19. Tess
Tess
Months later, Sully slid a paper-lined basket across the porch table and pointed at Tess with his fork.
“Eat before Ford starts another argument and ruins dinner.”
Tess pulled a piece of grouper free. The batter cracked beneath her fingers, releasing steam and the peppery smell of fresh fish into the twilight air. Below the porch, water lapped against the pilings while somebody’s loose halyard tapped against a mast farther down the slips.
Across from her, Camden looked nothing like the man who had once required a handler to tell him when to leave a ballroom.
Two-stroke grease stained the creases of his knuckles and streaked one forearm where his T-shirt sleeve ended.
Another black smear marked the side of his jaw, probably transferred there sometime during the afternoon while he and Briggs had been rebuilding the old outboard Sully swore was still worth saving.
Briggs pointed his fork at him. “You’re still wrong.”
Camden wiped at his jaw with the back of his wrist and only spread the grease farther. “You’ve been saying that since the fryer came on.”
“Because you’ve been wrong since before the fryer came on.”
Tess bit into the grouper before a laugh escaped with her mouth full. The crust gave way to white fish and salt, hot enough that she had to shift it across her tongue before swallowing.
“This argument has lasted longer than dinner took to cook,” she said. “At this point, I think both of you are emotionally dependent on it.”
Camden turned toward her. “Thank you for the support.”
“That wasn’t support.”
“I chose to hear support.”
Sully’s baritone chuckle rolled across the porch. “That right there is how the man survived professional football. Somebody tells him no; he translates it into applause.”
Camden leaned his forearms against the table and looked at Sully. “I survived professional football because I had a better arm than everybody trying to replace me.”
Briggs reached for another piece of fish. “And tomorrow morning that arm is going to be holding a fishing rod, which means nobody cares what you used to do with a football.”
That was the part Tess still caught herself watching.
Nobody here cared.
Not in the cruel way Marcus had taught Camden to fear, where irrelevance meant lost contracts and cameras turning toward somebody newer. Sully knew exactly what Camden had been. Briggs did too. They simply refused to treat it as the most interesting fact about him.
At this table, he was the idiot who had stripped a screw on an outboard housing that afternoon.
He was the man Sully sent back for the correct wrench.
He was the one Briggs insulted over fishing line.
And Camden loved it.
Not that Tess needed him to say so. The proof sat in the grime beneath his fingernails and the easy way he stayed at the table after the work was finished.
No phone lay beside his plate. Nobody hovered near the porch waiting to drag him toward a sponsor dinner.
The only schedule anybody cared about was the tide.
This was what ordinary looked like.
The realization settled over her.
Tess took another bite and glanced around the table. Sully had already stolen one of Briggs’s fries. Briggs noticed and retaliated by moving the ketchup bottle out of his reach. Camden watched the theft unfold with the focus he once reserved for defensive coverage.
“You two done fighting over tackle yet?” Tess asked.
“No,” Briggs said.
“Yes,” Camden said at the same time.
Sully pointed his fork at Camden. “Then tell me again why you think that light setup you dug out of the shed is going on my boat tomorrow.”
“Because it’s enough.”
“It’s a donation to the ocean.”
Camden sat back. “You keep saying that like I’m planning to hook a freight train.”
“If you hook one decent grouper near the reef with that line, it strips the spool before you finish your first bad decision.”
Camden grinned and scrubbed the heel of his hand over the grease on his jaw. This time Tess reached over and caught his wrist before he could make the smear worse.
“You’re spreading it.”
He glanced from her hand on his wrist to her face. “Occupational hazard.”
“Apparently.”
She let him go and returned to her fish.
Briggs glanced between them, then toward Sully. “Don’t bother. He thinks being built like a linebacker changes how fishing works.”
“My shoulders can physically overpower the drag,” Camden said. “Your only job is parking this hull directly over the fish.”
Sully stopped chewing.
Tess covered her smile with another bite.
Briggs set his fork down and stared across the table at Camden with the patient expression of a man confronting an especially confident tourist.
“That grouper will put you over the gunwale before your shoulders save you, city boy.”
Tess reached across the table for a paper napkin just as Briggs leaned back with the smug satisfaction of a man who had won an argument nobody else had agreed was a competition.
Her fingers never reached the napkin.
Pressure seized low through her body and stopped her halfway across the table. Her hand landed against the edge instead, gripping the wood while the fish in her other hand dropped onto her plate.
Camden’s smile disappeared.
“Tess?”
She stayed bent toward the table until the pain eased enough for her to move again. The porch had not changed. Water still lapped beneath the pilings. Sully’s basket still sat between the plates, one corner of the paper stained through with fryer oil.
Nothing in the world around her had changed, and yet dinner had ended.
“Tess, talk to me.” Camden pushed his chair back. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
The words came out thinner than she intended. She eased herself upright, one hand still fixed to the table while Camden stood beside her.
Briggs lowered his fork. “Contraction?”
“Maybe.” Tess looked down at her plate as if the answer might have landed beside the grouper. “That was—”
Another contraction started before she finished.
This one gave her enough warning to brace both hands against the table. Camden moved into the space beside her without touching her at first, waiting until she shifted toward him.
“Tell me where you need me.”
That question undid her more than the pain.
Not sit down. Not let me handle it. Not a command disguised as concern.
Tell me where you need me.
“Just stay there.”
“I’m here.”
The contraction tightened until she was pressing her palms hard against the table edge. Sully was already out of his chair, but he held his place across from her instead of crowding closer.
“Hospital bag packed?” he asked.
“In the shack,” Tess managed. “By the office shelf.”
Briggs pushed his plate aside. “Black duffel?”
She nodded.
Then warmth spilled beneath her.
For one strange instant, Tess assumed somebody had knocked over a drink. Her gaze dropped to the chair, to the spreading wetness, and she instantly knew what it was.
“Oh.”
Camden followed her gaze.
Sully muttered something under his breath.
Briggs stood so fast his chair scraped backward across the porch.
Tess stared at the wet seat and the boards beneath it. That is not a spilled drink.
“Camden.”
He was already beside her.
“My water.” She reached for his forearm as another cramp pulled her away from the table. “My water just broke.”
“All right.”
His voice stayed level.
No one on the porch panicked. No phone appeared in his hand. He did not glance toward the road as if somebody more qualified might materialize and tell him what to do.
Camden slipped one arm around her waist when her balance shifted. His other hand covered hers on his forearm, giving her something steady to brace against without hauling her away from the table.
“Can you stand?”
“I’m standing.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Despite everything, she almost laughed, but it came out as a strained sound.
“I can manage the stairs. I think.”
Sully reached for his keys near the end of the table.
“You think or you know?”
“I know, if everybody stops interrogating me.”
“That sounds like Tess,” Briggs said.
“Then move,” Camden told him. “Grab the black duffel from the shack. Check the office shelf first.”
Briggs was already turning toward the door. “Overnight bag. Got it.”
“And her purse if it’s beside it.”
“I said I’ve got it, Ford.”
Camden looked back at Tess before Briggs had cleared the porch.
That was the part she noticed.
Not the orders. Not the sudden movement around them. His attention came back to her every time somebody else answered.
Another contraction gathered, and Tess tightened her grip on his arm.
“I hate this.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re right.” He adjusted his hand at her side when she shifted. “Tell me what helps.”
There it was again.
No speech. No promise. Just the next useful thing.
Tess let more of her weight rest against him until the pressure eased.
Across the table, Sully gripped his keys and pointed toward the stairs. “Truck or ambulance?”
“Truck,” Tess said. “Hospital. Now.”
Camden nodded once. “Sully, bring it to the base of the stairs. Don’t make her cross the yard.”
“Already moving.”
“Briggs has the bag. I’ve got her.”
Tess turned enough to look at him.
Weeks of ordinary mornings, ruined engines, grocery bags, invoices, and dinners had taught her more than any apology ever had.
Still, some buried part of her had waited for a real emergency to expose the seams. She had expected one flash of the man who used to look toward Marcus whenever life escaped the schedule.
Camden only tightened his arm when her footing shifted.
“I’m holding you,” he said. “We’re getting you there.”
Sully was already running for the truck.
Hours later, the delivery room had narrowed to light, plastic rails, rushing nurses, and Camden’s hand.
Tess lay against the raised bed while another contraction worked through her.
The ceiling fixtures washed every surface in white glare, catching on the monitor screens and the metal edges of equipment she had stopped trying to identify.
Nurses crossed in and out of her vision, changing positions, checking the bed, trading short instructions she was too exhausted to follow.