18. Nolan #3
She’s beautiful. Always beautiful.
And suddenly fear returns with enough force to catch me off guard. Because the more permanent this becomes, the more terrified I am of losing it. Like the universe handed me something too good, and eventually, it will realize I was never meant to keep it.
Hadley notices the shift. Of course she does.
“You’re doing the thing again,” she says.
“What thing?”
“The disappearing into your head while standing right next to me thing.”
A laugh slips out. This woman sees everything.
I lean against the railing and stare across the water.
“I don’t know how to trust this.”
Silence settles between us.
I exhale.
“I keep waiting for something to go wrong.”
The confession leaves me exposed in ways I still haven’t adjusted to.
Loving someone means giving them access to every part of you that would normally remain locked away.
Hadley has become the only place where those parts feel safe enough to exist.
“You think loving me means you’ll lose me eventually,” she says.
It isn’t a question.
I look down at the beer bottle in my hand.
“Good things don’t usually stay.”
I let out a quiet breath.
“You know what’s frustrating?”
She waits.
“I’m usually the guy with a plan.”
My mouth lifts.
“Turns out loving you has completely ruined that.”
Hadley turns fully toward me. She doesn’t answer. She simply steps into me.
“Nolan Pierce.”
The softness in her voice makes the moment feel more serious, not less.
I force myself to meet her eyes.
“You are not temporary,” she says again. “And neither is this.”
Emotion hits hard enough that my chest aches. She offers me certainty so freely, even when I’m still learning how to hold it.
Part of me wants to believe her so badly it hurts.
Hadley steps closer and slides her hand into mine.
“I know your brain tells you that people leave,” she murmurs. “But I need you to understand something.”
My fingers tighten around hers. “What?”
“I’m not loving you halfway.”
Every lonely, temporary year of my life collides with the reality of Hadley standing here promising me something steady.
I pull her against me before I can think better of it.
She exhales as my arms close tightly around her while the last of the sunset burns across Back Bay.
For one suspended moment, I only hold her. Like my body has finally found the thing it spent years searching for without knowing what to call it.
Home.
Hadley’s arms slide around my waist. Pressing herself softly against me, she sighs. “You don’t have to earn a place anymore.”
That does it. Something inside me cracks open completely. Because maybe that’s exactly what I’ve done my entire life. Made myself useful. Earned affection. Tried to become valuable enough that people might keep me.
I built businesses because success made me necessary. I solved problems because competent men rarely get discarded.
I never allowed myself to need anyone because need gave people too much power to hurt me.
Hadley loves me before I can prove anything. She loved me when the marina was still half broken.
When I was exhausted and irritable.
When I had nothing to offer except honesty and the parts of myself I’d spent years hiding.
I tilt her chin until her eyes meet mine.
That impossible tenderness waits for me again.
I love this woman so much it physically hurts.
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” I admit.
Her eyes soften.
“You loved me, honestly,” she whispers. “That’s it.”
Safe.
Like staying is no longer something I have to earn or beg the universe to give me. Then she kisses me beneath the marina lights, the fading Virginia sunset, and the warm salt air.
And miraculously, forever stops feeling impossible.
I watch Hadley head toward her SUV a few minutes later, waving once before pulling out of the marina lot.
I stand there longer than I need to, smiling like an idiot at taillights that disappeared thirty seconds ago.
“You know she’s not coming back if you stare hard enough.”
I glance over.
Holt leans against one of the dock posts, coffee in hand like he materialized out of the salt air.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough.”
I groan. “You don’t even have a question?”
“Nope.”
“You’re making this weird.”
He shrugs, looking out across the water instead of at me.
“You happy?”
The question catches me off guard.
I don’t even have to ponder it.
“Yeah.”
Holt nods once.
“Good.”
Silence stretches between us while the tide laps against the pilings.
Finally, I glance sideways.
“That’s it?”
One corner of his mouth lifts.
“Hadley’s spent most of her life making sure everybody else is okay.”
His voice stays easy, but there’s thirty-one years of knowing his twin behind it.
“It’s nice to finally see somebody worry about her.”
Before I can think of a response, he pushes away from the piling.
“See you tomorrow, Marina Man.”
“Don’t start.”
He laughs as he walks away.
I watch him disappear toward the parking lot, his words settling somewhere deep in my chest. I’d spent weeks wondering whether I was good for Hadley, so hearing it from her twin made me believe it a little more.