10. June
JUNE
The wind gnaws at my face, bright and insistent, until the skin under my eyes tingles and goes numb. My knees are drawn up, chin pressed forward, every muscle in my back locked in stubborn, exhausted protest.
Two days. That’s how long it’s been since Ashton showed up at my house. I told myself I’d give him this last chance. But he doesn’t even know I’m here. His yacht pulled back into the harbor earlier today, and I’ve been waiting ever since.
I shift positions and regret it instantly. My joints make a sound somewhere between a whine and a complaint. My thighs have long since surrendered to pins and needles, and my fingers barely flex when I check my phone again. I’m not sure what I expect. But there’s nothing.
Sunset falls slowly, wrapping the harbor in syrupy orange and cold steel. The boats rock a little rougher as the tide turns, but that’s background noise. In the foreground, there’s just me, the battered dock, and Ashton’s yacht looming at the end of the slip.
And still, I wait.
Time loses meaning. The sun dips lower, and I burrow deeper into my jacket and pull my scarf higher, pretending it’s enough. When I lose feeling in my nose, I rest my palms flat on the dock, bracing myself against a world that doesn’t care if I wait all night.
I want to believe it matters that I’m here. That Ashton will turn the corner, see me, and recognize what it costs to hold the line. But mostly, I just want him to show up.
I think about leaving, but the idea of walking away without an answer hurts worse than the cold. So I huddle back down. I check my phone. I glare at his yacht like a personal enemy.
And I wait.
Each time the wind shifts, the air brings a new memory. It would be romantic if I weren’t borderline hypothermic.
A gull screams overhead and startles me out of a daydream about happier days, and I watch the sunlight shatter across a row of distant masts.
Maybe that’s why I’m here. Maybe I need to believe that old hurts can be set right if you just hold out long enough.
Or maybe this is just another bad habit I can’t kick.
When it finally happens, it’s almost anticlimactic.
There’s a shuffle—a shadow crossing between the gap in the pilings, a shift of footsteps on wet wood.
I know it’s him before I see the outline.
The air changes when Ashton’s around, a dull click in my chest, something between dread and relief.
I stop breathing until I’m sure it isn’t just my imagination.
But then, there he is.
He’s walking up the dock like he owns the tide, and for a second, I feel so impossibly small. He’s dressed for the weather. His hair, perfectly in place despite the salt wind, glints silver at the temples under the last blush of sunlight.
He doesn’t see me at first. Maybe he isn’t expecting anyone. I watch the way his stride narrows when he takes notice of the huddled shape at the edge of the planks. Then I watch the recognition settle. His entire body goes rigid—posture upright, shoulders locked, eyes suddenly and completely alive.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moves.
The click of recognition is almost audible. Surprise, then something colder—guarded, wary. Then, as he holds my stare, that wariness fractures. In its place, a current of something I can’t name passes through his face—relief and regret, hope and something like loss.
I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this.
I try to remember my speech—the sentences I built, brick by brick, on the drive over. I try to remember what I wanted to say about the lighthouse, the federal charges, and the months of silence. But it’s all gone.
My throat is dry. The wind stings my cheeks, but I’m burning under the skin now, alive in a way I haven’t been for the last year.
He takes a step closer. Hesitates, then closes the gap with a careful grace that used to turn my bones to water. His eyes scan me like he’s observing every weakness, every possible route in or out.
I try to get to my feet, but it’s a disaster.
My left knee buckles, numb from sitting, and I sway forward, barely catching myself on the slick wood.
Ashton’s eyes flick down, and for a split second, I see the old concern, the ghost of a smile—the real one, not the one he offers to clients or judges.
“Careful,” he says, voice low, almost uncertain. “You’ll wreck your knees.”
His tone lodges in my chest, sharp as a hook. I finally manage to stand, working blood into my calves, though every joint protests. My hands are fists at my sides, and I don’t know what to do with them.
For a second, we just stare. The gold light frames his face, and he looks older—less polished, more human. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s just as lost as I am.
Every line of dialogue I rehearsed is gone, wiped out by the ache of being truly seen.
He keeps the distance between us. Not too close. Not so far that it feels like rejection, either. Just enough to let the tension hum—live wire, just under the skin.
The silence could fill the harbor.
I almost break. Almost. But I cling to the last, bitter dregs of pride.
He’s the one to speak first this time. “You picked one heck of a night, June.” Not even a smile as he says it.
I manage a shrug. “It didn’t seem right to wait another day.” My voice shakes, betraying something raw beneath it.
He nods once. His gaze never breaks from mine. He blinks, and in the pause, I feel my pulse in my throat. “You could’ve called.”
I snort. “So could you.”
His mouth twitches, but it isn’t quite a smile. And we stand there, mirrored and shattered, keeping the world from closing in.
He’s the first to yield. Always has been, in the end.
He shoves his hands deeper into his coat pockets and comes a half-step closer, close enough that I can hear the hitch in his breath.
“Are you going to say something, or are we just going to compete in silent suffering for the rest of the evening?”
The nerves break, and a laugh—a real, ugly, unfiltered one—barks out of me. It shakes loose the cold and the fear. “Sorry. I had a whole speech planned, but apparently, my brain didn’t get the memo.”
He lets out a slow exhale, tension draining from his face. “Do you want to get out of the wind?”
I look at the yacht, the narrow gangplank, the porch steps painted with the last burn of sunlight. Then I look at Ashton, and for once, I don’t know which direction leads me back to myself. “I think here’s good.”
He nods.
We just stand there, letting the wind and the hush of the harbor fill in for the words we aren’t ready to say.
If there’s a moment where everything could’ve gone wrong, it’s this one.
Instead, I find myself holding still, waiting for the next move, the next breath, or whatever comes after the end of pretending.
Our shadows lean toward each other in the last thin light. And so we wait—two stubborn bodies, not quite touching, locked on the edge of something neither of us wants to name.
It’s almost dark now. Ashton and I are still on the dock, neither of us moving for the yacht or the lamplight at the top of the steps. We might as well be nailed to these planks.
“I didn’t expect to see you tonight,” he says softly but not gently.
I wrap my hands around the rail, feeling the wood bite into my palms. “I’m full of surprises.”
I don’t want to look at him, but I do. I always do. He stands so straight it makes my own posture feel small by comparison. Even the wind seems to respect his space, swirling around the edges and never quite landing.
He waits a beat. “You could’ve called at any point. Not just now, but…after the verdict. After they made it official.”
I scoff. “Like you would’ve picked up.”
He cocks his head, a flash of something like hurt visible before he smooths it away. “You don’t know that.”
“No.” I shrug. “I don’t. That’s the problem, though, isn’t it?”
The argument’s begun. It’s ugly, but at least it’s what I expected.
He draws closer, not closing the gap entirely, but enough that the wind shifts—picking up his aftershave and the faint, clean scent of wool and expensive soap.
“You waited until you could be certain I wasn’t guilty.
Until there was no risk to your reputation.
Until it was…safe.” He says the last word like it’s a personal insult.
I don’t flinch. “I waited because I didn’t know what to believe. You left me flailing in the wind, Ashton. It wasn’t just the court case—it was every unanswered call, every time you vanished and made me feel like an idiot for caring.”
He lets that sit. The silence is a challenge. “I was protecting you,” he says, jaw clenched. “You have no idea what they would’ve done if I’d reached out. Whose radar you would’ve landed on. I did what I did for both of us, June, whether you want to believe that or not.”
“And I did what I did for me,” I shoot back, voice climbing. “For the first time since we met, I tried to protect myself.”
He steps forward, hands gripping the opposite rail.
Now we’re mirrored, bodies rigid, only the sea and the air between us.
“Is that what you think?” His voice shakes, and the sound does something ugly to my resolve.
“That I didn’t want you there? That every night I spent locked up, I wasn’t wishing you’d walk through the door and prove I hadn’t ruined everything? ”
I try to laugh, but it dies on the way out. “Forgive me if I didn’t want to play the loyal wife to the island’s most wanted.”
He huffs a breath that could be a laugh, or maybe it’s just pain. “You know, for someone who claims they didn’t want to be manipulated again, you sure have a lock on cutting deep.”
The words slice through me, but I don’t show it. Not now. Not when it matters.
“I’m allowed to be angry. After what happened—after you wrecked my life and vanished. You don’t get to swoop in now and act like you’re the victim.”
He shakes his head, eyes never leaving mine. “That’s not what I’m doing. But for months, I thought…if I could just get it resolved, if I could make it right, you’d be there. You’d be waiting.”