Chapter 216: Reid
We wait close to twenty minutes, elbows on a tiny table that smells like tomatoes and heat, before our server comes back with an older woman in a flour-dusted apron and two paper bags fat with takeout. The nonna rattles off a bright stream of Italian; the kid inhales to translate—
Madeline giggles.
The old woman pivots to her, eyes lighting, and aims the next burst straight at Mads.
“Sì,” Madeline answers, cheeks pink. “Ma… non molto bene. Capisco, però.”
The server’s eyes go wide. He gives her an up-and-down he shouldn’t, then cuts a look at me. I lift an eyebrow that says: are you checking my girl in front of me? He shrinks two inches and retreats toward the espresso machine.
The nonna keeps going, hands flying, delighted. Madeline’s smiling, nodding, searching for words and finding enough; her Italian’s broken around the edges, but the woman understands her perfectly.
“She said almost no one orders the tagliatelle al ragù anymore,” Mads tells me, eyes bright, “and she wanted to see who did, because it’s her favorite.”
The old woman looks me over like I’m an interesting problem, then swings back to Madeline and asks something softer, conspiratorial. Mads answers carefully—“Sì… è il mio ragazzo”—and even with the grammar wobble, it lands. The nonna gives me another slow up-and-down, twice for good measure, then catches Madeline’s hand in both of hers and murmurs something that makes Mads gasp, laugh, and nod all at once. A tap to the back of her hand, a tiny farewell wave for me with one eyebrow raised like a warning or a blessing, and she vanishes through the swinging door.
I take both bags; we step out into salt air. “All right,” I say, helpless. “What did she say?”
Madeline bites her lip. I press with a look. “Out with it.”
“She asked if you were my boyfriend and I said yes,” she says, eyes dancing. “Then she told me you’re too big for me and you’ll hurt me if we… you know… do it.” She’s already laughing, can’t help herself. “And then she added that if you put your babies in me I’ll suffer delivering them because they’ll be big babies.”
I should laugh with her. I don’t. My mind just—goes dark and feral. Her, round with me. The slow swell under my hand. My seed inside her, taking. A little boy or girl with her eyes and my hair—or her hair and my eyes—breathing the same Northhaven air I learned to love. For a beat my brain stops doing anything useful except want to take her right the fuck now and put a baby in her.
She, oblivious to the wildfire I’m stoking, keeps walking and glances down the hill where the ocean flashes. “Do you think the food would get too cold if we check the water for a bit?”
I clear my throat, drag myself back. “No. Let’s go.”
She jogs; I don’t have to—three of her steps to one of mine—and we reach the harbor wall together. It’s a rock barrier like Northhaven’s, big blocks stacked to blunt the swell. She leans over the capstone, hunting for life the way she always does, wind turning her hair to live flame.
“I like the rocks in Northhaven more,” she pouts, disappointed there’s nothing to catalog from here.
Of course she does. And somehow that makes me want her more. Most people come to Northhaven for a weekend and get bored; seasonal crews count days until they leave. This girl was born in the wrong place and found the right one by accident—gulls and cold water and work that matters—and decided it was home. I love that.
I set the bags on the wall, curl an arm around her waist, and draw her close while the last light pours over her. She tips her face up through her lashes and smiles. I tug her that last inch until her hip rides mine, and we stand there for a moment—salt wind, warm food, the future I want like a tide pulling hard—and then we turn back toward the motel, dinner swinging from my hand and every step syncing to hers.
By the time we hit the motel, the sky’s gone watercolor—pink into blue into a bruised purple that makes the air feel softer. I set the bags down on the walkway and crook two fingers. “Come here.”
She does, curious, mouth already tilting.
I lift her. Her gasp is a little bell against my throat as her legs lock around my waist, arms sliding over my shoulders. One hand stays under her thigh to hold her; the other cups her face, thumb fitting the soft place beneath her cheekbone like it was cut for me.
“I have to tell you something,” I say.
For one beat I almost tell her about the email. Sloane. The report. I almost put that poison in her hands and watch it burn. But I won’t. I’m sure as hell it isn’t true; I’m more sure that knowing someone’s trying to set her up would hurt worse than any paper cut. I’ll handle it and then I’ll tell her. And even if it were true, I don’t give a damn. I know her. I know her heart.
That isn’t why I stopped.
“What is it?” she asks, eyes green and expectant, wind caught in all that copper hair.
I stroke her cheek with my thumb and let myself count—one, two, five, eight—freckles I already know by touch. Then I give her the only thing I’ve been carrying that’s heavier than fear.
“I love you.”
I feel the flinch travel through her—tiny, reflexive—and for a second I don’t know which way it’ll break. I know she likes us. I know she wants to be ours. Love is a different word. She searches my face, and I hold still so she finds only what’s there: truth, and want, and a promise I don’t know how to stop making.
She leans in and kisses me—slow, soft, reverent—like the whole sky just got quieter to listen. When she breaks, her mouth is still on mine, breath warm against my lips.
“I love you too, Reid Anderson,” she whispers.