25. Ethan
ETHAN
Gray Harbor beach events had an energy to them.
Half the town showed up, whether they were invited or not; someone always brought a dog that wasn’t supposed to be there, and the food was better than it had any right to be for something held on sand.
The foundation had learned to lean into it rather than fight it. Smart, honestly.
White tents stretched along the sand, string lights threaded through the frames, even though the sun hadn’t started to drop yet.
Someone had set up a bar at the far end, and there was a live guitarist near the water; the music was just loud enough to give the afternoon a shape.
A good crowd had gathered, coolers appearing from nowhere, kids chasing each other between the tent legs, someone’s golden retriever making aggressive friends with the appetizer table.
We left the truck at the top of the dune and made our way down together—Paul drifting too close to Rowan, Rowan drifting farther away to compensate, and Salem beside me with the empty coffee tray because none of us had thought to find a trash can before leaving the truck.
We found Miles waiting near the first tent.
He was fully committed to the beach theme—blue-and-white-striped short-sleeve shirt, matching shorts, knee-high striped socks pulled all the way up, dark slip-on shoes. His mustache curled at its points. He was drinking lemonade through a paper straw.
“Look at this.” Mile took us in, likely cataloging the unexpected development. “You carpooled. Very economical. Very fashion-forward.”
“It’s called efficiency,” I said.
“It’s called I didn’t want to pay for the gas,” Paul said.
Paul made a sound beside me like air leaving a tire very slowly.
“Oh, no,” Rowan said, not even trying to hide it.
“Miles,” I said carefully. “What are you wearing?”
“Alba said it was trendy.”
“Did Alba say it that,” Paul said, “or did Alba dare you to wear it?”
“Those are the same thing in this marriage.”
“You look like you’re about to start selling saltwater taffy out of a wooden cart,” I said.
“You look like a Victorian lifeguard,” Paul added.
Miles pointed at him. “That’s not—”
“You look like a strongman who misplaced his barbell,” I said.
Paul wheezed, doubling slightly at the waist. “Is that a romper?”
“It is not a romper.”
“Miles, buddy, I say this with love—”
“It’s fashion,” Miles said firmly. “Drop it.”
“It’s fashion,” Paul said, wiping his eyes. “Very strong look. What’s your stance on prohibition, out of curiosity?”
Miles turned and walked ahead of us onto the sand.
We fell into step behind him, still laughing. Rowan shook her head. Salem’s shoulder bumped mine.
It thinned out as we got closer to the tents, the way laughter does once there are more people around to perform for.
“I owe you dinner,” Paul nearly barked at Rowan.
“You owe me a dinner and sixty-two dollars,” she said. “And you could’ve put your phone down when we went out. But alas.”
Paul nodded slowly. “That’s fair.”
“It is.”
“I could—”
“Don’t. I have no room in my heart for forgiveness today.”
It was the kind of moment that didn’t need an audience, and Salem must have felt the same thing, because her hand found my sleeve and tugged, just slightly, toward the water.
We drifted down toward the tideline without really deciding to, the noise from the event fading behind us as the ocean stretched out ahead.
The tide rolled in slow, steady pulls. We sat close enough that our shoulders were touching, her legs stretched out in front of her, me leaning back on my hands, neither of us in any hurry to be anywhere else.
“So,” she said, “what am I actually supposed to be doing today? So far, my contribution has been existing near you.”
“That’s basically the whole job. Show up, talk to people, don’t insult any major donors.”
“Very high stakes.”
“Wait until the gala,” I said, my tone shifting. “That’s when it actually counts.”
Her brows lifted. “Define counts.”
“Board members. Donors. Press. Cameras everywhere. Everything we’ve been doing gets evaluated that night.”
“Evaluated. Why does that sound worse than judged?”
“Because it is.”
She smiled faintly. “And we just have to look convincing?”
“We just have to look convincing.”
“Best part about living here,” she said after a minute, her voice softer, like it belonged to the space instead of the conversation.
“The ocean?” I asked.
She nodded. “No matter what’s going on, it just stays the same.”
I followed her line of sight—the dark water catching the light, the waves folding into themselves over and over. I moved my hand close enough that our fingers brushed once, then again. Neither of us pulled back.
The silence settled around us and didn’t feel empty.
After a moment, she reached for her phone and angled it toward us. “Don’t move.”
I looked down as she snapped a photo of our shoes pressed into the sand side by side.
She studied it, then tilted the screen toward me. “Caption?”
“You’re asking me?”
“This is literally our job. Contribute.”
I leaned in to look, our shoulders still touching. “West coast, best coast?”
She wrinkled her nose.
“Yeah, that was bad.”
“Really bad.”
“You pick.”
Her thumbs moved across the screen, and she hit post before I could see what she wrote. When she lowered her phone, she didn’t pull away.
Neither did I.
She was close enough that I could see salt drying in a fine grain along her collarbone, close enough that the wind kept pulling a strand of hair across her mouth, and she’d stopped bothering to fix it. Her eyes lifted to mine and stayed there a beat too long for either of us to call it nothing.
This was the part where I usually said something easy. Made a joke. Looked back at the water. I had a repertoire built for moments that threatened to become something, to defuse them before they had the chance.
I didn’t reach for any of it.
Her gaze dropped to my mouth. Just for a second. Came back up like she hadn’t meant to let it go there.
I leaned in.
I couldn’t have told you the moment I decided to, because there hadn’t been one.
It felt more like something that had already been happening for the last several minutes, and I was only now catching up to it—the way you notice you’ve been leaning toward a drop a half-second after your weight’s already shifted.
She didn’t pull back. “What are you doing?”
The thought arrived too late to be useful, the way every warning seemed to with her, a beat behind whatever the rest of me had already decided.
I just knew the distance between her mouth and mine had gotten small enough to close without effort, and that I wanted to close it more than I’d wanted almost anything in longer than I could remember.
“Salem—”
It came out rougher than I meant it to. More a question than a name.
She tilted her chin. An answer, or an invitation, or both.
“So,” Paul said from directly behind us, blocking the view. “Rowan and I are going to walk down to that food truck. Just thought I’d mention it.”
I have never in my life wanted to throw someone in the ocean more.
Salem pulled back first—not fast, not panicked, just enough space to make it look like nothing had been about to happen. I envied how easily she managed that. I needed a solid ten seconds and a long look at the horizon before I trusted myself to turn around.
Paul paused. We didn’t fill it. “She said she’d been meaning to try it. I said I’d been meaning to try it. Seemed like a natural development.”
“Paul,” I said, my voice flatter than I meant it to be.
“I’m just getting food.” He held his hands up in defense. Then, with a self-satisfied expression, he said, “She did mention she needed someone to carry things into her new job this week. I volunteered. Very selfless.”
Salem shook her head slowly. “Is that a good idea?”
Paul caught up to Rowan, and she glanced at him sideways as he said something that made her laugh.
“Jury’s out,” I said.
Salem smiled. The guitarist was still playing somewhere behind us, the tide doing its slow, patient thing at our feet, the dog from earlier trotting past with someone’s abandoned napkin in its mouth.
I pulled my phone out a few minutes later, and her post came up almost immediately.
A photo of our shoes in the sand.
Found my favorite place.
No hashtag. No foundation tag. No mention of the campaign, the cause, or any of the things this was supposed to be about.
Just that.
I looked out at the ocean. Then back at the screen. Then out at the water again.
I owed Rowan a fruit basket for that food truck maneuver.
Definitely two.