29. Luisa
— ? —
Luisa
He didn’t want to leave.
He told me so, standing in my doorway with his shirt untucked and his hair a disaster and his mouth swollen from kissing me. His eyes kept drifting back to the living room floor where we’d just been, like he was memorizing it.
“I don’t want to go,” he said.
“I heard you the first time.”
“I’m just making sure you know.” He reached out, brushed a loose strand of hair back from my face. “But I also want to respect your space. So I will leave. I just want you to know. I do not want to.”
I chuckled. “Okay, okay. Noted.”
He stepped over the threshold. Turned around.
“Go on a date with me.”
I blinked. “What?”
“A date. Tomorrow. Just us.” His eyes were bright, eager, hopeful in a way that made my chest ache. “Let me take you somewhere.”
“I have Poppy-”
“I’ll arrange something. Let me handle it. Just say yes.”
I should have said no. Should have been sensible, practical, protective of the heart that was still learning how to trust him. But his face was so open, so earnest, and the memory of his laughter was still warm in my ears.
“Okay,” I said. “Yes. Okay.”
His whole face lit up. He actually jumped, a small hop, quickly suppressed, but I saw it, and then he was grinning so wide I thought his face might split.
“Great,” he said. “Perfect. I’ll pick you up at ten. Wear something comfortable. Goodbye.”
He practically bounced down the porch steps.
I closed the door, leaned against it, and smiled into the darkness like a lovesick fool.
I barely slept.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him above me. Below me. Beside me on the floor, laughing. I tossed and turned until dawn, then finally gave up and made coffee, which I drank while staring at my phone and wondering if I was making a terrible mistake.
At nine-thirty, a text came through.
Birdie and the grandmothers have Poppy for the day. They’re teaching her to paint. She’s thrilled.
I stared at the message. Typed back: How did you arrange that so fast?
His response was immediate: I have my ways. See you in thirty minutes.
At exactly ten o’clock, his car pulled into my driveway.
The ride to the small regional airport took twenty minutes. He held my hand the whole way, his thumb sketching idle patterns on my palm, occasionally bringing it to his mouth to press a kiss to my knuckles. Neither of us spoke much. The silence was comfortable.
The private jet was waiting on the tarmac.
“Wade.” I stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It’s the only answer you’re getting.” He nudged me gently up the stairs. “Trust me.”
The flight was short, an hour, maybe less. We landed at a larger airport, where a helicopter was waiting. Wade helped me into the passenger seat, handed me a headset, and, to my astonishment, took the controls himself.
“Since when can you fly a helicopter?”
“Learned during the trial years.” He ran through a preflight check with the same obsessive focus he used to give hull equations.
“I needed something that forced me to be fully present. Something that would kill me if I let my mind wander. The old me would’ve hired a pilot and answered emails the whole way. ”
“That’s… new.”
“A lot of me is new, Luve.” He laughed and lifted us into the air.
The island appeared below us like a postcard from a dream, gray-shingled houses, cobblestone streets, boats bobbing in a harbor that sparkled in the summer sun. I recognized it immediately, even though I hadn’t been here in over a decade.
Nantucket.
Where it all began.
“Wade.” My voice caught. “Why are we here?”
“Because this is where I first saw you.” He set the helicopter down on a private pad, cut the engine, turned to look at me. “Because this is where everything started. Because I wanted to bring you back to the beginning.”
We stepped out into the salt air.
The island was different in summer’s off-peak quiet, tourists present but sparse, the frantic energy of high season still weeks away. Wade led me down streets I half-remembered, past shops and restaurants that seemed both familiar and strange.
“Buckley!” A woman’s voice rang out from a juice bar. “Buckley boy! Is that your blonde?”
Wade waved without stopping.
“Who was that?”
“Tilly. She runs the gossip network on this island. By tonight, everyone will know we’re here.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Not for me.” He squeezed my hand. “There’s apparently a betting pool about us. Has been for years.”
“A betting pool?”
“Whether we’d get back together. What year it would happen. Whether there would be children involved.” He smiled sideways at me. “Tilly put twenty dollars on ‘before Buckley turns forty, with at least one kid.’ She’s going to be very smug about winning.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
We walked along the wharf, past fishing boats and sailboats and one enormous yacht that probably cost more than my house.
An older couple passed us going the other direction, gray-haired, holding hands, so obviously in love that it hurt to look at them.
The woman smiled at me as she passed, and I smiled back.
“That’s the Harringtons,” Wade said. “Married sixty-two years. They met on this island when they were teenagers.”
“That’s beautiful.”
“It is.” He was quiet for a moment. “My father hated them. Said they were too sentimental. Too soft.”
“Your father was wrong about a lot of things.”
“Yes. He was.”
We kept walking. The island opened up around us, the same cobblestones, the same salt air, but I was seeing it differently now. Through the lens of the boy who’d grown up here, in one of those gray-shingled houses, with a father who valued money over love and power over happiness.
“I want to show you something,” Wade said.
He led me to a small building near the harbor, nondescript, professional, with a brass plaque by the door that read Buckley Marine.
“The company,” I said.
“What’s left of it.” He unlocked the door, led me inside. “After the trial, I restructured everything. Cut every dirty deal, severed every corrupt connection. What remains is clean.”
The office was simple, desks, computers, a few employees who nodded at Wade as we passed. No gold fixtures. No intimidating portraits. Just… a business.
“It’s smaller than I expected.”
“I sold off the parts that were built on manipulation. This is what’s left. Legitimate shipping, fair wages, actual work.”
I looked at him. Saw the pride in his face, mixed with unmistakable relief. He’d done what his father never could, built a business that ran honest.
“There’s something else,” he said.
He led me to a small side office. Opened a filing cabinet. Pulled out a folder and handed it to me.
I flipped it open.
The Erickson Foundation for Dance.
Scholarship Recipients, 2021-Present.
Names. Dozens of names. Young women, most of them from backgrounds like mine, working class, under-resourced, talented beyond their circumstances. Next to several names were notes: Accepted to Juilliard. Full ride to ABT Summer Intensive. Touring with contemporary dance company.
“Wade.” My voice was barely a whisper. “What is this?”
“A scholarship fund. For girls who want to dance but can’t afford the training.” He wasn’t looking at me. His ears were red. “I started it about five years ago. Endowed it under your maiden name so you wouldn’t find out.”
“Why?”
“Because dance was your dream. Because you gave it up for me.” He finally met my eyes. “Because I couldn’t give you back the career you lost, but I could help other girls keep theirs.”
Tears were building behind my eyes. “These girls got into Juilliard?”
“Three of them, last count. Two more into other major programs.”
“Because of this scholarship?”
“Because of their talent. The scholarship just… opened doors.”
I set down the folder. Stepped toward him. Wrapped my arms around his neck and held on like the ground might drop away.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“You weren’t supposed to find out.”
“I’m glad I did.”
He held me back, his face buried in my hair, and for a long moment we just stood there in that small office, surrounded by evidence of the man he’d become while I wasn’t watching.
***
The seawall was exactly as I remembered it.
We walked along the stones, our shoulders brushing, the late afternoon sun warm on our faces. The ocean stretched out beside us, endless and eternal, the same waves that had been crashing against this shore since before either of us was born.
“I used to come here when I was a kid,” Wade said. “When my father was being particularly awful. I’d sit on these rocks and imagine sailing away. Finding somewhere he couldn’t reach me.”
“Did you ever try?”
“Once. I was twelve. Got about a mile offshore before the Coast Guard brought me back.” He smiled, but it was sad around the edges. “My father was furious. Said I’d embarrassed the family.”
“You were twelve.”
“Twelve-year-olds are supposed to represent the family name with dignity, apparently.”
I reached for his hand. Squeezed.
We kept walking, talking about nothing and everything. The weather. The boats. A particularly aggressive seagull that seemed to be following us. The conversation flowed easy, natural, like we’d never stopped talking.
Eventually, we came to a stretch of beach, private, secluded, protected by dunes on either side. Wade led me down to the sand, where a picnic basket sat waiting.
“How-”
“I had someone hide it here earlier.” He was grinning now, pleased with himself. “Shall we?”
We sat on a blanket and ate sandwiches and drank champagne and watched the waves roll in.
The food was simple but perfect, fresh bread, local cheese, strawberries that tasted like summer.
Wade pointed out landmarks on the horizon, told me stories about sailing trips and childhood adventures and the one time he’d accidentally capsized a boat during a regatta and his father hadn’t spoken to him for a week.
The sun began to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink and gold.
“I need to tell you something,” I said.
He went still. “Okay.”
“I’m terrified of you.”
A shadow crossed his face. Then, slowly, understanding. “Afraid I might break you again?”
I nodded.
He didn’t answer right away. When he spoke, his voice was careful. Gentle.
“I understand,” he said. “I broke something precious, and you don’t know if I’ll do it again. That fear makes sense.”
“I don’t know how to make it stop.”
“You don’t have to make it stop. You just have to let me prove, day by day, that I’m not the man I was.” He reached out, took my hand. “I will never push you, Luisa. I will never demand more than you’re ready to give. I will wait as long as you need.”
My eyes were burning. “What if I need forever?”
“Then I’ll wait forever.” He said it like it cost him nothing. Like it was the easiest promise in the world. “I’d rather have you scared and in my life than not have you at all.”
I didn’t know what to say.
So I kissed him instead.
His mouth was warm, soft, tasting faintly of champagne and strawberries. He kissed me back, gentle, unhurried, like we had all the time in the world. When we finally broke apart, he shifted, moving me between his legs so my back rested against his chest.
We sat like that, watching the sun sink into the ocean, his arms wrapped around me, his chin resting on top of my head. The waves kept their steady rhythm. The sky darkened from gold to purple to deep, velvet blue.
I felt… peaceful.
It had been so long since I’d felt peaceful.
Since I’d let myself relax into someone else’s arms without waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Wade’s heartbeat was steady against my back, his breathing slow and even, and for a moment, just a moment, I let myself believe that maybe this could work.
Maybe we could find our way back to each other after all.
The peace was so unfamiliar it almost hurt.
And then, because my brain couldn’t let me have nice things, the fear came rushing back. The old voices, the old doubts. He left before. He’ll leave again. You’re not safe. You’ll never be safe.
I tensed.
Wade noticed immediately. I felt his arms tighten slightly, felt him shift behind me like he was about to ask what was wrong.
I couldn’t do this. Couldn’t sit here in this perfect moment and pretend everything was fine when my heart was hammering with panic. Couldn’t let myself fall any further when I didn’t know if he’d be there to catch me.
“We should go back,” I said.
My voice came out cut. Sharp. Nothing like the woman who’d been melting in his arms thirty seconds ago.
Everything in Wade went quiet.
For a long moment, I thought he might argue. Might push, might demand to know what changed, might try to fix whatever he thought was broken. The old Wade would have.
But this Wade just took a breath.
“Okay,” he said quietly.
And didn’t say anything else.