18. Nolan
Chapter Eighteen
NOLAN
Iwake sometime just before sunrise with Hadley tangled around me and understand two things with shocking clarity.
First, telling someone you love them fundamentally alters the atmosphere around a relationship.
And second?
I am absolutely, catastrophically ruined for this woman. The observation arrives as pale dawn spills through the marina apartment windows and rain taps against the docks below.
Everything feels different this morning. Like some invisible wall between us dissolved the second the words finally existed out loud.
I love you.
The memory wraps around my ribs while Hadley lies half-curled against my chest, her cheek resting over my heartbeat and one leg tangled with mine.
She loves me.
Even after hearing it last night, I’m not sure my brain has fully accepted the truth.
My arm tightens around her waist before I’m entirely awake, pulling her closer on instinct.
Hadley stills briefly against me, then she melts into the hold. That tiny response does something dangerous to my chest. Because apparently saying I love you once has turned me into the kind of man who clings to a woman in his sleep.
Outside the windows, Back Bay glows gray-blue beneath lingering storm clouds while the marina lights flicker faintly against the water.
The apartment smells like rain, old coffee grounds, and the faint floral scent of Hadley’s shampoo.
Home.
The thought arrives so naturally it nearly knocks the breath from my lungs. Somewhere along the way, Hadley stopped feeling like someone I was dating.
She became the place where everything inside me finally goes quiet.
Her fingers brush lightly against my side. I glance down to find she’s awake, staring toward the windows with that small crease between her brows that means she’s halfway through dismantling some complicated thought.
“You’re thinking,” I murmur.
Her head tips back.
“You’re awake?”
“Unfortunately.”
Her mouth curves. “You sound devastated.”
“I am.”
She narrows her eyes.
“That’s dramatic.”
“You stole approximately ninety percent of the blankets.”
“That is completely untrue.”
“I have no evidence,” I admit. “But I feel strongly about it.”
I open mine fully then.
Morning light catches in her dark hair, pulling warm chestnut highlights through the strands where they spill across my chest. She looks soft. Sleepy. Mine, some dangerous part of my brain supplies.
I stare anyway.
“You’re staring,” she whispers.
“You said you love me last night.” My voice comes out rough with sleep. “I think I’ve earned staring privileges.”
“There isn’t a rulebook for this, is there?”
She blinks.
“For what?”
“For how long I’m allowed to look at the woman who admitted she loves me before it becomes awkward
She laughs.
“I’m pretty sure you’re already past the limit.”
“Worth it.”
Color rises across her cheeks, and my breath hitches at the sight. She said the words with complete certainty and kissed me like there was never any question she felt them. Yet hearing me mention it still makes her blush.
I’m not sure I’ll ever understand how I got lucky enough to be loved by her.
Hadley’s fingers slide into the hair at the nape of my neck.
“You okay?” she asks.
Hadley never asks casually. She notices things other people miss. The shift in my breathing. The moments when I go too quiet. Every wall I try to rebuild after she’s already figured out how to get around it.
I search her face before answering.
“Better than okay.”
A gentler look crosses her face.
I brush my hand along her back beneath the sweater she never bothered taking off last night.
“You know what’s dangerous?” I ask.
“What?”
“I woke up this morning, and my first thought was that I get to keep you.”
The words leave before I can catch them.
For one brief second, she goes still. Then a helpless smile spreads across her face, and she settles closer against me.
“You’re getting alarmingly good at emotional vulnerability.”
“Don’t spread that around.”
“Why?”
“I’ve spent years cultivating a reputation.”
“As?”
“Moderately intimidating.”
I groan. “I blame you entirely.”
“Fair.”
The apartment stays quiet around us while rain drifts against the windows and dawn stretches over the bay.
I always assumed mornings after something significant would feel awkward.
Like saying the words would make us too aware of each other. Like we’d wake up and start wondering what came next.
Instead, lying here with her feels easy. Peaceful.
Maybe love with the right person isn’t supposed to feel like chaos.
Maybe it’s this.
Hadley’s breathing against my chest. Her fingers drawing absent patterns along my side. The certainty that neither of us is going anywhere yet.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask.
She hesitates.
“You.”
One corner of my mouth lifts. “Good answer.”
Her laugh brushes warmly across my skin.
“And how scary it is that loving you feels completely natural.”
Fear flickers through me before I can stop it. Fast and instinctive. Apparently not fast enough.
Hadley pushes herself onto one elbow.
“What was that?”
I lift my brows. “What was what?”
“That look.”
I stare toward the ceiling and exhale.
“Hads—”
“Nope.”
A laugh escapes despite myself.
She smiles, pleased with the victory.
“You’re impossible,” I mutter.
“Yet.”
My hand slides up her back and settles against the nape of her neck. The touch steadies something inside me, although I’m not sure whether I’m grounding her or myself.
Probably myself.
“You loving me feels natural to you,” I state.
“Yes.”
The answer comes without hesitation.
I swallow.
“That scares me sometimes.”
The mischievous glint fades from her eyes. Not because she’s offended. It’s because she understands what I mean without forcing me to explain every ugly piece of it.
She studies me in the soft morning light, and I have the uncomfortable feeling that she sees straight through every defense I’ve ever built.
Then she cups my face between her hands.
“Nolan Pierce.”
My eyes meet hers.
“You are not temporary.”
The apartment goes completely still.
Rain taps steadily against the windows, suddenly louder in the silence.
I know what she means.
I also know she has no idea what those words do to me.
Temporary has defined nearly every part of my life.
Temporary homes.
Temporary families.
Temporary rooms filled with things I never fully unpacked because I learned young that permanence was mostly a word people used when they wanted children to feel secure.
Even the life I built for myself started with an exit plan.
Work hard.
Be useful.
Never need anyone badly enough that losing them could ruin you.
Hadley looks at me as if none of those rules apply anymore.
“You are not temporary,” she repeats.
The words hurt in the strange way sunlight might hurt after someone has spent too long underground.
My hand moves along her back because I need the contact to keep myself anchored.
“You can’t say things like that this early in the morning,” I manage.
“Why?”
A rough laugh leaves me.
“Because I barely survived you saying you love me last night.”
As her gaze softens, a wave of protective tenderness washes over me, and I instinctively dart my gaze away before her gentle weight settles against me, her breath a soft whisper against my chest.
I know she hears the uneven rhythm beneath her ear.
Before Hadley, I moved through life carefully. I felt things privately, then locked them away before anyone had the chance to notice.
Now every emotion spills into the way I touch her.
The way I watch her.
The way my pulse loses any ability to behave when she says something real enough to reach the parts of me I spent years protecting.
Outside the apartment, the storm begins breaking apart. Sunlight pushes weakly through the lingering clouds while the marina wakes below us.
Workers arrive. Dock carts rattle faintly across the boards. Boats shift against the restored slips.
Everything feels alive this morning.
Hadley does that too. She makes everything feel newly possible.
I brush my lips against the top of her head.
“You know what’s weird?” I ask.
“What?”
“I spent most of my life thinking love would feel chaotic.”
She tilts her face toward me. “What does it feel like instead?”
I look at her.
“Peaceful.”
The word surprises me with how true it is. Even the intensity between us feels calm underneath everything else. Like I finally reached a place where I can put down everything I’ve spent my life carrying.
“You know what I think?” she murmurs.
“What?”
“I think you’re finally somewhere safe enough to stop surviving all the time.”
My shoulders loosen before I can stop them, and my hand tightens against her waist.
Surviving has always been instinctive. I know how to build something out of nothing. How to enter a failing business and find every structural weakness. How to make myself necessary.
Safety is harder. Safety means believing I can stay even when I’m not actively proving my worth.
Hadley has never once asked me to earn my place beside her. That’s the part I’m still learning to trust.
“You make me want impossible things,” I admit.
Hadley smiles. “Like what?”
I stare out toward the water for a long second.
“I didn’t even realize I’d stopped letting myself want things.” My laugh is quiet. “Not things I could buy. Things that could disappear.”
I glance back at her.
“People. A home.”
I shake my head once.
“A future that wasn’t built around having one foot out the door.”
I look down at our hands.
“Then somewhere along the way”—my thumb brushes over her knuckles—“you made staying feel a whole lot less frightening.”
“A home?” Hadley asks.
“Not a temporary place,” I continue. “Not an apartment above a jobsite.”
My voice roughens, but I force myself to finish.
“Something permanent.”
I can picture it too clearly once I let myself.
A kitchen bigger than this one.
Hadley’s books stacked on every available surface.
Her brother’s dog, Rook, asleep near a back door.
Her family showing up without warning because apparently boundaries don’t exist in Coral Bell Cove.
Her coffee mug beside mine every morning.
“You’ve never had that before,” she says.
I shake my head. “No.”