4. Hadley #3
I tell myself to set the phone down. To be a mature adult. To remember that I am standing in a government-adjacent office with a nosy receptionist who files away gossip as well as she does the mayor’s paperwork.
Then the screen lights again.
Nolan
Hard to forget.
My pulse beats once, hard.
The office feels too quiet suddenly.
Too warm.
The memory of his almost-touch rises again, his fingers suspended inches from my cheek while the whole marina seemed to hold its breath around us.
I type three different responses.
Delete them all.
Finally, I write:
Me
Nolan.
His reply comes faster this time.
Nolan
I know.
That’s the problem.
He knows.
I know.
We both know.
And, knowing doesn’t change the fact that I still want to drive back to the marina right now.
I lock my phone and set it face down on the desk.
Then I pick it up again ten seconds later because I am apparently thirty-one years old and emotionally useless.
No new message.
Good.
Terrible.
I pack my laptop bag with far more force than necessary and shut off the office lights.
The drive home takes me past the edge of downtown and toward Otter Creek Farm, where the road narrows, and the world shifts from storefronts and sidewalks to split-rail fences, open fields, and old oak trees draped in Spanish moss.
This land raised me.
Maybe not in the literal sense, but close enough.
The Wright family farm is a patchwork of generations—pecan trees, strawberry fields, barns, porches, laughter carried through screen doors, arguments settled over pie, and enough family history to make every corner feel like it remembers us.
I slow as I pass the main farmhouse where Mom and Dad still live.
The porch lights are on, warm against the deepening blue of the evening.
Dad’s truck is parked near the barn. Mom’s flower beds spill color along the front path.
Through the kitchen window, I can see movement, probably Mom setting the table for whoever wanders in hungry.
Someone always does.
Farther down, my brother, Rowan, and his wife, Ivy’s, place glows near the fields.
I catch a glimpse of Ivy on the porch, barefoot, holding a mug with both hands while Rowan stands behind her, arms wrapped around her waist, chin resting near her temple.
They look quiet. Settled. Like two people who fought hard for this peace and refuse to take a second of it for granted.
My chest aches with fondness.
And something else.
Longing, maybe.
I turn onto the gravel lane leading toward my small cottage, tucked between a stand of trees and a wild patch of honeysuckle that refuses to be tamed no matter how many times Dad threatens it with clippers.
The cottage is mine in the way anything on Wright land belongs to all of us and none of us.
A soft yellow door. White siding. A porch just big enough for two chairs and a table.
Window boxes I keep forgetting to water until my sister, Lila, threatens intervention.
It’s home.
It should feel like enough.
Most nights, it does.
Tonight, I sit in the driveway after cutting the engine, listening to the crickets start in the grass and the distant sound of amusement drifting from somewhere across the farm.
My phone rests in my lap like a dare.
I don’t text him.
I won’t.
I am a grown woman with self-control, a career, and a perfectly respectable number of throw pillows.
Then the screen lights.
Nolan
For the record, I wasn’t warning you away from the marina.
I stare.
The air in my lungs goes thin.
Me
No?
Nolan
No.
A beat.
Then another message.
Nolan
I’m warning myself.
My throat tightens.
There he is.
A crack in the control.
Small, but real.
I sit in the quiet of my driveway with the windows down and the scent of honeysuckle drifting in, staring at those words until they blur.
I should respond with something light. Something safe.
A joke would be good here. Jokes are my specialty. Humor is the bridge I build when the ground beneath me feels unstable. It’s something my twin, Holt, and I have in common.
But maybe I’m tired of pretending nothing shakes me.
Me
Is it working?
His answer comes after I've restlessly chewed my bottom lip.
Nolan
No.
One word.
Simple.
Honest.
It slips beneath my skin and stays there.
The porch light glows over my front steps. Somewhere in the trees, night birds call to one another. Across the farm, my family keeps living loudly and beautifully, wrapped in all the love I know by heart.
And here I am, sitting alone in my car, realizing Nolan Pierce has managed to make me feel more seen through a handful of texts than most people do standing directly in front of me.
My phone buzzes again.
Nolan
Good night, Hadley.
I press my lips together, fighting a smile and losing.
Me
Good night, Nolan.
I sit there for another minute after the screen goes dark.
I tuck the phone into my pocket, grab the marina packet, and sling my laptop over one shoulder.
The porch light spills across the walkway as I head toward the front door.
Behind me, somewhere across the fields, laughter drifts from my parents’ porch. Ahead of me, my phone feels a little heavier in my pocket.
I don’t check it again.
I don’t have to.