Chapter 12
By ten fifteen Friday morning, I had taken four hundred and twelve photographs of people having a better day on the water than my ex-fiance deserved to have anywhere.
This was not technically part of the shot list.
It was, however, an excellent mood.
Cole stood at the helm of the Tide & Timber boat with one hand on the wheel, sunglasses on, and the expression of a man who had been born personally responsible for marine forecasts.
The family we’d taken out for the morning charter occupied the shaded seats behind me.
Two parents, one college-age daughter, one teenage son, and enough sunscreen to change the local water chemistry.
The daughter leaned over the gunwale while a pod of dolphins surfaced forty yards off our port side.
Her mother gasped.
I raised my camera.
Not at the dolphins.
At the mother’s face.
Click.
The father pointed. The son forgot he was seventeen and therefore constitutionally opposed to visible wonder. The daughter grabbed her mother’s wrist.
Click. Click.
Cole glanced over his shoulder, saw where my lens was aimed, and smiled so slightly I almost missed it.
I did not miss it.
Click.
That one was for me.
The actual campaign needed families looking delighted, not Captain Mercer looking at his photographer like he had recently admitted feelings to a nine-year-old and survived. Still, personal archival practices were important.
My phone buzzed inside the zippered pocket of my camera bag.
I ignored it.
Ten minutes later, while the family ate the snacks they’d brought and Cole idled us along the protected side of the inlet, it buzzed again.
I checked the screen only because my business number was still new enough that every notification made my brain sit up straight.
Email.
The sender was Evan Markham.
Not a text this time.
My business address.
Technically, he had listened.
I opened it.
Piper, I know you said professional things should go here, so I’m respecting that.
Sutton-Reed weekend has gotten complicated.
Maren’s unavailable now and I’m trying to rebuild the team.
Do you know any reliable shooters in the Cape Mercy/Wilmington area?
I realize you’re probably booked, but if you happen to have any availability, even rehearsal coverage would help. Paid, obviously. No pressure. Evan.
No pressure.
The two most dangerous words ever written by a man who expected pressure to work without being named.
My brain did what it had been trained to do.
Maren was unavailable. Three-day wedding.
Mercy House. Evan probably needed at least two bodies beyond himself if the client had booked the kind of coverage I remembered from the Sutton-Reed inquiry.
Welcome dinner. Rehearsal. Getting ready.
Ceremony. Reception. Brunch. If he’d lost his second, he would need somebody local.
I knew exactly how to build the coverage grid.
I knew exactly what equipment he’d bring.
I knew which parts he would underestimate.
I also knew none of that was my job.
I stared at the screen until the old reflex got embarrassed by being observed.
Cole’s voice came from the helm.
“Everything okay?”
I looked up.
He had not left the wheel. Had not crossed the deck to read over my shoulder. Had not started solving anything.
Growth was becoming annoyingly contagious in this house.
“Evan emailed.”
Cole’s jaw shifted once.
“Professional?”
“Technically.”
“What do you want?”
I laughed.
The family looked over.
I covered it with a cough.
Cole’s mouth moved.
I pointed one finger at him. “You people have all learned the same question and I resent it.”
“Good question.”
“Terrible question. Requires self-knowledge.”
“Tragic.”
I looked back at the email.
For eight years, Evan’s emergencies had arrived pre-labeled as opportunities for me to prove I was loving, flexible, professional, reasonable, or all four at once.
This one arrived with payment attached, which made it cleverer.
I opened a reply.
My first draft was three paragraphs long and included two local photographers I had met exactly once, one studio in Wilmington I knew only by reputation, and a suggestion for how he could split rehearsal coverage from the welcome dinner.
I stared at it.
Then I deleted everything.
I typed: I’m not available for Sutton-Reed coverage or staffing support. I hope the weekend goes smoothly.
My thumb hovered.
The old version of me began presenting closing arguments.
It costs nothing to give him names.
You know people.
You can be kind without going back.
What if the couple suffers because you’re being stubborn?
That last one almost got me.
Evan had always been excellent at making the client the hostage in our private disagreements.
I looked across the boat at the family we’d been paid to serve today.
The mother was showing her daughter a photo she’d taken on her phone.
Cole was checking our position. My camera cards held work I owed Tide & Timber.
The Raleigh family preview had gone out yesterday under my own name, and Mrs. Raleigh had already asked about her parents’ fortieth anniversary next spring.
I had clients.
Real ones.
Mine.
I pressed send.
Nothing exploded.
The Atlantic continued being unnecessarily large.
My shoulders dropped by an inch.
Cole glanced at me.
“Done?”
“Done.”
“Good.”
“You don’t even know what I said.”
“You look better.”
That shut me up for almost twelve seconds.
A personal record.
* * *
At one forty-eight, I was in the cottage with my laptop, two memory cards, and the kind of hunger that made me consider eating a protein bar I had found under a lens cloth.
Gray knocked once and waited.
The waiting still did things to me.
“Come in.”
He opened the door carrying a paper bag and two iced teas.
I looked at the bag.
“Please tell me you brought food.”
“Turkey sandwich. Chips. Fruit.”
I put both hands over my heart.
“Graham Bennett, this is moving extremely fast.”
“You forget lunch when you’re editing.”
“That sounded suspiciously like care.”
“Eat.”
I took the bag.
Inside was a sandwich from the deli by the marina, kettle chips, grapes, and no attempt to make the meal more virtuous than I had requested the last three times somebody picked up lunch.
That mattered more than the grapes deserved.
Gray set one iced tea beside my keyboard and looked at the monitor.
“Charter usable?”
“Very. Your captain is annoyingly photogenic when he forgets I’m there.”
“Cole is annoyingly photogenic while bleeding. It has been a lifelong problem.”
I laughed around the first bite of sandwich.
Gray leaned one hip against the desk.
He was wearing work pants, boots, and a dark green T-shirt dusted with something pale from the repair bay. His forearms were streaked with clean lines where he’d apparently washed resin or sanding dust from his hands and stopped at the wrists.
My camera brain noticed texture.
My non-camera brain noticed forearms.
Neither was helping me eat responsibly.
Gray nodded toward my phone.
“Cole said Evan emailed.”
I chewed.
“Did Cole also send a household bulletin?”
“He said it when I asked how the charter went.”
“Less dramatic. Disappointing.”
“Did you answer?”
“Yes.”
He waited.
I swallowed.
“I told him I’m unavailable for coverage or staffing support.”
Gray’s expression did not change much.
His eyes did.
Warmth.
Pride, maybe.
Not relief that Evan had lost.
Pride that I had chosen.
That was much more dangerous.
“Good,” he said.
I pointed half a sandwich at him. “You aren’t allowed to make that face.”
“What face?”
“The one that makes me want emotional stability from a man who labels extension cords.”
“They need labels.”
“See? Ruined.”
He took one of my grapes.
I slapped his hand.
“I brought them.”
“And now they’re mine.”
From outside the open window, Mango yelled, “MINE!”
Gray looked toward the house.
“I blame Rafe.”
“For the bird or capitalism?”
“Both.”
I finished half the sandwich before opening the Raleigh family’s reply on my laptop.
Gray read my face before I said anything.
“What?”
“Mrs. Raleigh wants to know if I’ll hold a date next April for her parents’ anniversary. They rent here every spring.”
“Good.”
“It’s one event.”
“It’s an event six months after your contract ends.”
I looked at him.
Gray looked back.
No smile.
No trap.
I set the sandwich down.
“Yes.”
“Do you want to be here in April?”
There it was.
A simple question with enough floor space under it to swallow a person.
I reached for my tea.
“Professionally?”
“No.”
My fingers stopped around the cup.
Gray had spent most of the time I’d known him hiding emotional questions inside practical ones. Repair dates. Door locks. Schedules. Where I planned to sleep. How long a job would take.
This one arrived naked.
I respected it enough not to pretend I misunderstood.
“I don’t know what April looks like,” I said.
“Neither do I.”
“That’s unusually reckless of you.”
“I’m trying something.”
His voice was dry, but his hands had gone still at his sides.
I stood.
“I want to be here after the contract ends.”
Gray breathed out once.
I kept going before courage developed standards.
“I want the cottage. I want my business. I want to be able to take work in Atlanta or Savannah or anywhere else without anybody acting like travel means I’m leaving them.
I want time with Nora and Nico and June that isn’t me quietly becoming the woman who remembers everybody’s dentist appointments. ”
“Good.”
“I’m not finished.”
“I know.”
“I want you. Cole. Rafe. All three. I don’t want three separate relationships where I spend my life changing shape depending on whose room I’m in. And I really, really don’t want to be the only person making accommodations because I’m the common denominator.”
Gray’s eyes stayed on mine.
“You shouldn’t be.”
My throat tightened.
I hated when they answered correctly before I had time to become defensive.
“What do you want?” I asked.
He did not look at the floor.
Did not talk about the calendar.
Did not mention school pickups, business schedules, or bedrooms.
“You. Here. After summer.”
Three words.
Three different impacts.
I stepped closer.