I blinked. "Is that stress management?"
"Yes. I don’t like flying."
I stared at him. "You own a plane and you don’t like flying?"
"Owning things and enjoying them are separate categories."
"Does the emergency puzzle help?"
"Not much." He looked at me over the cube. "But you being here does."
I smiled. "Are you a natural flirt or are you being honest?"
"I don’t believe I was flirting. Just stating facts."
I laughed before I could stop myself. "Yeah, you’re doing it on purpose."
The flight wasn’t long. Barely enough time for me to finish the coffee they brought out before land started appearing below us.
Then the island came into view and every thought in my head stopped.
I pressed my face to the window and forgot to breathe. The water below was a blue I'd never seen outside of photographs, clear and layered, turquoise near the shore fading to deep navy where the Gulf stretched toward the horizon.
White sand. Palm trees bending in the breeze, their fronds catching sunlight and scattering it across the shore. Small wooden houses sat along the waterline, weathered silver by the salt air, surrounded by wild grass and sand dunes dotted withsea oats. A single main street ran through the center of town: a bait shop, a general store, and what looked like a café with outdoor seating right on the water.
No high-rises. No traffic. Just ocean and wind and the sound of birds I couldn't name.
"Jace." I turned from the window. "Is this heaven?"
He was watching my face instead of the view, and whatever he saw there brought out that twitch at the corner of his mouth. His almost-smile. The one I'd been collecting without meaning to. "I thought you might like it. We have a three-day reservation."
I liked it. I liked it so much my eyes burned.
The house was on the water. White clapboard with a wraparound porch and ceiling fans that ticked lazily in the salt air. Two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a view of the Gulf that belonged on a postcard. He’d had it cleaned before we arrived.
The smell inside felt like disinfectant and ocean breeze, his world and this world overlapping, and I could see the effort it took for him to stand in a space he hadn’t controlled since birth and not reach for the sanitizer in his pocket.
He reached for it anyway. Wiped down the kitchen counter. Then the bathroom handles. Then the light switches. I watched him move through the house in his systematic way, claiming the space inch by inch. He was making the house safe so he could be present in it with me.
We settled in. The Gulf air came through the open windows, warm and heavy, and for the first time in weeks the knot in my chest loosened.
Jace was uncomfortable. The sand got everywhere. Into his shoes, between his fingers, across the porch floor in a fine grit that he swept three times before giving up. The humidity made his hair curl in ways he clearly disapproved of, his hand going tothe back of his head every few minutes like he could discipline it by touch.
A palmetto bug the size of my fist appeared on the kitchen wall and he was on the porch for a full ten minutes, standing at the railing with his arms crossed, looking at the ocean with the expression of a man who had just been personally betrayed by nature.
I didn’t laugh. Because I loved him. But God, I wanted to.
We walked to the beachside café that evening. Open-air, plastic chairs, paper menus. The fried grouper came in a basket, the iced tea was so sugary it was practically dessert, and nobody bothered with reservations because there was never a wait.
A woman worked behind the counter. Late twenties, thin, with circles under her eyes that had settled in long before tonight. She moved between tables carrying plates, quick and practiced, her ponytail swinging.
I knew who she was before she even glanced our way. Sara. Diane's sister. She looked older than the photos, harder. At the end of the counter, a little boy sat with a box of crayons and a coloring book. Five, maybe six.
Jace leaned toward me. "That’s her. Sara."
"I know." My voice was barely there. "I recognized her."
We sat at a table. Sara came over with menus.
