Chapter 32 Another Day A Different Mark
The night thinned slowly, like breath leaving a body.
Voices dropped. Chairs scraped softer. The last of the regulars lingered over their cups like they were trying to stretch the dark a little longer before it gave way to morning.
I wiped down the same stretch of bar three times before I admitted I was waiting. He didn’t make me wait long. Same corner. Same table. Same lamp.
I didn’t look at him until I was already walking over.
“Thought you’d gone respectable,” I said, setting the bottle down between us. My voice came out lighter than I felt.
He leaned back, one arm draped along the bench, ankle hooked over his knee like he owned the place. “I tried it once. Didn’t take.”
I poured.
The rum caught the lamplight, gold and sharp. I watched it instead of him.
“What happens,” I said, keeping my tone easy, “when the money runs out?”
The question slipped out before I could dress it up into something safer.
He didn’t answer right away.
I felt him shift. Heard the faint creak of wood as he leaned back farther, gaze tipping up toward the rafters like the answer might be carved into the beams.
“It doesn’t,” he said finally.
Simple.
Certain.
I looked up then, one brow lifting before I could stop it.
He noticed. Of course he did.
A corner of his mouth pulled, and then he leaned forward, closing the space between us until the table felt smaller than it was.
“There’s always more,” he murmured.
His voice dropped, low enough it brushed against my skin instead of my ears.
“Another ship. Another mark.” His eyes flicked to mine, something sharp glinting there. “Even in a place like this.”
I didn’t say it.
Didn’t say that this place wasn’t where people like him came to hunt. It was where they came to hide. Where I had come to hide. Instead, I slid his glass toward him, fingers steady even when mine wanted to curl in on themselves.
“Then I suppose we won’t starve,” I said.
He huffed something like a laugh, He lifted his glass and I mirrored him. A clink then we drank.
The quiet between us wasn’t empty. It hummed. Low and tight, like a rope pulled just shy of snapping.
He broke it first.
I saw the movement before I understood it—his hand slipping into his sleeve, drawing something out slow enough to make it feel deliberate.
Parchment.
Folded small. Worn soft at the edges.
He set it on the table between us and flattened it with his palm.
I didn’t touch it right away.
“What’s this?” I asked, even though I was already leaning closer.
“Opportunity,” he said.
I snorted under my breath, but my fingers betrayed me, sliding across the table until they brushed the edge of the paper.
He didn’t pull it away.
Didn’t move at all.
I unfolded it.
A map.
Hand-drawn, the lines a little uneven, ink dark where the pen had lingered too long. The coastline curled in tight loops, familiar and not at the same time.
My fingertip traced one of the edges before I realized I was doing it.
“Tomorrow,” he said, tapping a spot near the edge, close enough that I felt the faint thud of it through the table, “I’m meeting someone about a job.”
I didn’t look up.
“If it’s good,” he went on, quieter now, “it gets us out of here.”
Out.
The word landed heavy.
My chest tightened before I could stop it.
“Maybe even back to The Ghost.”
That—that made me look. The name sat between us like something alive.
The ship. His ship.
The place he belonged.
I tried to picture it—him on a deck that moved under his feet like it knew him, wind in his hair, that easy way he held himself when there was nothing holding him still.
Something ugly twisted low in my stomach.
I dropped my gaze back to the map before it could show.
“That what you want?” I almost asked.
It pressed against my teeth.
I swallowed it down.
My thumb dragged across the ink instead, smearing one of the islands into a dark blur.
He noticed.
His hand shifted, not quite touching mine, but close enough that I felt the heat of it.
“You’ll like it,” he said, softer. “Open water. No walls.”
No walls.
No place to disappear.
No place to stay.
I nodded like it didn’t matter.
Like I hadn’t built something fragile and quiet in the space between this table and that lamp.
“Sounds…” I started, then stopped.
He waited.
I shook my head, pulling my hand back, folding the map along the wrong lines before sliding it toward him.
“Sounds like trouble.”
His mouth curved.
“Usually is.”
Neither of us said anything after that. We drank what was left in the bottle between us, passing the last glass back and forth without asking whose turn it was.
His fingers brushed mine again.
I didn’t pull away.
—
Morning came too bright.
I stepped outside with the first tray balanced against my hip, the air still cool enough to raise goosebumps along my arms.
He was already there.
The innkeeper.
Waiting.
I slowed without meaning to.
“You’re good,” he said, like he was stating a fact he wasn’t sure I deserved.
Not quite praise.
Not quite anything.
I shifted the tray, adjusting its weight. “You say that like it’s a problem.”
He grunted.
“Too good to stay here.”
That caught me.
I blinked at him, searching his face for a joke that wasn’t there.
“You could run this place,” he went on, dropping his voice like the walls might overhear. “If you wanted.”
Run it.
Stay.
Put down roots in wood that smelled like spilled ale and smoke and something almost like home.
My chest tightened again. Nothing would replace My Tavern.
I laughed before it could settle. “I don’t want to run anything.”
The words came out quick. Easy.
He watched me a second longer than I liked, then nodded once, sharp.
“Still,” he said, stepping aside, “it’s a good thing. Hands that know their work.”
I almost said thank you.
The words rose, caught, and fell away. Instead, I set the tray down on the nearest table and reached up, pulling the ribbon from my pocket.
Blue.
Soft.
I tied it into my hair without thinking too hard about why my hands felt steadier when I did.
When I stepped back into the room, shoulders squared, tray balanced, the noise of the day rising to meet me—I told myself it was just another morning.
Just another shift.
Just another place I didn’t plan to stay.
But the knot of ribbon at the back of my head sat like a promise I hadn’t agreed to make—and couldn’t quite bring myself to untie.