Epilogue - Bonnie
I sat at my corner table in the library, laptop open, pen poised to take more notes, and watched the front desk from across the room.
Gray and Lawson sat side by side—Lawson in a chair he’d dragged over from one of the reading tables last week and hadn’t moved since.
They had a damaged book between them, and Gray was showing Lawson how to smooth glue along the seam of the spine.
Lawson’s fingers were clumsy, but he was trying.
“Too much,” Gray said, his tone gentle.
Lawson paused. Studied the area. “How much, then?”
“Half that. A thin layer.”
Gray scraped off the excess and Lawson tried again.
This was life now.
One month had passed since that night at the docks.
Lawson’s hearing had gone better than I’d expected, probably because Sheriff Wick had spoken on his behalf, which I hadn’t seen coming.
He’d told the judge that Lawson had cooperated fully, that the adults involved had fled and left a minor to take the fall, and that in his experience, this was a kid who’d been used, not a kid headed for trouble.
The judge had assigned community service, counseling, and a probation period.
If Lawson stayed clean, there would be no record following him through life.
He was staying clean. I would make sure of it.
He’d done twenty of his forty community service hours so far—beach cleanup and dock maintenance, supervised by a guy who reported back to Sheriff Wick.
He went to counseling every Tuesday and never talked about it afterward, which was fine.
He didn’t need to talk about it with me. He just needed to go.
He hadn’t mentioned Darren or Cade since that night. Not once.
Sheriff Wick had brought them both in for questioning, but they’d had alibis.
Airtight ones, two people willing to swear they’d been somewhere else all night.
The only camera facing that stretch of the docks hadn’t worked in months, so it came down to our word against theirs.
And Lawson was the one caught standing next to stolen property.
Imagine that.
I don’t know the exact day Lawson asked to come with me to the library, but one day he did. At first, I thought it was because of me, that he wanted to be around me more or at least not sitting at home alone, but I was wrong.
He came because of Gray.
Lawson had watched him for a few days without saying anything. Then one afternoon, he’d asked if he could help him with restoring a book. Gray had handed him a tool and showed him what to do, and that had been that.
Now it was their thing.
Gray caught my eye from across the room and winked at me. Butterflies broke into flight in my stomach. I flashed him a smile and then went back to studying.
At six forty-five, Gray made the closing announcement. At my repeated insistence, he’d stopped keeping the library open late for me. We all packed up our things and headed for the door.
“Delilah’s?” Gray asked, holding the door open for me and Lawson.
“I could eat,” Lawson said, which was his version of enthusiasm.
We walked together down Main Street, the three of us. Lawson a half step ahead with his hands in his pockets the way they always were. The evening air was cool, and the sky was turning purple and shades of pink. I reached for Gray’s hand, and his fingers closed around mine without hesitation.
My life looked different now, but I loved it.
It wasn’t easier—Lawson still had hard days, money was still tight, and the Williams name still made certain people in this town look the other way—but I wasn’t carrying it all alone anymore.
I had Gray now.
Delilah’s was warm and bright when we pushed through the door. Lawson made a beeline for the counter to check out the pie selection, and Delilah lit up at the sight of him.
“There’s my favorite troublemaker,” she said, already reaching for a plate. “Blueberry?”
“Yes, please.”
Gray and I slid into our usual booth while Delilah fixed Lawson up at the counter. She was mid-conversation with a customer, and I could tell from the sparkle in her eye that she had something good.
“—leaving next week,” she was saying, her voice pitched at that precise volume that carried everywhere without technically being loud.
“Off to who knows where for a whole month. You know how he is. Barely tells anyone anything and then just up and disappears.” She shook her head, her chunky bracelets clinking.
“But here’s the thing—he’s renting his unit out while he’s gone. ”
“Nothing wrong with that,” the customer said.
“Oh, I’m not done.” Delilah leaned on the counter, eyes sparkling. “The renter is a woman. A romance writer.” She let that hang in the air like she’d just served the juiciest slice of gossip ever. “And I don’t think he’s told Nolan yet.”
The customer laughed. “He hasn’t told Nolan he’s going to have a stranger living on the other side of his wall for a month?”
“Not a word.” Delilah pressed her hand to her chest. “Can you imagine? That poor woman is going to show up thinking she’s rented a peaceful beach getaway to write her little love stories and is going to find Nolan as her neighbor.”
“That’s not going to end well.”
“Or—” Delilah held up a finger, grinning. “It’s going to end very well.” She winked. “Mark my words.”
Lawson appeared at our booth with a plate of blueberry pie in one hand and a glass of milk in the other. He stood there for a second, looking at the two of us on the same side of the booth, and I braced for the eye roll or the sarcastic comment.
Instead, he slid into the seat across from us and dug into his pie without a word.
Gray’s arm came around my shoulders, and I leaned into him. Delilah brought coffee and two more slices of pie without being asked, setting them down with a satisfied nod.
“She thinks she’s responsible for us,” I said, watching Delilah head back to the counter.
“I’m sure she does.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead.
I picked up my fork and smiled.
Across the table, Lawson was halfway through his pie and showing no signs of slowing down. He had a smear of blueberry at the corner of his mouth, and for a second, he looked ten instead of fourteen.
Warmth spread through my chest.
Not long ago, I’d sat at a kitchen table in an empty house and wondered if I was losing my brother for good. Now he was across from me with pie on his face, sitting in a booth in a town that was slowly starting to feel less like a punishment and more like a place where we might actually belong.
I wasn’t naive enough to think the hard parts were over. Lawson would still have his days and I would have mine, but Gray was here now. He would make sure I didn’t drown. He would hold me steady.
I took a sip of my coffee and then stole a bite of Gray’s pie when he wasn’t looking. He noticed. He always noticed everything, but he didn’t say a word.
Instead, he kissed me.