Chapter 17
T he smell of crab cakes and lemon butter floated out through the open doors and caught on the breeze that pushed in from the ocean. My mom and I had been cooking all afternoon, barefoot, Motown crooning through the speakers, as we prepared a home-cooked meal for the crew.
There was a rhythm to the way we moved in the kitchen together—me chopping herbs, her squeezing citrus, both of us covered in flour at some point and laughing about it.
It felt like being a kid again. Safe. Familiar.
The part of me that hadn’t changed no matter how old I got or how hard I pretended not to need my mother.
By the time everyone else had showered off the day and changed for dinner, we had Aperol spritzes chilling, summer corn salad plated, and Fitz out on the back patio setting out citronella candles like he couldn’t bear to be inside another minute.
He hadn’t looked at me much since that morning, but I could feel him in the room when he was in it.
The whole table glowed—lanterns strung over the pergola, linen napkins, a crystal pitcher filled with mint and blood orange slices.
Sloane, all elegance and quiet distance, declined the spritz with a polite smile and poured herself a glass of Chenin Blanc instead. Of course. She was wearing a cream slip dress and earrings that looked like they cost more than the tile in my bakery.
I was refilling water glasses when I saw Thatcher coming up the back steps. He was dressed in a pale blue button-down, sleeves cuffed, that surfer tan glowing under the porch lights. He smiled like it was all so effortless — the perfect boyfriend entering stage left.
My dad stood when I introduced them. “Thatcher, this is my father, Charles Winslow Senior.”
“Please,” Dad said, shaking his hand firmly. “Call me Charlie. Everyone else does, except for Fitzgerald over there.”
Thatcher grinned. “It’s an honor. She’s told me a lot about you.”
“All good things?” my mom chimed in, sliding a tray of roasted asparagus onto the table.
“Only the best,” Thatcher said smoothly.
They chatted a bit. Easy things. Where he was from (Nashville), what he did (consulting), how long he’d known me (a month). But when Dad started asking real questions, Thatcher started to squirm a bit.
“So what do you consult on?” my father asked as he took a seat, unfolding his napkin. “I never quite understand what that means.”
Thatcher laughed—too quickly. “Yeah, it’s a lot of different things, honestly. Project management advice. Business development. Sometimes operations.”
“For a particular firm?”
“Uh...yeah. I’m contracted with a group that does real estate strategy and environmental efficiency analysis.”
My dad blinked. “That’s a mouthful.”
Thatcher grinned again, nodded. “Yeah. It’s hard to describe.”
“Do you work with land acquisition teams or zoning boards?”
There was a beat. A flicker of something. “No,” Thatcher said. “I mean, not directly. More the strategy side.”
My father raised an eyebrow but didn’t press. Just passed him the butter.
A fter dinner, the sun had slouched low behind the dunes, streaking the sky in ribbons of peach and lavender. The tide had gone soft and glassy. My mom reached for her phone and clapped her hands lightly. “Family photo time,” she said. “While we still have that dreamy sky.”
I groaned. “We just ate half the Atlantic.”
“You look radiant,” she said, adjusting her scarf with a little dramatic flourish. “And it’s like the sky decided to match your lavender floral dress this evening. Come on. Everyone to the beach.”
We trudged down in pairs and clusters, the wind tugging gently at hemlines and loose hair.
Fitz walked beside Jack, and my father carried with him a chilled wine bottle and made a point of drinking straight from it like he was suddenly a pirate.
My mother was already directing angles and sun positions like she was the art director on a shoot for Southern Living.
When we reached the spot—just in front of the dune grass—she turned to Sloane with a smile. “Would you mind?”
Sloane blinked, caught slightly off-guard. “Of course.”
She took the phone with a perfectly polite smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She stepped back slowly, adjusting the angle.
Jack and Jazz stood to the left of my parents, arms around each other, sun in their hair like they were always meant to be in a photograph together.
Which left Fitz and me on the other side. I hesitated to move in—just a second. Then he moved first, sliding his hand lightly to my lower back, guiding me forward like he’d done it a thousand times.
We stood there, the six of us, the people who had made up my childhood, my memories, my blueprint for what closeness was supposed to look like.
And Fitz had always been part of it. That was the thing no one ever really said out loud—he was never just Jack’s friend.
Not to any of us. And definitely not to me.
His hand brushed against my hip as we stood there, and I felt it all over. That old magnetic field I’d tried to convince myself wasn’t real. I didn’t look at him. Couldn’t.
Sloane took a few photos. Then a few more.
“Okay,” my mom called, “now one silly one!”
I threw up peace signs, leaned into Fitz, half-laughing. He ducked his head next to mine, that familiar smirk curving his mouth.
Click.
Click.
I’d remember the way he looked in that light for the rest of my life.
After our photo session was finished, the group trudged back through the sand, making our way slowly back toward the house.
The light was fading, and our voices rang softer, hushed by the rhythm of the waves.
Everyone was flushed with food and wine and the kind of contentment that settles after a perfect meal.
The tide was lower now, the breeze gentler, dusk settling over the sand like a gossamer’s wing. Most of the group had already made it halfway to the house, laughing over who forgot the wine bottle and whether we’d missed the window for dessert.
Fitz and I walked a few steps behind them on the path that curved through the dunes—quiet now, easy. The kind of easy that didn’t need talking.
The hem of my lavender dress brushed against my knees with every step.
Fitz was beside me, sleeves rolled to his elbows, his white button-down catching the last gold edge of the light.
He had on heather gray slacks, pressed and elegant as always.
He turned to look at me. “Your mom was right, you know?”
“Well yeah, she always is. But about what?”
“You match the sky. A lavender haze. You couldn’t be more picture perfect.”
I touched the lengths of my blonde waves, nervous suddenly. Did he really just say that?
“Not the hard-boiled Fitzgerald Whitmore paying me a compliment. It couldn’t be.” I chuckled with the warmth of a blush on my cheeks and a pattering of my heart.
“Oh hush, Charlie. You know you’re gorgeous in that natural, windswept, sun-on-your-shoulders way that other women could only wish for.”
I blinked, heat blooming across my skin like he’d brushed his fingers down my collarbone instead of saying it out loud. He kept walking, head tilted toward me, easy in his steps, completely unaware—or maybe entirely aware—of what his words were doing to me.
That’s when I saw Sloane turn. She was a dozen paces ahead, on the edge of the dune path, silhouetted against the horizon. She paused, lifted her phone, and snapped a photo—of the sunset I guessed. The color was worth capturing. Lilac bleeding into blush, the ocean still glinting.
I didn’t think much of it, just gave her a soft smile when she caught my eye, and kept walking. Once we got back to the patio, I walked ahead of Fitz toward the house when I heard her voice.
“Fitz.” Sloane, lounging languidly in a patio chair, called out. He slowed, and she added, “Tomorrow. Let’s go out for dinner alone. I just...I’d like some time with you. ”
I kept walking and didn’t look back to catch his response. But the air had shifted. I could feel it—like someone had taken something fragile and set it down just a little too hard.