconscious, the way people are when they’ve forgotten anyone might be watching.
Melissa’s hand moved to the camera at her side. Her fingers found the grip. She lifted it an inch. Her thumb found the power button, and she held it there.
Through the window, Bryan had joined his mother.
His mom wiped her hands on a towel and swatted him away from the plate he kept picking at.
His sister came over and said something that made them both turn, and for a half second the three of them were framed perfectly, caught in mid-sentence, mid-laugh, mid-argument.
Melissa’s finger hovered over the shutter.
You didn’t help. You didn’t ask. You just took.
She lowered the camera and let it hang against her hip.
The walk back to the lighthouse took twenty minutes. She didn’t take a single photograph on the way. When she reached the courtyard, she could hear the rhythmic scrape of a sander coming from somewhere near Compass Rose Cottage. Clint, probably. Always fixing something.
She went into Captain’s Watch and set her camera on the kitchen counter. Her phone buzzed. A text from Cassidy.
No pressure. Just wanted you to know the offer stands whenever you’re ready.
Melissa set the phone down and stood there in the quiet of her cottage, listening to the scrape of Clint’s sander through the open window. Her camera sat on the counter where she’d left it, still powered on, the lens cap still off.
She hadn’t noticed that until now.