Chapter Twenty-Two
The city didn’t ease you in—it hit like a tidal wave of noise and smells and a kind of chaotic buzz that made Bluebell Cove feel like a sleepy watercolor painting in comparison.
Rhett’s truck jostled along the busy road as we crossed into downtown Port Camden.
The towering buildings surrounding us shouldered each other for space; some were brick and peeling paint, with balconies that jutted out like iron jaws.
Others shone back at us and glinted in the sun, glass edifices anchored by restaurants and department stores and convenience shops.
A man played the saxophone at the corner, his melody echoing off the buildings, floating through our open windows.
Rhett flicked on his blinker and muttered, “Welcome to Port Camden. Jewel of the East Coast.”
“Really?” I wrinkled my nose as a gull swooped overhead, dropping something unspeakable on the roof of the car ahead of us. “Not quite the jewel I would’ve pictured.”
“You’ve lived in the Cove all your life, and you’ve never been here, Wheeler?” he asked, easing the truck around a corner.
“It felt different,” I replied, kicking my feet up until they dangled outside.
Last time, Port Camden had been brighter, warmer—not the embodiment of everything I was trying to fight.
The forest of glass and concrete began to clear as we headed down a low hill toward the coastline. In truth, I hadn’t been to Port Camden since I was in high school. Big cities, with their traffic and bustling sidewalks, only ever made me anxious.
Rhett found a parking space near the wharf and pulled in.
The second he cut the engine, the gulls’ cries filled the air, overlapping with vendors shouting the catch of the day.
Stands lined the street behind us, colorful shades protruding from a squat, brick building with spreads of various fish on ice beneath them.
I popped open my door and momentarily took in the chaos. Underneath the brine and the shrieking birds, warmth pressed through—the faint lapping of waves against rocks, chatter from the nearby pier, and something sweet and fried.
Rhett climbed out and stretched, tossing me a look. “So, boss.” He nodded at the stack of posters in the bed. “Where do we start?”
I had no idea—but he didn’t need to know that.
He followed me with a few signs as I wandered down the boardwalk.
Then I spotted a bulletin board hung crooked and hammered to a wooden piling by the pier.
Half of it was covered in sun-bleached flyers: missing cats, guitar lessons, a hand-scrawled advertisement for babysitting with a few numbers torn off.
Rhett held our festival poster against the board while I retrieved the tape from my backpack and began wrestling with it.
And promptly lost.
It unraveled and clung to my wrist, nearly dropping all the way to the ground.
“Need a hand?” Rhett asked, far too smug.
“I’ve got it,” I said through gritted teeth, slowly winding the tape back onto the spool.
“Sure you do.”
By the third board, I thought I had it figured out. Except a gust of wind ripped the poster from my grip and sent it cartwheeling toward the harbor.
I lunged after it with a shriek, nearly colliding with a fisherman hauling a crate of clams off the quay. Rhett snagged my elbow before I tumbled headfirst into the water.
They really should’ve put a railing there.
“Well,” he said, barely containing his amusement. “Guess that’s one less advertisement.”
“That was sabotage,” I said, hair whipping across my face. “You let the wind take it.”
“Right. I’m in cahoots with the breeze.”
By noon, we’d managed to plaster a decent handful of posters around the wharf, though I was down one and Rhett was sure there would be another casualty. We were heading back to the truck for more signs when he clutched his stomach and sighed.
“Any chance you’re hungry for dinner?” he asked, tilting his head toward the market.
“I am if you are,” I lied.
Inside, booths overflowed with fried dough, pizza, even popcorn.
It was like they had the Summer’s End Festival every day.
We settled on lobster rolls because I couldn’t resist the smell.
Rhett carried two paper trays to a large barrel converted into a table, tucked in a corner beside a wall decorated with local artwork.
For a minute, I forgot we were on a mission.
It felt like we’d just come here to spend the day.
The second we sat down, he dug into his lobster roll and groaned with relief.
“That hungry?” I said, picking off a piece of bread.
Rhett covered his mouth and replied, “Starving. You’re not gonna eat?”
Truthfully, I was still full from lunch—I hadn’t been used to eating two big meals in a while. But I didn’t want to make him feel bad, so I took a small bite and smiled behind my hand. By the time I finished that mouthful, his tray was empty.
“Do you want the rest of mine?” I pushed my mostly-intact lobster roll toward him.
He frowned. “You’re not hungry.”
“No… not really.”
“But it’s been—” He checked his watch. “Four hours since we ate lunch.”
A blush spread across my cheeks and I smoothed some hairs behind my ears. “I don’t eat a lot normally,” I explained, “Sometimes Ruth feeds me, sometimes I forget. I don’t know.”
My tone was light, but Rhett frowned in response.
“Is there anything you will eat?”
“Yes.” I bit my lip to keep from smiling. “But you won’t like my answer.”
Sometime later, we weaved through the busy market pathways as I bit into a piece of fried dough covered in powdered sugar. My eyes nearly rolled to the back of my head.
“You have the tastebuds of a middle schooler,” Rhett murmured as he directed us outside.
The ocean gust pushed a curl across my face, and I pushed it away with the back of my arm, fingers already dusted in sugar. “A middle schooler with great taste,” I replied before polishing off my final piece.
Tossing the tray into the trash, we hurried across the street and toward the truck.
“I think I need to wash my hands,” I said with a laugh and leaned against the truck bed, desperately trying to get the hair out of my face without using my sugarcoated fingers.
“Here,” Rhett was saying before I could register what was happening.
He stepped in front of me, eyes narrowed in concentration as he peeled the stray curls away and tucked them behind my ears. His touch tickled my skin, gentle, methodical—a whisper in the breeze.
Our eyes met.
Breath hitched in my throat, I studied his face as he did mine. His gaze was soft when he looked at me. I couldn’t deny that any longer. I had been so sure that this tension was in my imagination, but now I wasn’t sure of anything.
Then, Rhett smiled. “You’ve got…” His knuckles lit trails of fire as he wiped the powdered sugar from my chin. “There.”
His hand froze on my jaw—or maybe time itself did.
Then he blinked and stepped away. Gulls resumed their cries, vendors began their yelling, and the moment was broken.
“Let’s get you to a sink,” he was saying as he leaned past me for some more posters. “Or I could just dip you in the ocean?”
The air between us cooled, reality slipping back in.
I cleared my throat and smiled. “Funny. A sink will do just fine.”
We found a public restroom near the square, where a busker played under a striped awning and kids splashed in the fountain.
When I looked in the mirror, I almost wished I hadn’t.
Sugar was crusted around my lips and my hair, though up in a ponytail, was darting in twenty different directions.
Sighing, I washed the stickiness off my hands and face and reworked my hair into a semi-respectable bun.
Rhett was waiting outside in the plaza, leaned up against a pillar.
That was when I saw it.
Glossy and enormous, splashed on the screen behind the glass of a real estate agency’s office.
The Founders’ Gala: An Evening of Elegance and Tradition—Presented by the Steele Group.
A sketch of a ballroom framed by gold swirls, with sponsors’ names printed in bold across the bottom. Our posters—colorful and hand drawn by a classroom of high school art students—looked like a kindergarten project in comparison.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been staring before Rhett appeared behind me in the reflection.
“What’s the Steele Group?” I mumbled, chest tight.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s her family’s agency.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means…” Rhett’s shoulders drooped. “It means she’s using this as a way to make a mark there. And it also means she’s not going to give up.”
I blinked back the tears and turned to him with a nod. “Well, guess that means we’ve gotta get back to work.”
The words came out light, but inside, something stung.
We pressed on, plastering posters wherever we could find space.
There was a bulletin board in a coffee shop decorated purely in black-and-grey and brimming with suits.
Then, the window of a general store, where we had to negotiate with a clerk who insisted we buy something first—Rhett walked out with a newspaper, of all things.
We found a bar, where the owner gave us a free drink after Rhett fixed a loose hinge on her swinging door. I chose a Shirley Temple.
At one point, I tried to staple a poster to a telephone pole and ended up stapling my sleeve instead. Rhett did an admirable job fighting back his laughter while he helped me untangle myself.
By the time we finished, the sun had sunk low, and the sidewalks grew shaded. The sky turned soft pink and orange, gulls circling above the harbor like scraps of paper on the breeze. Rhett leaned against the bed of his truck and slipped his newspaper inside the cab.
“This was productive,” I said, sidling up beside him.
“Sure was.” He stretched his arms out across the side panel. “How you feeling about it now?”
I sucked in a sharp breath and tried to ignore the warmth of his sleeve against my back. “Better. At least if it all goes wrong, I can say that I did my best.”
He grinned. “Anyone ever told you that you’re a hopeless optimist, Wheeler?”
I laughed, then fell quiet, watching the cotton candy sky glitter on the water. “Grandma Marigold, believe it or not, thought I was the realist.”
Rhett glanced at me, his expression softer than usual. “She must’ve been fun to grow up with.”
The words warmed me more than he knew.
“She was the best,” I replied. “So spirited, y’know? There was no challenge too great for her. I always wanted to be like that.”
“Look at what you’re doing. How aren’t you like that?”
I couldn’t contain my smile. I didn’t want to.
We climbed back into the truck and drove home. Harbor lights twinkled in the rearview, the gala’s glossy advertisement lingering like a shadow in my mind.