Page 145 of Neap & Spring

Iris looks at her drink, looks at Beckett, then looks at her drink again.

“There’s still ice in it,” she says.

“Iris.”

She sighs like she’s being asked to do something unreasonable, finishes the drink in two neat sips, and slides out of the booth. She hugs me properly on the way out, both arms, cheek against my hair. “See you soon,” she says quietly. Then she’s following Beckett out the door, her jacket half on.

Hayes stands and folds his jacket over his arm. “Good night,” he says to the table. Then, to me specifically, with that understated Hayes delivery, he says, “Nice work tonight.”

That leaves Cora, who has been sitting in the corner with her cider and the stillness of someone who has clocked everything and is waiting to see how long it takes everyone else to notice she’s still here.

Callum looks at her.

She looks back, unbothered.

“Cora,” he says.

“Callum,” she says pleasantly.

A pause.

“Don’t you have an early morning?” he says.

She considers this. “I have an early morning every morning.”

“Cora.”

She sighs like she’s doing him a tremendous favor, finishes the last of her cider standing up, and collects her jacket. She squeezes my shoulder on the way past but says nothing, and then she’s gone too.

The bar keeps going around us. The pool table with its sharp crack of balls. The jukebox shifting to something slower. The wind outside picking up, rattling the windows.

It’s just us.

Callum turns his head and presses his face briefly into my hair, breathing in. “I thought we’d never be alone,” he says, quiet enough that it’s just for me, his breath warm against my temple.

I look around the bar. The guys playing pool. The bartender wiping down glasses. The marlin with its eternal stare.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Vivienne

The rain is slowly picking up steam. We stand under the overhang outside Scuppers for a second while Callum turns his collar up and I pull my jacket on, fumbling with the zipper. Then we just start walking because the alternative is standing still, and neither of us seems to want that.

The street is mostly empty this late, the rain keeping people inside where it’s warm and dry. The storm has finally broken whatever warmth was holding, and the air smells like salt and electricity.

We walk close because of the narrow overhang, shoulders touching. The rain is coming down hard now, but we keep walking at the same pace in the same direction. Somewhere in the middle of the next block, Callum’s hand finds mine. His fingers close around mine and mine close back, and neither of us looks down or says anything about it. We just keep walking in silence.

The rain starts to come down harder, and we speed up without discussing it, our footsteps splashing through puddles forming on the sidewalk.

We turn off the main street, and the restaurant appears at the end of the block. The windows are dark, the sign unlit. The churning water is visible behind it, angry and alive. His apartment sits above it. The whole building is quiet after the enormous night it just had.

We stop at the side door. He lets go of my hand to find his keys, patting his jacket pocket twice before finding them, and I stand beside him in the rain while he gets the lock. The door opens onto a narrow stairwell. It’s dark until he reaches past me and finds a switch. The light buzzes on, low and yellow and casting long shadows on the walls. The stairs creak on the second step and the fourth, and I follow him up, one hand on the wall for balance, rain still in my hair, dripping down my neck.

His door is already unlocked, so he pushes it open and goes in ahead of me, moving through the dark with the ease of someone who has done it ten thousand times. By the time I cross the threshold, he’s already turned on the lamp in the corner, and the room lights up amber around us.

I stand in the doorway and just take in his space.