Miles
I walked into the beach house with the kind of dazed, lovesick expression typically reserved for romance movie heroines who just got kissed under a fireworks display. Except there had been no fireworks—just salt air, champagne, and Hudson Knight’s lips on mine.
Close enough.
My hand lingered on the doorknob longer than it needed to, and I caught my reflection in the small mirror by the entryway. My cheeks were flushed, my collar slightly crooked, and my hair had been tousled by the wind. I looked like I’d stepped out of a coastal daydream.
Was that a date?
I mean, yacht… caviar… a kiss on the water… It sure felt like one. And yet, something in me still couldn’t quite accept that as reality. Not yet.
As I stepped into the cool, polished interior of the beach house, I heard the soft creak of the stairs. I turned and saw my mother, Cecilia, descending in one of her floaty, watercolor caftans—this one a deep sapphire that caught the afternoon light.
“Well,”
she said with a knowing arch of her brow.
“You’re glowing like you’ve just been lightly ravished by a Hemsworth brother.”
I laughed, half embarrassed, half amused.
“It wasn’t quite that.”
“Mm-hmm,”
she hummed.
“Was it the Rehoboth librarian or that celebrity degenerate you’ve been circling like a worried dove?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Do you want the short version or the drink-poured, feet-in-the-sand, mother-son moment version?”
She turned on her heel toward the kitchen.
“Surely the latter, darling. You set up the chairs. I’ll make the martinis.”
Ten minutes later, we were barefoot in the sand behind the house, two weathered Adirondack chairs angled toward the bay, a little teak side table between us balancing our frosty glasses. The breeze was gentle, the sunlight golden, and Topper snoozed in a small patch of shade beside my chair, the very picture of retirement bliss, at least that was the actual case for half of us.
Cecilia sipped her martini and cocked her head toward me.
“Well? Spill it, darling. You’re practically on the verge of combusting.”
I took a breath.
“Okay. So, Hudson picked me up—top down in some absurdly expensive convertible, of course—and wouldn’t tell me where we were going. Total surprise. We pull into Rehoboth Bay Marina, and then—Mom—there’s this massive, gleaming yacht with a captain and chefs. I didn’t even know we had boats like that here.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“Chefs? Plural?”
“Three. I counted. There were charcuterie boards and this amazing spread waiting at a table on the flybridge. Champagne in an ice bucket. Caviar, too, although he insisted there’d be ‘no caviar bumps,’ whatever that means.”
She let out a delicate wheeze of laughter.
“Oh, I don’t think you’re ready for that particular brand of party trick, dear. A little messy for your taste.”
“I don’t want to be,”
I muttered, sipping my martini.
“Anyway, it was beautiful. The boat coasted along the bay. We talked… flirted a little. And then—he kissed me. Well, I kissed him, actually. I mean, we both kissed each other.”
I looked out toward the water, the memory blooming across my skin again like heat from the sun.
“It was soft. Real. Not like some drunken dare or performance,”
I elaborated.
Cecilia looked over the rim of her glass.
“So, what’s the problem, then?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know,”
I confessed.
“Shouldn’t I be grieving harder? Angry still? Owen cheated on me. Our marriage collapsed. Shouldn’t I be locked in my bedroom crying into my pillow like some sad gay widow?”
She placed her glass on the side table with a graceful clink.
“. Heartbreak doesn’t come with a syllabus. There’s no proper timeline, no approved stages, no checklist. You gave Owen everything. You loved him with your whole, organized, color-coded heart. And he still made his choices.”
I looked at her, unsure.
“And now, you’re allowed to make yours,”
she said softly.
“But kissing another man—especially one like Hudson—just weeks after the divorce papers are finalized… Doesn’t that make me impulsive? Or worse, desperate?”
She tilted her head, the breeze teasing a silver strand of hair loose from her bun.
“Or maybe it makes you free.”
That word settled between us.
“Free to kiss someone because you want to. Free to go on a yacht without planning every second. Free to not know what something is yet—and still enjoy it. How rare for you, my darling. You’re always curating, always editing, always arranging your life like one of your damn linen closets.”
I laughed. “Guilty.”
“But today, you improvised,”
she said, pointing a finger at me for emphasis.
“You kissed chaos—and I saw that little smile on your face when you walked in.”
I leaned back in my chair, feeling the sun soak into my legs and the wind play in my hair.
“It was nice. Scary… but nice.”
She raised her glass again.
“To being scared, then. And doing it anyway.”
We clinked our glasses gently. I took a sip and let the alcohol settle alongside the swirl of feelings in my chest.
Maybe I was diverging from the recipe. Maybe I wasn’t following the table of contents of my carefully planned life. But at this moment—with my feet in the sand, my mother beside me, and the taste of salt and champagne still clinging to my lips—I realized something important.
I’d always followed the recipe to the letter. Always. But today? I’d added a dash of spontaneity, a splash of risk, and maybe—just maybe—a kiss of something more.
And damn if it didn’t taste phenomenal.
My moment of serene and giddy reflection was then cut short by my phone vibrating in my shorts. Then again. And again.
I pulled it out and checked it. The screen filled up with notifications.
Lena (Work):
You need to check Instagram now. It’s not good.
Lena (Work):
Like right now, . You’ve gone viral. And not in a good way.
My chest tightened. That sinking, nauseating spiral started deep in my gut—the same one I used to get during middle school spelling bees when I knew I was about to mess up bouillabaisse.
I tapped open Instagram, and my world stopped spinning in all the wrong ways.
@InOrder:
New Comments—Post: “Rehoboth Mornings are a Balm for the Soul.”
@housewifehater89: Wow, cheating on your husband this soon??? Classy
@Lola4779: Hudson Knight? Really? You ruin your marriage for a walking STD in designer shades??
@Jackie_Petrusio78: “Whitaker”
more like White-LIE. Hope your sponsors see this.
@reclaimthecocktailhour: Not the homewrecker pretending he’s still wholesome. Unfollowed.
My fingers froze. My throat constricted. The corners of my vision tingled with the sting of oncoming tears.
“Mom,”
I whispered, unable to make my voice rise above a rasp, “I… I think something’s happened.”
She narrowed her eyes, stepping closer.
“Darling, what is it?”
But I was already tapping to answer Lena’s incoming call.
“I’m so sorry,”
Lena said before I even got a word out. Her voice was tight, anxious.
“It started about twenty minutes ago. Paparazzi photos. Someone must’ve followed you both yesterday. Or today. I tried to do damage control, but… I could only do so much. I’m sending over the article now.”
She forwarded a link. I opened it with shaking hands.
GAYTAB.NET: MILES WHITAKER SPILLS MORE THAN MIMOSAS—MEET HIS HOT NEW SCANDAL
And there they were. A collage of images. Brutally invasive, perfectly timed, and absolutely damning.
One showed me and Hudson laughing, side by side at The Top of the Pines, his arm casually slung behind me on the booth like we were already lovers.
Another? From today. At the dock. I was holding onto his forearm, looking up at him, that stupid dreamy look plastered across my face. It looked… intimate. It looked like something we’d rehearsed.
But the worst?
The shot of me kneeling on the beach beside him—when he’d cut his foot. The blood was cropped out. The angle made it look like I was cradling his face.
The headline beneath read:
Professional Organizer or Professional Homewrecker? Inside the Steamy Weekend Whitaker Doesn’t Want You to See.
While currently married to real estate agent Owen Ashbourne, Whitaker has been caught in an apparent romantic rendezvous with infamous model and tabloid magnet Hudson Knight. Knight, recently single after the Jackson Pierce debacle, is no stranger to scandal—but Whitaker’s squeaky-clean brand is in question. Will his sponsors stick around?
An unnamed source close to the situation told us, “It’s all happening fast. He’s on vacation, away from his husband, out here locking lips with a celebrity on a boat.”
Reps for Hudson Knight declined to comment. Whitaker’s team did not respond before publication.
My hands trembled. I lowered the phone slowly, like it might explode.
“I can’t believe this!” I said.
Cecilia came closer. “?”
“I didn’t think… I didn’t think there were cameras. Not out here. Not in Rehoboth Beach.”
“I told you,”
she said gently, taking the phone from my hand.
“You can never fully escape the spotlight. Not when the man you’re kissing is a walking headline.”
“But I helped him get stitches,”
I murmured, almost to myself.
“He was bleeding. And now I look like I’m—”
“A slutty saboteur?”
Cecilia offered, deadpan.
I shot her a look, but the corner of her mouth twitched with sympathy.
“I worked so hard,”
I whispered, eyes stinging.
“You know I did. And I purposefully wanted to wait a bit to come out publicly about my divorce. To come back after everything with Owen. To build something real. To create something people could trust. I’ve been so careful with my brand. My image. And now…”
“To hell with the brand,”
she said, handing me one.
“It’s a gorgeous day. You kissed a gorgeous man. If people want to roast you for that, let them burn.”
“I don’t think I can fix this,”
I whispered, my voice cracking at the edges. My fingers were clenched around the stem of the glass, but I didn’t dare drink it. My hand was trembling too badly.
Cecilia leaned back in her lounger, watching me with that same unreadable look she always wore when the situation called for composure—except I was falling apart.
“Good,”
she said calmly.
“Good?”
I snapped, turning to her with wide, tear-glossed eyes.
“How is this good?”
“Because for once, darling, you’re not trying to fix everything. You’re not compartmentalizing your emotions or—”
“Stop,”
I said, my voice low but sharp.
“Please, just… stop.”
She fell silent, but I could feel her gaze on me like the sun, burning too hot, too close.
I looked down at the screen again, my face framed beside Hudson’s. The captions. The slurs. The venom. My heart twisted. My breath hitched.
“They think I’m a joke,”
I muttered, my throat tightening.
“Everything I’ve built—my name, my work, my clients—everything is going to fall apart. This is all they’ll see now. Me… laughing in a bar. Me… kissing someone on a dock. I look like a damn—”
I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t even think it.
Tears pushed hard against the backs of my eyes, stinging like saltwater. I blinked them away, but they clung, heavy and hot.
“I should’ve known better,”
I said, standing abruptly, the glass rattling on the side table as I set it down.
“I did know better. I knew who Hudson was. I knew what people would think. I let my guard down for one second—for one fucking second—and this is what happens.”
“—”
“No,”
I said, backing away from her.
“Don’t try to spin this. Don’t give me a quote or a metaphor or some clever quip about how this is all part of some grand life lesson.”
“, please.”
“I’m ruined, Mother!”
I shouted, my voice cracking.
“Do you even understand that? I’m not like Hudson. I don’t bounce back from scandals. I don’t do damage control. I do structure. I do trust. People trust me. And now I’m just another gay punchline in the comments section.”
The first tear fell—hot and fast—before I could stop it. I swiped it away, furious at myself.
“I need to be alone,”
I said, spinning around and storming back toward the house.
“—darling, wait—”
But I didn’t.
I walked faster, the sand kicking up around my ankles, the wind slapping my face like some cruel wake-up call. I barely saw the dunes. I didn’t even glance back. I couldn’t.
I climbed the steps to the deck and yanked the sliding door open with shaking hands. The beach house swallowed me in silence as I closed it behind me.
And finally, when no one could see, I let the tears fall.
Big, ugly, gasping sobs.
Because I wasn’t free.
I was exposed.
And the world had already made up its mind.