23. Hadley
Chapter Twenty-Three
HADLEY
The problem with loving someone who survives by carrying everything alone is that eventually you start feeling helpless standing beside them.
And helplessness? Helplessness turns into resentment far easier than I ever understood before. As I stand in Nolan’s marina apartment on Friday morning, the realization hits me, ugly and strange, while I look at the coffee I made him forty minutes ago, untouched.
Cold now.
Just like breakfast.
Just like the dinner he promised he’d be upstairs for last night before falling asleep at his desk downstairs instead.
My stomach twists painfully.
Outside the windows, Back Bay glows pale silver beneath lingering storm clouds while repair crews already move across the western docks below. The marina looks exhausted this morning.
So does Nolan. He finally came upstairs around three thirty.
Soaked.
Bleeding knuckles.
Barely coherent with exhaustion.
And still the first thing he did was apologize for worrying me.
The apartment door opens behind me. I glance over instinctively and there he is. Barefoot, tired, and still wearing yesterday’s marina shirt.
Warmth spreads through my chest the second our eyes meet. The hardness in Nolan’s expression melts away the moment he sees me standing there.
“Hey,” he says.
My chest tightens. He sounds exhausted all the way through.
“Hey.”
He moves toward the coffee pot automatically before stopping when he notices the mug waiting beside the stove.
Cold.
Untouched.
His body jerks as it hits him.
“Hads.”
I stare out the window toward the marina because suddenly eye contact feels dangerous.
“It’s okay. You fell asleep downstairs again.”
“I know.”
The quiet guilt in his voice twists painfully beneath my ribs. I know he’s trying. That’s the thing threatening to break me lately: he’s genuinely trying.
But we’re still hurting each other anyway.
Nolan steps closer. Carefully. As if he already senses how fragile the atmosphere between us feels this morning.
“I didn’t mean to,” he says.
My eyes drift toward the dining table behind him.
Legal pads cover nearly every inch of the surface, columns of numbers filling page after page in Nolan’s neat handwriting.
His laptop sits open beside them, spreadsheets replacing whatever sleep he should’ve gotten last night.
A contractor estimate peeks out from beneath one of the folders, highlighted and covered in handwritten notes.
I don’t know exactly what he’s working on. I only know he isn’t sleeping.
“I know.”
I understand him too well to stay properly angry, but understanding doesn’t erase loneliness.
Nolan studies me carefully from across the kitchen.
“You’re upset.”
The understatement almost makes me laugh again. Instead, I cross my arms tighter over my chest.
“I’m worried.”
His jaw tightens as the fear hits him, and he braces for impact instead of leaning closer.
A truck rumbles into the lot below.
I glance through the apartment window just in time to see Rowan climb out carrying two foil-covered pans.
Nolan follows my gaze.
“What’s he doing?”
I smile despite everything.
“Probably whatever Mom volunteered him for.”
Right on cue, my phone buzzes.
Rowan
Tell Pierce to stop pretending coffee counts as dinner.
I laugh.
“See?”
Nolan shakes his head.
“Your family is relentless.”
“That’s how they love people.”
“I’m okay though,” he says automatically.
A sharp feeling suddenly strikes me before I can stop it.
“You almost got crushed by a dock cable last night.”
Nolan stills because he didn’t tell me that part. Miguel did. At seven this morning. While handing me Nolan’s forgotten jacket downstairs.
The memory sends fresh anger twisting through my chest.
Nolan exhales toward the ceiling.
“Hads.”
“No.” Emotion rises unexpectedly fast now. “You don’t get to ‘Hads’ me after not mentioning you nearly got hurt.”
“It wasn’t serious.”
The answer comes too fast. Too practiced.
Resentment flickers. This is exactly what I’m afraid of: Nolan deciding what I can emotionally handle instead of letting me stand beside him honestly.
“You don’t get to decide that for me,” I whisper.
The apartment falls completely silent afterward.
Outside, dock machinery hums faintly across the marina while gulls cry overhead and storm cleanup continues below.
But between us? Stillness. Heavy enough to crack.
Nolan looks at me carefully as if he’s trying to solve this instead of feeling it.
“I was trying not to scare you.”
I’m almost overcome by the tenderness in his voice.
“I’m already scared,” I admit.
Nolan’s face goes blank, his eyes wide and unseeing as a wave of panic washes over him. Emotion flickers openly across his eyes.
“What are you scared of?” he asks.
I look toward the marina outside the windows.
“That one day you’re going to carry everything alone for so long that there won’t be room left for me beside you anymore.”
The silence afterward physically hurts. I spare a glance at Nolan’s face, and it tells me he never realized that possibility existed.
The conversation lingers between us all day afterward. Like humidity before another storm.
Nolan leaves for the docks around eight thirty after finally drinking the cold coffee anyway, which honestly hurts me more than if he’d dumped it out. Because it feels symbolic. Him taking whatever exhaustion and disappointment the world hands him without complaint.
I stand at the kitchen window watching him cross the marina below.
Workers stop him every few feet. Before disappearing into the office, he pauses long enough to answer another phone call.
His shoulders straighten. He paces once along the dock while listening, free hand rubbing the back of his neck in that absent way he does whenever he’s trying to solve three problems at once.
I wonder if it’s another contractor.
The conversation lasts nearly fifteen minutes before he hangs up and heads right back to work.
Whatever’s waiting on the other end of those calls, he never mentions it to me.
By noon, I’m sitting cross-legged at the bookstore café pretending to help Bailey organize inventory while actually replaying every conversation Nolan and I have had over the past month.
Bailey slides a stack of paperbacks toward me.
“You’ve alphabetized the same romance section twice.”
“I’m thriving.”
“Concerning.”
I sigh and lean back in the chair while sunlight spills through the lighthouse windows overlooking Back Bay.
“You love him a gross amount,” Bailey says casually beside me.
I glance sideways.
“Excuse you.”
“Tell me otherwise,” she prompts.
Unwilling to argue, I stare back out the windows.
“I just don’t know how to reach him when he gets like this.”
Bailey’s shoulders sag, a wave of relief washing over her features.
“He’s working all the time,” I admit. “Not just on the docks. He keeps taking calls outside. Checking his phone when he thinks I’m not looking. And every time I ask if something’s wrong, he tells me everything’s fine.”
Bailey looks up.
“What do you mean?”
“His apartment looks like an accountant exploded. Budgets. Estimates. Pages and pages of numbers. Every time I see him lately, he’s either staring at spreadsheets or taking another phone call.”
I sigh.
“I keep thinking if something was really wrong, he’d tell me.”
The problem is that every step forward seems to come paired with another instinctive retreat the second pressure rises again.
Everyone who loves Nolan can see it now. The marina stopped being business to him months ago.
Proof that he finally built a life worth staying for.
And underneath all of that? Proof that he finally found people worth staying for too.
“I don’t think he realizes shutting people out hurts them too,” I admit.
Bailey studies me carefully.
“You know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think Nolan spent most of his life surviving.” Her face relaxes, softening her features. “And survival mode doesn’t leave a lot of room for a relationship.”
Outside the windows, clouds drift over Back Bay again. Not storm-dark this time. Just enough to cast shadows across the town. My mood mirrors the overcast.
If Nolan never learns how to stop surviving long enough to fully lean into love—eventually it’s going to break both of us.
By sunset, the marina glows gold beneath repaired dock lights and fading storm clouds. And Nolan still hasn’t stopped moving once.
I stand near the western railing, holding two take-out containers while workers gradually clear out for the night around us.
The smell of salt water and storm-soaked wood still hangs faintly in the air while boats rock gently against reinforced slips below.
Everything looks calmer tonight, but Nolan doesn’t.
He stands near the fuel dock talking to Walter with exhaustion written into every line of his body.
Something inside me twists painfully because I realize he genuinely has no idea how visible his unraveling has become lately.
Walter notices me first. The man possesses startling emotional awareness for someone who communicates primarily through sarcasm and beer.
He says something low to Nolan before walking off toward the office.
Nolan turns, and his gaze relaxes. Even exhausted half to death and emotionally fraying around the edges.
“Hads,” he says when I reach him.
“You forgot dinner again.”
The guilt is written all over his face.
“I was gonna come upstairs.”
I hold up the take-out bag.
“I know.”
He takes the food from me carefully, and the second our fingers brush, emotion flashes openly across his face.
Relief.
Like my showing up mattered more than the food itself.
“You should be home sleeping,” I say.
Nolan huffs under his breath.
“Hypocritical statement from the woman delivering dockside support noodles.”
A startled laugh escapes me. The sound feels strange after the heaviness of the last few days.
Nolan studies my face carefully.
“You still mad at me?”
The vulnerability in the question catches me off guard because he sounds genuinely uncertain.
I lean lightly against the railing beside him.
“I’m not mad,” I admit honestly.
Nolan looks unconvinced.
“I’m scared,” I whisper instead.
Silence settles around us. The marina creaks beneath the evening wind while lights shimmer across Back Bay.
Nolan stares out over the docks for several long seconds before speaking.
“I don’t know how to do this right yet.”
“You know,” I say, “you don’t have to hide the paperwork from me.”
His brows knit together.
“What paperwork?”
“The budgets. The estimates. Whatever keeps you awake until three in the morning.” Taking a deep breath, I add, “I’ve been doing numbers too.”
His brows pull together.
“What?”
“Not contractor numbers.”
I glance toward the dark water beyond the docks.
“I’ve been pulling tourism reports.”
He studies me, confused.
“For what?”
“I wanted to see what the marina actually meant to the rest of Coral Bell Cove.”
I shrug one shoulder.
“Diane helped me find old visitor reports. Bailey let me compare bookstore traffic during waterfront festivals. Mrs. Pace dug through café sales from the summers before the hurricane.”
A shadow lifts from his face.
“I’ve been putting everything into one place.”
“What kind of place?”
“A folder.”
The corner of his mouth finally lifts.
“A very official-sounding folder.”
“It is.”
I smile despite myself.
“I don’t know if any of it’ll actually help.”
“It started as numbers,” I admit. “Occupancy reports. Visitor counts. Tax revenue.” I smile. “Then I started talking to people instead.”
Nolan stays quiet.
“Mrs. Pace told me every busy weekend at the marina meant she baked another dozen pies because tourists always stopped for dessert before heading home.”
I glance toward the bookstore across the street.
“The Mayor said waterfront festivals were some of the biggest weekends of the year for the shops. Families wandered in after dinner while they waited for the fireworks.”
My eyes drift toward the restaurants lining Main Street.
“One of the charter captains told me when his boats stayed full, the tackle shop stayed open longer. The tackle shop staying open meant more people wandered downtown. More people downtown meant fuller restaurants.”
I shrug.
“Everybody kept saying different things...” My smile grows. “But they all meant the same thing.”
Nolan watches me.
“What’s that?”
I look back across the slips.
“When Sweetspire Marina does well”—I pause—“Coral Bell Cove does too.”
I look back toward the marina.
“But every time I hear you talking about budgets and loan projections...” My fingers tighten around the railing. “I keep thinking somebody ought to see what happens outside these docks too.”
He stays quiet.
“The hotels. The restaurants. The bookstore. The charter captains. The festivals. My job has always been helping people understand how this town fits together.”
I finally look back at him.
“And Sweetspire has always been one of the biggest pieces.”
Silence settles between us.
Then Nolan reaches over and threads his fingers through mine.
“I’d like to see it.”
I blink.
“The folder.”
His thumb brushes lightly across my knuckles.
“When you’re ready.”
Something inside my chest loosens.
“Okay.”
He squeezes my hand once.
“I have a feeling it’s going to matter more than you think.”
“Every decision feels like one wrong move away from costing somebody something.”
“You know what I think?” I ask.
His gaze shifts toward me.
“I think you finally found something worth staying for.” Emotion catches in my throat. “And now you’re terrified you’ll fail hard enough to lose it.”
Nolan goes completely still beside me, then exhales toward the water.
“Walter basically said the same thing earlier.”
I smile faintly.
“Smart man.”
Nolan’s shoulder brushes mine lightly against the railing. Enough contact to warm every inch of me.
At this moment, I understand something important. Nolan isn’t pulling away because he loves me less. He’s pulling inward because loving me this much terrifies him.
Nolan glances toward me again, exhaustion and love and uncertainty tangled together openly across his face.
“I don’t need you to stop being scared,” I whisper. “I just need you to stop trying to survive it alone.”
Nolan’s eyes grow double in size, the emotional weight of my words sinking in.
His hand finds mine against the railing. And this time when he holds on—it doesn’t feel like protection. It feels like trust.