Epilogue
FREDDIE
The light in Crescent Cove goes golden around four in the afternoon and stays that way until the sun dips below the horizon. I know this because I've watched it every day for six weeks from the window of Liam's house, which I've stopped calling Liam's house and started calling home.
My suitcases are unpacked and put away in a storage closet.
The loft bedroom that I thought lacked privacy now just feels open and I often go up there to write, especially when I came home one day and found that Liam had gotten me a desk.
His bed is now our bed, and I’ve taken to falling asleep with his steady heartbeat against my back.
Shellie sits on the kitchen counter in a small glass case Liam bought for it. It doesn't speak anymore, which I honestly really miss. Sometimes I hold it to my ear out of habit, although I’d trade its voice for Liam to actually feel his own heart again.
Dove visited last week. She stood in the living room and looked at the tidal channel, the books, my laptop on the bar and Liam making coffee in the kitchen, saying, "I told you the universe doesn't send dreams for nothing.
" Then she hugged me so hard I couldn't breathe and whispered, "I'm so happy for you, Freddie. "
I called my agent. Told her the book would be late but it would be worth it. She said, "At this point I'll take anything, please just send me pages."
My ex even texted that he’s been thinking about me and I felt nothing except a mild hope that Biscuit is doing well.
I texted back she better be getting walks and left it at that.
If it wasn’t for the fact that that dog loves Tommy, and that he really does take good care of her, I would have fought for dog custody more.
But Biscuit hates long car rides and not being home.
Maybe we can get a corgi here…
Liam is behind the bar at The Riptide, pouring drinks, laughing with regulars, really laughing with the full, warm kind, and I'm at my usual spot at the end of the bar with my laptop open and a daiquiri sweating on a napkin.
He catches my eye from across the bar and winks at me, which makes Kira roll her eyes so hard I hear it from here.
I look at my laptop, the manuscript sitting open with a blinking cursor.
The book is actually almost done. It's not the book I came here to write.
Nope. It's turned into something else entirely.
Something about a woman who carries a man's heart without knowing what to do with it.
Something about two people who couldn't feel anything finding everything in the last place they'd ever look.
Marlowe Indigo is back.
The dedication page reads: For the heart I found in a seashell. For the man who waited six years to feel again. And for Winifred Brown, who maybe finally got her own happy ever after.
I take a sip of my daiquiri, glancing out at the ocean through the open cave wall, the waves rolling in, the horizon bleeding orange and pink.
Then I put my fingers on the keyboard.
THE END.