The warmth of the fire curls around us. Without thinking, he shifts closer. His arm brushes mine. We don’t move apart. Before I can overthink it, I reach for his hand. His fingers close around mine immediately. Heat slides up my arm and settles low in my stomach.
The guitar carries softly across the yard, but when I turn toward him, I realize he isn’t listening. He’s watching me with a frown between his eyebrows.
“What?” I ask, because the intensity in his gaze feels like pressure.
His thumb strokes once over my knuckles.
“I miss you.”
“I’m right here.” It sounds thin even to my own ears.
“That’s not what I mean.”
Sam starts another song, but the space between us feels quieter than the rest of the world.
“I thought…” I swallow. It feels ridiculous to be nervous after nearly three decades. “I thought you didn’t want me like that anymore.”
His head snaps slightly.
“Mel.” The tone is chiding.
“I never stopped wanting you,” he says, voice rougher now. “I stopped pushing.”
The admission pulls something tight in my chest. “Why?”
He looks past me briefly, toward the house, toward the yard full of people.
“You run everything,” he says. “I didn’t want to be another thing you had to manage.”
The words hurt because they’re not wrong.
“I don’t want to manage you,” I whisper. The next explosion shakes the ground beneath us. “I want to feel like you’d take me upstairs without checking if it’s convenient.”
His grip on my hand tightens.
“You used to let me.”
“I still would.”
Chapter Five
Tom
Morning in the RV always starts with small sounds.
Something rustles through the tall grass outside, quick little feet scuttling along the aluminum siding. The hum of the little refrigerator under the counter. A gull somewhere outside, loud and rude enough to cut through sleep. The mattress dips when I roll onto my back, one arm flung over my face, staring at the pale stripe of sunlight slicing through the gap in the curtain.
For a second, disoriented and half awake, I don’t know where I am.
Then the smell finds me. Pine and damp earth through the cracked roof vent. Burnt coffee from yesterday’s pot because I forgot to rinse the basket again. A trace of smoke in the curtains from the fire pit outside.
Northwick Cove.
I lie there listening to the world waking up through the trees.
I was supposed to be gone days ago, right after the fireworks. That had been the plan when I pulled into town with a trailer full of mortar tubes and half a pallet of fireworks. Set up the showfor the Fourth, run it clean, pack the gear the next morning and move on to the next job like I always do.
And somehow, I’m still parked in the same spot.
