Page 27 of At First Catch

Then the screen lights again.

Nolan

Hard to forget.

My pulse beats once, hard.

The office feels too quiet suddenly.

Too warm.

The memory of his almost-touch rises again, his fingers suspended inches from my cheek while the whole marina seemed to hold its breath around us.

I type three different responses.

Delete them all.

Finally, I write:

Me

Nolan.

His reply comes faster this time.

Nolan

I know.

That’s the problem.

He knows.

I know.

We both know.

And, knowing doesn’t change the fact that I still want to drive back to the marina right now.

I lock my phone and set it face down on the desk.

Then I pick it up again ten seconds later because I am apparently thirty-one years old and emotionally useless.

No new message.

Good.

Terrible.

I pack my laptop bag with far more force than necessary and shut off the office lights.

The drive home takes me past the edge of downtown and toward Otter Creek Farm, where the road narrows, and the world shifts from storefronts and sidewalks to split-rail fences, open fields, and old oak trees draped in Spanish moss.

This land raised me.

Maybe not in the literal sense, but close enough.

The Wright family farm is a patchwork of generations—pecan trees, strawberry fields, barns, porches, laughter carried through screen doors, arguments settled over pie, and enough family history to make every corner feel like it remembers us.