Chapter 38
I stayed in the bathtub long after the water turned cold, my fingers pruning, my body heavy in a way that had nothing to do with exhaustion.
The old clawfoot tub creaked under me as I shifted, resting my cheek against the cool porcelain, letting the last ripples of water rock me like I could float away from today if I stayed still enough.
I had decided to stay in the house on Lemondrop Lane for the time being. My rental felt...tainted now. Like Thatcher’s smarmy presence stained it—and I sure as fuck didn’t want to bump into him. The summer house felt more like home anyway, even if I was all alone in it now.
We’d taken two golf carts to the ferry dock—Jack and Jazz in one, Fitz and me in the other.
The sun was brutal, the air thick with salt and heat, and the little electric engine whirred beneath us while I gripped the seat with sweaty palms and tried not to think about how badly I wanted to climb across the cart and throw my arms around his neck and tell him not to go .
Instead, I stared straight ahead, sunglasses hiding my eyes, letting the silence between us stretch taut and heavy.
The goodbye wasn’t cinematic or beautiful. It wasn’t even long. It was awkward and short and worse, it was in public—the kind of scene where everything you wanted to say had to get swallowed back down because someone was always watching.
When we got to the dock, it was all rushing and luggage and ferry tickets and pretending this wasn’t a full fucking heartbreak happening in broad daylight.
With my brother and future sister-in-law there, I stood waiting for them to get on the ferry like it was any other day, like it wasn’t the end of the soft, borrowed world I’d been living in.
I didn’t kiss him. I didn’t cry. I didn’t get to throw my arms around his neck and tell him to stay, even though every cell in my body was screaming for it.
I just smiled, small and practiced, and stayed tucked next to Jazz while Jack talked about how fast August would fly. “Don’t be upset, Char,” Jack said, clapping a warm hand on my shoulder, oblivious. “You’ll see us again in no time. We’ll be back in a month for the grand opening.”
Jazz squeezed my hand and beamed at me, sweet and sunlit. “And I’ll bring your bridesmaid dress down with me, so we can make sure it fits perfectly before the wedding. FaceTime me if you want help picking the final touches for the bakery, okay? I want to see all the magic happen.”
I nodded and smiled again, my face aching from holding it there.
Fitz’s hug came last. He pulled me in like it was casual, like it was just a friend’s goodbye, but his arms wrapped tighter than they needed to, his body pressing into mine in a way that made the whole world tilt under my feet .
He ducked his head low to my ear, breath warm against my hair. “I love you,” he whispered, so soft no one else could hear. “I’ll call you as soon as I’m home.”
And then he was gone—turning with Jack toward the ferry, shoulders straight, hands shoved into the pockets of his chinos like it didn’t kill him to walk away.
I stood there on the dock with the wind whipping my hair into my mouth, watching them disappear into the flow of passengers boarding the boat, tasting salt on my tongue that had nothing to do with the ocean.
I didn’t cry until I was alone, a few hot, silent tears slipping down my cheeks as I walked back to the golf cart, clutching the last warm echo of him still lingering on my skin.
Now, hours later, the house was too quiet, every creak of the floorboards like a missing heartbeat. Fitz’s toothbrush was still in the bathroom, forgotten in the rush. His coffee cup still sat on my bedside table, like he might walk back through the door any second to reclaim it.
But he wouldn’t. Not tonight. Not tomorrow.
I slid lower in the tub, letting the water lap over my throat, blinked up at the cracked ceiling, and wished that I could rewind time—back to this morning or yesterday or the day before, when his absence hadn’t carved a hollow place inside me that no amount of water could fill.
L ater that night, my phone buzzed on the nightstand, the screen lighting up in the dark. It was Fitz.
Fitz
Home finally.
6 hours of traffic and I feel like my head’s splitting in two.
Missing you so fucking bad, Winslow.
Gonna shower and crash.
Can we talk tomorrow?
I stared at the text for a long moment, tracing my thumb over the words like I could feel him through the screen.
Part of me wanted to call him right then. Hear his voice, steal a few more seconds of him before sleep swallowed both of us whole. But the rest of me—the part that already ached from missing him—knew it wasn’t what he needed tonight.
He was wiped. He needed rest. And I needed to be the girl he could lean on, not another weight dragging him down.
Of course.
Get some sleep, Whitmore.
I miss you too. So much.
Talk tomorrow.
XO.
I couldn’t sleep.
I tossed and turned in the empty bed, the sheets too cool without his body beside me, the shadows too big, the house too quiet. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him. His crooked smile. The tired weight of him holding me this morning like he already knew how much it would hurt to leave.
At midnight, I gave up. I rolled onto my side and grabbed my phone, thumb hovering over our last sweet exchange. My heart thundered. My brain screamed at me to leave it alone. Let him sleep. Be normal.
I didn’t listen.
My fingers flew before I could think, texting fast, reckless, logic nowhere in sight.
This has been so great but I know it’s got an expiration date.
I’m a bakery owner on a tiny island that you can only get to by ferry and golf cart and you run a multi-million dollar law firm in DC.
You date Vogue models. I wear cutoff jean shorts and flip flops and have flour dust in my hair half the time.
I know the only option here involves me giving something up.
I could give up the bakery, pack a bag, move to DC, try to polish myself enough to fit into your world.
And honestly I’m tempted.
I’ve loved you for what feels like my whole life.
But I loved Lemondrop Lane just a little bit longer.
It’s not a competition.
It’s just the truth.
I can’t make myself give up one dream I’ve had my whole life for the other dream I’ve had my whole life.
I have to see this bakery through.
Well I guess I don’t have to but I want to.
I want to be someone who finishes what she starts.
I don’t want to be the girl who flakes when it gets hard.
I did that with college. I can’t do it again.
And I get that I can’t ask you to be in a long-distance thing forever.
I can’t even ask you to want that.
I don’t know what I’m asking.
I’m sorry.
I just miss you so much already I can barely breathe.
But I think if the end is inevitable I’d rather be heartbroken now than a month or two from now.
Right?
Is that what you’re thinking too?
I stared at the screen, thumb hovering, stomach twisting so tight I thought I might be sick. I couldn’t believe I’d sent all that. But I meant it. It was all the stuff I should have been brave enough to say in person but I just hadn’t been willing to lose moments of loving him to break up with him.
And then I dropped the phone onto the bed beside me, curled into a ball under the covers, and finally, finally let myself cry.
T he next morning, the light was harsh and unkind pouring through the windows. My head ached from crying, my body heavy from the kind of sleep that isn’t really sleep at all.
I reached for my phone with a shaking hand, dreading the silence that might be waiting on the other side.
There was a text.
Fitz
Go check your mail, Charlie.
Now.
I sat up fast, my heart hammering against my ribs. I pulled up my Gmail app and scanned all my email from the past few days.
Sushi coupons and Barnes and Noble sale emails.
Nothing from you.
A second later, his reply came through.
Fitz
Your actual mailbox, Charlie.
Outside.
Go.
For half a second I just stared at it, my brain a slow fog.
Then I was throwing the covers off, grabbing the first beach cover- up I could find off the back of the chair, and racing barefoot down the stairs.
The front door banged open into the thick morning air, the whole street hazy with humidity and heavy with the smell of salt and sun.
I sprinted down Lemondrop Lane, the gravel digging into the soles of my feet, my heart pounding louder than my footsteps.
There, tucked inside the dented, cheerful yellow mailbox, was a letter.
No return address. No postage.
Just my name, written in his unmistakable slanted, lawyerly handwriting.
My hands shook as I tore it open, unfolding the thick, expensive stationery inside. When I opened it, I saw he had dated it yesterday.
Charlie, my love —
Thank you for picking my favorite place on earth as our home, though I guess whatever you picked would be my favorite place on earth because you’d be there.
I can’t wait to eat your pastries and pussy forever. Should I put that in my vows?
I love you and can’t wait to build a life with you on Lemondrop Lane. I’ll get things sorted with my firm this month. Get ready for an obnoxious number of leather shoes and very expensive suits invading your closet space—or maybe I’ll just get rid of them all and buy embroidered shorts. You choose.
Come to think of it, I would prefer if we not wear clothes at all when we’re home. In the meantime, I have plenty of mental pictures (and a few I snapped on my phone while you were sleeping last night—sorry if that makes me a creep) to help me get by over the next month .
I’ll just think about the way your leg slips between mine when you’re sleeping, your skin warm and bare and mine for the taking.
The curve of your ass rolling against me when you’re dreaming, pressing your heat back into my cock like your body knows it’s mine even when you don’t mean to.
And the way you push your thighs open for me without thinking when I press into you, slick and begging for my touch, like your body knows exactly who it belongs to even in your dreams.
It’s not enough. It won’t ever be enough until I’m buried back inside you, until you’re wrapped around me so tight the rest of the world disappears.
I’ll see you soon, Winslow.
Not soon enough.
Fitz
I stood there on the side of the road, bare feet burning on the sun-warmed gravel, holding the letter like it might sprout wings and fly out of my hands if I let go.
A wild, wet laugh broke out of my chest, half joy, half disbelief. I pressed the paper to my mouth, breathing in the faint scent of him still clinging to it—soap and cologne and something purely Fitz—and blinked hard against the blur of tears filling my eyes.
God, I loved him.
I loved him so fucking much.
And now I’d have the man I loved in the place I loved. It really couldn’t get better than that.