Chapter 15 #3
My gaze flicks to Eli’s, searching for the lie, for any sign that he’s been trading my secrets like currency. But all I see is sincerity, exposed, uncomfortable, and real.
“Never told a word to anyone. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
The knot of tension between my shoulders loosens just slightly. “Thank you.”
I blink hard because I will not cry here, not in this café full of strangers, not when I’m finally starting to think that maybe I can handle this. But my eyes burn anyway, gratitude and grief tangled so tight I can’t separate them.
The air eases after that, tension dissolving under Cassian’s observation about a toothpick shaped like a swordfish that the waiter left on his plate.
“Do you think it’s decorative?” he asks, holding it up to examine it in the fading light. “Or is this some kind of commentary on the inherent violence of consumption?”
“It’s a toothpick shaped like a fish,” Eli says flatly. “At a seafood restaurant. You’re overthinking it.”
“Am I? Or are you underthinking it?”
“That’s not a word.”
“It is now. I just made it one.”
I find myself smiling despite everything, the heaviness in me lifting incrementally. But the quiet between me and Rowan still hums with something that isn’t gone…just waiting.
And I’m tuned to every shift of both Cassian and Rowan’s bodies, and the hair-thin gap between us is both too much and not enough.
Rowan moves his hand across the table, casual enough that it could be an accident. His knuckles brush mine, skin-to-skin contact that sends electricity racing up my arm.
“We’ll find out about your friends,” he says again, and this time it sounds less like a possibility and more like a vow.
I nod, not trusting my voice. The bread’s gone cold on my plate. My pulse hasn’t.
The waiter returns, balancing a tray of desserts that could feed a small army.
“I didn’t order this much,” Cassian says, staring at the spread.
“I may have added a few things, while you were distracted,” Eli admits, not looking remotely sorry. “For science.”
“Your scientific method is going to give us all diabetes.”
“A sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
I grab what looks like fried Oreos because if I’m going to have a crisis about my living situation, I might as well do it with chocolate.
Eli raises his water glass like it’s champagne, eyes gleaming. “To bad decisions in good company.”
I’m saved from poking my emotions by the waiter, who drops off another tray, this one with what looks like donut holes smothered in a syrup and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.
“Did you just flirt us into free food?” Cassian asks, eyebrow raised.
“I prefer to think of it as strategic diplomacy,” Eli says, popping two Oreos into his mouth at the same time.
“You batted your eyelashes.”
“I have very expressive eyes. It’s not my fault people respond to them.”
I snag a piece before they can demolish the whole plate. “If we get kicked out of here, I’m blaming you.”
“Please. They love me here,” Eli says with absolute confidence. Then, quieter, just to me: “You good?”
I nod, because I am. Or I’m getting there, anyway. And that’s enough for now.
We tap our glasses like it’s champagne, and a puff of sugar dusts the table, glittering in the light. Rowan nudges the dessert plate a careful inch toward the middle—equidistant from all of us.
After the fourth time, Eli goes for more; Rowan slides it back half an inch, a silent pace yourself.
“Rude,” Eli mutters, already smiling. “It’s called sharing, Rowan. Look it up.” Cassian snorts, reaching for his glass. “You mean the kind that ends with someone in the ER.”
“Semantics,” Eli says, grinning wider.
Cinnamon hits my tongue, warm and ridiculous, and the knot in my chest loosens just enough to let air in.
At another bite, Eli catches me licking sugar off my thumb and looks away too late, ears going faintly pink.
The sight of it does something traitorous to my stomach—this brilliant, vibrant man who’s been nothing but kind to me, who held back at the table like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to want me.
I’m in so much trouble.
Cassian’s grin is pure mischief next to me—he definitely noticed Eli’s reaction. I pretend I’m oblivious to both of them, but the warmth pooling low in my belly says otherwise.
After we pay, Eli over-tipping again, because apparently, he tips like he’s never had to count coins, we wander through the shops lining the boardwalk.
The evening’s gone soft and purple, twilight settling over everything like a blanket. We drift from storefront to storefront with no particular destination, just the pleasure of being together, of having nowhere else we need to be.
Rowan buys a jar of local honey from an old woman who calls him sweetheart until he looks like he’d rather face armed combat.
The tips of his ears go red, and he mumbles something that might be thank you, clutching the jar like a shield.
I bite back a smile, charmed by this crack in his usual composure, this glimpse of the man underneath the careful control.
Cassian picks out a baseball cap that says Captain of Bad Decisions and puts it on backward, striking a pose that should be ridiculous but somehow isn’t.
It shouldn’t work; the cap’s absurd, and the pose is worse, but he makes it charming anyway, this willingness to be silly for the sake of making us smile.
Eli finds a tiny plush penguin in a tourist trap and immediately names it Churro, tucking it into his jacket pocket so just the head pokes out. “He’s our mascot now,” he declares with absolute seriousness.
“I wasn’t going to ask,” Cassian says mildly.
“You were thinking it.”
“Was I?”
“Loudly.”
“And before you ask, yes, he’s coming back to the cabin with us.”
“Our cabin,” I say without thinking, and watch something flicker across his face—surprise, then pleasure, then that careful hope again.
“Yeah,” he says softly. “Our cabin.”
And I can’t stop smiling. Can’t stop feeling like maybe, possibly, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
We browse the shops along the strip. A bell-jar jellyfish lamp blinks pink at me from one window, and I almost stop, but then Cassian’s hand brushes the small of my back, guiding me forward, and I forget about the lamp entirely.
There’s a stack of smooth pebbles in another shop that are cool when I touch them, satisfying in a weird way, but nothing calls to me like that postcard already did. I’m good with what I have.
“Who’s ready for a carnival?” Eli asks, already grinning.
Cassian checks the time. “It’s pushing four. We should dump the loot and feed Jess something that isn’t fried joy.”
“Especially since there won’t be anything healthy at the carnival.” Rowan shakes his head, but there’s a brightness in his eyes.
Back at the cabin, we unload—postcard on the mantle, honey on the counter, Churro the penguin perched on the fruit bowl like he owns the place.
We throw together quick sandwiches and water, change into layers because of coastal evenings, and I can’t part with Cassian’s hoodie, so I pull it back on over my clothes.
Then we head out again, lighter and a little giddy.
By the time the boardwalk lights flicker on, dusk has softened the sky to shades of lavender and deep indigo.
The fair blooms to life at the far end of the pier, Ferris wheel spinning lazy circles against the darkening sky, bulbs pulsing pink and blue and tangerine.
The air thickens with the scent of sugar and salt and something electric—anticipation, maybe, or possibility.
The sense that the night could go anywhere from here.
Music drifts toward us, tinny and nostalgic, the kind of carnival songs that sound like childhood even if you never went to a carnival as a kid.
I ache with it, with wanting. With how much I want to ride the Ferris wheel and eat too much cotton candy and scream on the rides like I’m someone who gets to have uncomplicated joy.
Rowan falls into step beside me, hands in his jacket pockets, his shoulder brushing mine every few steps.
The contact feels intentional, like he’s testing boundaries, gauging how close he can get before I tense, but I don’t.
I let it happen, pretending it’s nothing, even as every nerve in my arm lights up with the truth.
Eli hums under his breath, already scanning the lights ahead like he’s found something worth chasing. “First one to the Ferris wheel buys the funnel cake,” he calls over his shoulder, and takes off running before any of us can protest.
“That’s cheating!” Cassian shouts, but he’s running too, long strides eating up the distance between them.
Rowan raises an eyebrow in a silent question. Well?
I grin and take off after them, the boardwalk blurring beneath my feet, cool air stinging my lungs.
Laughter spills out of me, helpless and free, and behind me I hear Rowan following, his footsteps steady and sure.
I know without looking that he’s matching my pace, that he won’t let me fall behind. None of them will.
For the first time in a long time, I don’t want to run away.
I’m tired of running. I just want to fall into this—into them, into the possibility that maybe I get to keep it. That maybe, finally, I get to stay.