Page 91 of Reeves

“I’m sorry you didn’t know. I should have done more to make sure you did. I assumed you’d read the note.”

The words slip out before I can stop them. Reeves goes quiet beside me, and heat creeps up my neck.

“Charli, stop,” he says, his voice low, cutting me off without sharpness. “You don’t owe me an apology.”

He exhales through his nose, then looks at me.

“I’m the one who didn’t read the letter. That’s on me.”

I hold his gaze for a second longer than I mean to. There’s no edge in it, no defensiveness. His gaze is steady that makes it harder to look away.

Benjy calls out from ahead of us, saving us both.

“Look! Someone dropped a whole bunch of shells here!”

He crouches beside a scattered pile of broken shells, picking through them with the concentration of a scientist sorting specimens. We catch up to him, and Reeves drops down beside him, one knee in the sand as he reaches for a larger piece.

“These came from pretty far out,” Reeves says, turning it in his hand. “See how smooth the edges are? That only happens in deep water.”

“How do you know that?”

“Learned it in the Navy. Part of our training covered coastal reconnaissance.”

Benjy’s eyes go wide.

“You did spy stuff on beaches?”

Reeves huffs out a quiet breath. “More like training, but yeah, something like that.”

Benjy grins and goes back to digging through the shells.

Reeves pushes to his feet and brushes sand off his hands, his movements careful for a second before they even out. I catch it anyway.

Benjy pockets his favorite shell and takes off again, chasing a chipmunk further down the path. The sandy trail curves beneath a canopy of live oaks and scrub pines, their branches filtering the late afternoon light. Every few steps, the trees thin and flashes of blue water break through.

“This path is nice,” Reeves says, glancing ahead at Benjy. “You don’t have to deal with traffic, and there’s shade most of the way. You’ve built a good life here for him.”

“It’s a good spot,” I say. “I’m grateful for it.”

He nods once, like he understands exactly what that means.

We fall into step beside each other, close enough that our arms brush once before I shift slightly to the side. The space between us doesn’t quite settle after that.

Benjy ranges ahead of us, never quite out of sight, stopping to examine footprints or chase a sand crab that darts across thepath. Reeves doesn’t say anything, but I see the way his attention tracks him anyway, quiet and constant.

I notice it, and I notice everything else too. The way he adjusts his stride to match mine without looking down. The way his hand flexes once at his side, like he is holding back the instinct to reach for me, like he used to.

The silence stretches, but it doesn’t feel empty.

It's full of things we are not saying.

We round the last curve, and the beach access parking lot comes into view. Walking like this, with Benjy just ahead of us and the rhythm of our steps falling into place without effort, feels easy in a way that catches me off guard.

Not imagined. Not hypothetical.

Real. Like it could have always been this simple if we had been different people back then.

Reeves slows as we approach the parking area, his gaze sweeping across the rows of cars and trucks lined up between the painted spaces. He stops walking altogether, his posture tightening as he scans the lot again.