Chapter 8
T he sun had turned thick and golden, that midday syrup that makes your skin hum and your brain slow down.
I was tucked up in one of the Adirondack chairs on the side deck, barefoot, legs curled under me, reading The Secret History for the fourth or fifth time and pretending I didn’t hear footsteps on the sand.
I didn’t have to look up. There was something in the rhythm of his walk—surefooted and deliberately unhurried. Like the world moved around him, not the other way around.
He came up the steps without saying anything, and I refused to acknowledge him. I turned the page like I was engrossed, even though I was stuck on the same sentence since I had noticed his approach.
“No Thatcher?” His voice was casual, neutral. But something in the air shifted when he said it.
I didn’t glance up. “ He left early this morning. Had to go into town for work stuff.”
“That’s too bad,” he said with snark in his tone.
I did look up then. His eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, and he was holding an iced tea in one hand and a book in the other. “Don’t worry,” I said. “He’s heading back in a few hours.”
“What a relief.” Fitz smirked and reached out—without asking—and took my book. Just plucked it right out of my hands like he owned the right to touch everything I held.
“Hey,” I protested, but he was already thumbing through the pages.
“Tartt,” he said. “Bold choice for beach reading.”
“It was either that or Bridgerton , and I figured you’d judge me either way.”
He stopped at a page I’d annotated. Yellow highlighter. Small notes in the margin. My handwriting in tidy narrow print.
His brow lifted, mouth tilting. “Well well,” he said. “Look at all this marginalia.”
My whole body blushed. It was just a word . That’s all. A literary word. A normal, academic, harmless fucking word. But the way he said it. Like he’d said it before. My stomach turned traitor. My throat went dry. I reached for the book. “Give it back.”
“You blush every time someone sees your annotations?”
“I’m not blushing.”
“You’re bright pink.”
“That’s from the sun.”
Fitz flipped a few more pages like he was searching for something, then paused. His finger rested on a line I’d underlined twice. “Beauty is terror ,” he read aloud. “ Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”
The words hung in the air like heat lightning. He didn’t say anything else for a moment, just looked at the page. I could feel my pulse tick in my neck. “True words,” he said finally. “But she’s paraphrasing from?—”
“Rilke,” we said at the same time. I blinked up at him. He smiled like he’d caught me bluffing at poker. “ Duino Elegies ,” I added. “Yeah. I know it.”
“Impressive.”
“What, because I didn’t go to Yale?” I snarked. “I may have gone to culinary school, but I’m not a neanderthal.”
He looked at me for a beat. Really looked at me. The smirk faded just a little. “Didn’t say that,” he said. “But it’s good to know you can read between the lines.”
I shot him a glare. “I can read everything, Fitz. Even you.”
The silence between us buzzed. And I watched the way his jaw tensed, just a flicker. Like maybe he wanted to say something reckless. Maybe he would’ve, if we weren’t on the deck where anyone could walk out at any second. My brother. His girlfriend. Or the ghosts of summers’ past.
Instead, he handed the book back, slow. His fingers brushed mine and held there, half a second too long. “Relax,” he said, eyes unreadable behind the lenses. “I’m a fan of marginalia. It shows curiosity—and curiosity’s hot.”
He turned and walked away like he hadn’t just made me hot with his offhanded compliment. Did he just call me hot?
I stared down at the book and couldn’t stop thinking about the sound of his voice when he’d said it years ago, remembering him talk about another girl’s mouth, another bed, another version of himself I was never supposed to hear.
He didn’t know. He couldn’t possibly know. But the curl of heat between my legs said otherwise.
I t was too hot to do anything but sip iced coffee and lounge inside.
The late afternoon heat had turned Bellwater Cove into a slow, sticky sauna and, after a long morning on the beach, everyone had retreated inside in search of shade and caffeine.
Jack and Jazz were perched at the kitchen bar, legs dangling, clinking ice cubes in their glasses, watching me like I was a live cooking show.
Sloane sat with Fitz in the breakfast nook, every inch of her looking editorial even as she sipped from a sweat-slick mason jar like the rest of us.
Meanwhile, I was elbows-deep in laminated dough, trying to master a new variation of kouign-amann for the bakery menu.
It was the kind of pastry that demanded a sick level of patience—layer upon layer of butter and sugar folded with obsessive precision—and I was determined to get it right before the kitchen remodel was done.
I had flour on my tank top, my hair undoubtedly frizzing up in my messy bun; I’d given up caring what I looked like around the time Fitz walked in shirtless this morning. I was focused.
Until Jazz—sweet, inquisitive, nosy Jazz—ruined everything. “So,” she said, taking a sip and leaning forward, “how’s the chemistry with Thatcher?”
The rolling pin stuttered beneath my palm.
I pressed on, hoping she’d let it pass. I’d been trying to get this caramelization just right for weeks.
And now I had to talk about my sex life in front of my brother and my first crush.
Perfect. “Uh,” I said, brushing my wrist across my forehead, “I mean...the chemistry is fine.”
Jack made a sound that might have been a snort. Jazz leaned forward on her elbows. “Just fine?”
“It’s...nice,” I said, grabbing more flour and dusting the counter like it would distract them. “Low maintenance. He’s laid back. It works.”
Fitz coughed. One of those smug, throat-clearing sounds that was designed to irritate.
“Come on, Charlie, ya gotta give me more than ‘nice.’ Is it hot? Cozy? Spontaneous combustion? I need adjectives.”
“Jazz!” I let out an exasperated huff.” “There’s nothing wrong with ‘fine.’”
There was a beat of silence. Then Jack laughed. Loud and boyish and delighted. “Oh, damn. If a girl ever said I was ‘fine’ in bed, I’d take a vow of celibacy.”
I pointed a floured finger in Jack’s direction. “You don’t get to weigh in. You’ve had sex with exactly one woman in the last five years, and you put a ring on her.”
Jazz raised her iced coffee. “And I made him wait for the first three months.”
Fitz mock-shuddered. “Dark times.”
“And yet I survived,” Jack said, kissing her cheek.
Jazz shook her head and laughed at him and said, “well baby, you are fiiinnnnnnnee in bed. And out of bed too. Why else would I have said yes?”
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered.
“Sorry for being so nosy, Char. I was just trying to get a temperature read,” she said, shrugging.
“Lukewarm,” Fitz said from the corner, not even pretending to be subtle.
“And I can’t name a single thing other than brie that’s good when it’s lukewarm.
” I could hear the smirk in his voice, could practically feel him lounging back like the king of unbothered assholes, sipping his iced coffee and tossing out provocations like breadcrumbs.
I didn’t look at him. “He’s not lukewarm,” I said, reaching for more flour. “He’s just easy. Chill. Doesn’t overthink everything or get all intense. It’s nice.”
“I get avoiding a relationship that’s heading down marriage lane, but if the sex is the temperature of a baby’s bathwater,” Fitz countered, “you might as well be chess partners.” He took a sip of his coffee, then added dryly, “No—scratch that. Even my chess partners are decently riveting.”
I rolled out the dough and tried not to care that Fitz was watching me. “Forgive me if I prefer someone who doesn’t give me frostbite or third-degree burns.”
He turned and looked away as Jazz cleared her throat and steered the conversation in a less controversial direction. “What exactly does Thatcher do again?” Jazz asked.
“He’s a consultant,” I said, folding the dough neatly. “Mostly project strategy. Real estate-adjacent.”
“That sounds like a line of bullshit,” Fitz said flatly.
I set the dough down harder than necessary.
“I haven’t inspected his resumé in the three weeks we’ve been talking.
He doesn’t bore me with long self-important tirades and actually asks me about my own plans for the bakery and its progress.
You know, how it’s nice to inquire about other people’s lives out of genuine curiosity,” I said with a pointed glare.
I turned, flour on my hands, heat prickling at the back of my neck.
Then Sloane said, almost offhand, “I respect Charlie’s approach.”
Everyone looked at her. She lifted her coffee and added, “There’s something practical about letting something be nice, convenient, easy in the moment. Knowing what it is and accepting it for that. A lukewarm orgasm without strings is still an orgasm.”
Jack looked vaguely horrified. Jazz was trying not to laugh. And Fitz—Fitz looked like someone had yanked the antique oriental rug out from under him.
“Thanks,” I said, glancing over at her. “For the record, he also raves about my croissants and brings me jam from the farmers’ market so?—”
“Well now that is chemistry,” Sloane said.
And for the first time all day, I didn’t feel like the odd one out. I turned back to my pastry, tucking the final fold tight and precise. Let Fitz sulk in the corner. Let him choke on his perfectly chilled smugness because his girlfriend just took my side.
Checkmate.