Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THIS TIME
TULLY
The room is dim, with only the streetlight slicing through the half-open curtains.
Lola’s head rests on my chest, her hair spilling across my skin.
Our legs are wrapped around each other, sheets low around our waists.
We’ve been like this for hours—talking and touching in lazy circles.
Every time I think we’re drifting toward sleep, one of us says something, and we start again.
I trace the line of her spine with my fingertips. “Tell me about Patrick.”
She tenses for a second, then exhales against my collarbone. “You really want to do this now?”
“I want to know how he won you over.”
There’s a long pause. Her fingers stop dragging over my abs.
“He was overwhelming at first,” she says quietly.
“Flowers every day. Late-night calls just to say he couldn’t stop thinking about me.
I put him off for a long time, but he made it impossible to ignore him.
He said no one had ever understood him the way I did.
And eventually, he made me feel like he saw me too.
Like maybe he understood my brand of broken. ”
My jaw tightens. I keep stroking her back, slow and steady, so she doesn’t stop.
“Then it flipped,” she continues. “Little comments. My laugh was too loud. My stories didn’t hold his attention.
He wanted me to dress differently. He’d say it with this soft smile, like he was trying to be helpful instead of condescending.
Isla came to visit and asked when I’d started apologizing for everything.
And I realized I was—I’d bump into the wall and apologize.
But I’d already been a mess when we met, so I think he just saw the buttons that were there and pushed them.
Deep down, I think he’s insecure, so it makes him feel bigger to put others down. ”
My hand stills on her back. Heat climbs my throat. “He tried to make you feel small?”
“Every day, eventually. It was subtle enough that I thought I was being sensitive, and that, in his way, he was being loving. But it chipped away. By the end, I didn’t recognize myself, but when I tried to break up with him, he vowed to do better, begged me to stay…
to give him another chance. He wore me down again.
I agreed to go away with him for the weekend to see if we could make it work.
And that’s when I saw you in Windy Harbor. ”
I swallow hard. The urge to find him and put my fist through his nose is so strong, my fingers curl into the sheet.
“He had no right to make you feel that way. None. You’re—” I stop, searching for a word that won’t sound like empty flattery.
“You’re fucking radiant, Lola. You always have been.
He didn’t deserve a second of your light, let alone the chance to dim it. ”
She lifts her head, eyes searching mine in the low light. “He’s not your favorite person.”
“No, he’s not, but even if he were, I’d be fucking raging at him right now. I’m angry that anyone could look at you and decide you needed to be smaller.”
A small, sad smile curves her mouth. “It’s embarrassing that I ever stayed…really, that I fell for any of his charm to begin with. He had believable moments, and I was weak.”
I cup her face, thumb brushing her cheekbone. “I’m glad you’re here. Right now. With me.”
Her gaze softens. “Me too.”
I kiss her then—slow at first, then deeper, hungrier.
I’ve missed her so much it feels like a bruise that never healed.
She shifts and slides my condom on before lowering herself onto me.
Everything narrows to the heat of her skin, the way she moves like she’s claiming something she’s been denied too long.
This time it’s different. The other times were like we were racing the sunrise.
This time we’re slower, more deliberate.
Every touch feels like a conversation. She rocks against me, eyes locked on mine, and I can see everything she’s not saying—the years, the hurt, the want that never quite died.
I grip her hips, match her rhythm, and whisper her name.
“You’ve haunted my dreams all this time,” I tell her.
Her mouth parts, and when she comes, it’s quiet, shuddering, her forehead pressed to mine. I follow right after—harder than ever.
Something inside me finally slots back into place.
After, we lie there, chests heaving, her face tucked into my neck. I hold her like she might disappear if I loosen my grip.
“Why did you walk away?” I ask, voice rough. “Back then. Why didn’t you take my calls?”
She’s quiet for so long, I think she won’t answer.
“I was scared,” she finally says. “You had this huge career ahead of you, and…I didn’t want to stand in the way of that. I needed to figure out who I was without anyone else’s voice in my head. Including yours.”
I close my eyes, letting that sink in. It hurts, and it doesn’t feel even close enough to being a good reason, but it’s honest. “And now?”
I want to ask more—want to beg her to stay tomorrow, the day after, forever—but she leans up and kisses the corner of my mouth.
“We’ve had an amazing night in Nantucket, Tully. A chance encounter that neither of us saw coming. Let’s just bask in that.”
“It has been amazing,” I say. I want to keep talking, but I don’t want to break whatever fragile thing we’ve rebuilt in these hours.
She curls into me, one leg hooked over mine. My eyelids grow heavy. Her breathing evens out first, soft and steady against my skin. I fight sleep as long as I can, memorizing the weight of her, the scent of her hair, the way her fingers twitch while she’s dreaming.
Eventually I lose the fight.
The morning light hits like a slap. At least I think it’s morning, it could be afternoon—I have no sense of the time. I reach for Lola before my eyes are fully open, my hand sliding across cold sheets where her body should be.
My stomach drops. I sit up too fast, my heart hammering.
“Lola?”
The room is silent. I get up and go through the cottage. It’s empty. Her clothes are gone. My phone is face down on the nightstand, and I pick it up. No missed calls, no texts. I don’t even know if she has the same number anymore, and I can’t assume she’d still have mine.
I drag a hand through my hair, chest tightening like a vise.
She left. Of course she left. We said we were in the moment, but I still let myself believe—fuck, I’m such an idiot.
Why would I assume we were on the same page?
She basically told me straight up that this was just a moment on the island.
I’m the one who thought last night meant something more.
That the way she held on when she came, like I was the only solid thing left in her world, was a promise.
The floor feels too cold under my bare feet.
My head pounds. Raw panic rears its ugly head.
My hands shake, and there’s an ache behind my ribs that feels like it’s cracking wider with every breath.
I want to punch the wall. Call her and rant and beg and crawl back into the sheets that still smell like her and never come out.
Last night cracked me open, and now everything I’ve shoved down for years is spilling out—regret, longing, and this stupid, desperate hope that maybe she felt it too.
And then I see a small piece of paper folded once on the table. My name is written on the outside in her pretty handwriting, and next to it is a drawing of an elaborate, beautiful flame.
I snatch up the paper, and with my heart in my throat, I unfold it.
Tully,
Last night was everything. You have always known me best. I will remember our time here for the rest of my life.
Lola
That’s it. What am I supposed to fucking make of that?
I read it again and again. One second, feeling a twinge of hope because it sounds like it meant something to her; the next, no goddamn hope because she fucking walked away again anyway.
With her polite, careful words that sound like a closing door.
Everything and nothing.
The paper crumples in my fist.
“Fuck.”
I sink onto the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, my head in my hands.
My eyes burn. I’m not crying—fuck that—but the pressure is there, hot and humiliating.
She gave me the night. She gave me pieces of the truth.
She let me hold her like she was mine again.
And then she slipped out before the sun could make any of it real.
I’m a goddamn mess. And because I hate the son of a bitch, anger at Patrick mixes with anger at her, at myself, and at the universe for letting us collide just long enough to wreck me all over again.
I don’t know how long I sit there, the ache settling back in the Lola compartment I’ve kept locked up all these years.
It’s done.
I’m done.
I have to be.