Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
The box was heavier than it looked.
Ronan carried it up the porch steps and set it down next to the three others already stacked by the door.
Lila's handwriting on the side read KITCHEN - MISC in black marker.
He had no idea what kitchen miscellaneous meant, but he'd learned over the past week not to ask questions about the organizational system.
"That's the last one from the car," he called through the screen door.
"There's more in the bedroom closet." Her voice floated from somewhere inside the cottage. "And the hall closet. And the garage."
"How much stuff do you have?"
"I've lived in that house for eight years. You've lived out of a duffel bag. Our definitions of 'stuff' are not the same."
He leaned against the porch railing and looked out at the yard.
December had turned the grass brown and stripped most of the leaves from the trees, but the live oak still spread its branches wide, draped with Spanish moss that swayed in the breeze off the inlet.
The dock was finished now, the new boards weathered enough to match the old ones.
Sid had declared it structurally sound two weeks ago and immediately started talking about building a boat lift.
A boat lift. For a boat Ronan didn't own. For a life he was still learning how to live.
The screen door creaked open behind him. Lila emerged with two mugs of coffee, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, a smudge of dust on her cheek.
"Break time."
He took the mug she offered. The coffee was the good kind, the kind she'd been buying since she started keeping things here. He still couldn't tell the difference, but he'd stopped admitting that out loud.
"You have dust on your face."
"I have dust everywhere. Your closets are a disaster."
"I don't have closets. I have spaces where closets should be."
"Same thing." She settled onto the porch swing beside him, tucking her feet under her. "I found a box of books in the back of your bedroom closet. Military history, mostly. Some philosophy. A few paperback thrillers that look like they've been read about fifty times each."
"Those were my dad's."
Lila went still beside him. "I didn't know you kept anything of his."
"I didn't. Not for a long time." He stared out at the water.
"When he died, I was nineteen. Angry. Stupid.
I threw most of it away. Donated the rest." He took a sip of coffee.
"A few years ago, my aunt sent me a box she'd been keeping.
Said she figured I'd want it eventually. Those books were in it."
"Have you read them?"
"Some of them. The ones with his notes in the margins." He could feel her watching him, that careful attention she gave to the things he didn't say out loud. "He used to underline passages he liked. Write questions in the margins. Argue with the authors."
"That sounds like something you'd do."
"Probably where I learned it."
She leaned her head against his shoulder. The swing creaked softly as it moved.
"We should put them on a shelf. Somewhere you can see them."
"They've been in a box for years."
"That's my point." She tilted her head up to look at him. "You're not living out of boxes anymore. Neither are your dad's books."
The fight started over curtains.
Grace had given them a set—hand-sewn, cream-colored, with a delicate lace border. Lila loved them on sight.
Ronan looked at them like they were a foreign language.
“They go on the windows,” Lila said, holding them up. “The large glass rectangles that let in light.”
“I know what curtains are.”
“Then why are you looking at them like that?”
He took a breath. “I’ve never had curtains.”
“Ronan, that’s not a personality trait. That’s a gap in your life experience.”
“I move every six months. I live out of a duffel bag. I don’t put up curtains because curtains say, ‘I’m staying,’ and I’ve never been staying.”
The words landed harder than either of them expected.
Lila set the curtains on the kitchen table. Slowly. Carefully.
“And now? Are you staying now?”
“That’s not what I—”
“Because if this is temporary—if I’m temporary—I’d like to know before I invest any more of myself in a man who can’t commit to window treatments.”
“This is not about window treatments.”
“You’re right. It’s not.” She crossed her arms. “It’s about the fact that you’ve been here for three months and you still sleep with one eye open. You still check the locks twice. You still keep a bag packed in the closet—don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
He was quiet for a long time.
“I’m scared,” he said. The words sounded dragged from somewhere deep.
“I’m scared that I’ll put up the curtains and start thinking of this as home, and then something will happen, and I’ll have to leave.
And it’ll be worse than every other time because this time I’ll be leaving something that matters. ”
Lila unfolded her arms. Put her hands on his chest, over his heart.
“You already think of this as home. The curtains won’t change that. They’ll just make it harder to deny.”
He looked at her. Something in his expression shifted. Not surrender. Decision.
He picked up the curtains.
“Which window first?”
They hung them together. His arms were longer, so he handled the high rod while she held the fabric straight. Their hands kept touching on the cloth.
When the last panel was in place, the cream-colored fabric filtered the light into something warm and golden, making the room look like a place where people lived.
“Huh,” he said.
“What?”
“They look good.”
She slid her hands up his arms to his shoulders. Rose on her toes and kissed the corner of his mouth.
“Are you staying?”
His hands found her waist. He lifted her until her face was level with his.
“I’m staying,” he said. And the way he said it—low and rough and certain—told her he wasn’t talking about tonight.
He carried her to the bedroom. The new curtains filtered the afternoon light into soft gold. She pulled him down and held on.
Afterward, she lay with her head on his chest.
“The bag in the closet,” she said. “The packed one.”
“What about it?”
“Unpack it.”
He kissed the top of her head.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
The holiday market opened on Saturday.
Main Square had been transformed overnight.
White tents lined the perimeter, strung with lights that glittered against the December gray.
Vendors sold handmade crafts, baked goods, local honey, and ornaments made from shells collected on the beach.
A brass quartet played carols near the fountain, slightly off-key but enthusiastic.
Ronan stood at the edge of the crowd and tried to remember the last time he'd been to something like this. A festival. A community gathering. An event where the only objective was to show up and enjoy yourself.
He couldn't think of one.
"You look lost."
He turned. Sid Hoffman was standing beside him, a paper cup of cider in one hand and a knowing expression on his weathered face.
"Just taking it in."
"Taking it in." Sid nodded slowly. "That's one way to describe standing on the edge of a party looking like you're planning an extraction route."
"Old habits."
"Yeah, I’m aware of those." Sid took a sip of his cider. "Grace used to say I looked at every room like I was counting exits. Took me three years to stop doing it automatically."
"Does it ever go away completely?"
"Nope." Sid's tone was matter-of-fact. "But it gets quieter. Moves to the background. You stop noticing you're doing it." He gestured toward the crowd with his cup. "You see that woman by the honey stand? The one with the green scarf?"
Ronan looked. A woman in her sixties, with gray hair, was laughing at something the vendor said.
"That's Eleanor Tisch. She's been coming to this market for forty years. Same booth every time. Buys honey for her sister in Tallahassee, even though her sister's been dead for six years." Sid shrugged. "Habit. Ritual. The things we do because we've always done them."
"That's depressing."
"That's life. We're all just doing the same things over and over until we die. The trick is picking things worth repeating." Sid clapped him on the shoulder. "Go find your girl. She's been looking for you for ten minutes."
He walked off before Ronan could respond.
Lila was standing near the tree lighting platform, her clipboard in hand, her phone pressed to her ear.
She looked harried. Beautiful, but harried. Her hair was escaping from its ponytail, and there was a tension in her shoulders that meant something had gone wrong.
She ended the call as he approached.
"Problem?"
"The tree lights aren't working. Half the strand is out, and the electrician won't be here for another hour." She blew out a breath. "Patricia is supposed to flip the switch in thirty minutes."
"Can you delay?"
"I've already delayed twice. If I push it again, people are going to start leaving." She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. "This is the first public event since the centennial. The first time the town has come together since everything fell apart. It has to be perfect."
"It doesn't have to be perfect."
"Ronan—"
"It has to be real. People don't need perfect. They need to see that life goes on. That the lights still come on eventually, even if they're late." He took the clipboard from her hands and set it on a nearby table. "What do the lights look like?"
"What?"
"The ones that work. What do they look like?"
She stared at him. "They look like lights. Half a tree's worth of lights."
"Then light half the tree."
"I can't light half a—"
"Tell Patricia to make it mean something. She's a retired principal. She's given a thousand speeches to kids who weren't listening. She can figure out how to make half a tree sound intentional."
Lila was quiet for a moment. Then her eyes tightened.
"You're serious."
"I'm practical. There's a difference." He handed her back the clipboard. "Go. I'll find the electrician and see if I can speed things up."