“Then take it.”
“I’ll be careful.”
His knuckles brushed the side of my throat.
The touch was brief, but my body remembered what his hands could do far too well.
“Call after North Quay,” he said.
“I always call.”
“I know.”
Owen had vanished back into the sailboat. Caleb stood with his back to us, reorganizing cable with theatrical concentration.
I caught the front of Reid’s jacket and pulled him toward me.
The kiss was quick only because it had to be.
His mouth opened against mine. His hand closed at my hip, firm enough to send heat through me. For one suspended second, the rain, the yard, and the waiting jobs disappeared.
When I released him, his eyes were darker.
“Tonight,” he said.
“You’ve mentioned that.”
“You were distracted.”
“By the authoritarian tone.”
“You’re smiling.”
“I’m preparing a formal complaint.”
“Submit it in writing.”
I climbed into the van.
Reid shut the door for me and stepped back beneath the awning. Rain shone in his hair and silvered the space between us.
He stayed there while I started the engine.
One hand rested in his pocket. The other lifted in farewell.
I loved him most in moments like that.
The extraordinary memories mattered. Our first kiss. The night he asked me to move upstairs and nearly wore a path in the floor before getting the words out. The afternoon we lay together on a sun-warmed dock while he confessed he had never expected to share his life with anyone.
But ordinary love had its own gravity.
It was his lunch beside mine in the refrigerator.
His boots by the door.
The weight of his hand finding my waist in sleep.
It was knowing which mug he reached for when he was anxious and which floorboard complained beneath his left foot. It was forgotten toilet paper, disputed shopping lists, and overhearing him speak tenderly to Marlowe when he believed he was alone.
