The murmur of conversation dips, like someone turned the volume down. A pair of guys by the PVC fittings glance up, then lean toward each other to whisper. A woman in a red windbreaker — Mrs. Pierce, I think — does a quick double take and pretends to study the aisle end cap.
I don’t have to guess what they’re talking about. News travels faster in Mariner’s Bluff than a nor’easter, and the whole town saw that diner kiss by now.
Ronnie doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. “We need trim boards, two gallons of white semi-gloss, and—what else?”
I pull my cap lower and keep moving toward the lumber section. “Deck screws. Forty-five mil.”
The air feels thicker in here. It’s not just the looks — it’s the way it’sexactly the sameas after Aaron died. Everyone knew something happened, but no one really knew the truth. Didn’t stop them from whispering about it at the counter while they ordered coffee, or cutting their eyes at me like I was walking proof of a rumor they couldn’t prove.
That was the thing about Mariner’s Bluff. Grief wasn’t private. Mistakes weren’t private. Hell, nothing was.
I learned that the hard way.
Ronnie grabs a cart, steering us toward the paint aisle like he’s on a Sunday stroll instead of an actual job. “Man, you areeverywherethis week. You realize you basically made the front page without even trying?”
I grab two gallons of semi-gloss from the shelf and drop them into the cart. “It’s not like that.”
“Oh, it’sexactlylike that,” he says, grinning. “Whole town saw you and Lyla Hart making out at the diner. Hell, Mrs. Kinney at the register was saying it was ‘just like the movies.’”
I grunt, moving toward the trim boards. “It was for her sponsorship thing.”
Ronnie chuckles. “Yeah, yeah. You keep telling yourself that.”
I don’t answer.
Because the truth is, I’ve told myself the same thing since it happened — that it was staged, just a way to sell the fake dating bit. But when I felt her lean in without hesitation, when I caught that sharp inhale before she kissed me back… it didn’t feel like acting. Not even close.
I hook a thumb toward the next aisle. “Get the deck screws.”
He goes, still humming under his breath like he knows something I don’t.
I’m loading a bundle of trim boards onto the cart when I catch movement in my periphery.
Two older guys in work jackets — both of them fixtures around here — are standing by the rack of drill bits. One tilts his head toward me, murmurs something, and the other’s mouth curves in that knowing way people get when they think they’ve got the story straight.
I’ve seen that look before.
Back then, it came with lowered voices at the marina, pity disguised as curiosity at the diner. They’d say they were sorry for my loss, and I’d nod like I didn’t hear the rest of it in their tone — the unspokenbut you were there, weren’t you? You could’ve stopped it.
Aaron was gone, and I couldn’t change that. But staying here meant living inside the echo chamber of everyone else’s version of events. Every time I walked into a store, I could feel it pressing in — the questions they never asked out loud, the theories they traded when they thought I wasn’t listening.
So I stopped giving them the chance. Packed my tools, took the first job that got me out of Mariner’s Bluff, and didn’t look back.
Until now.
We roll the cart toward the checkout, the paint rattling in its cans and the boards squeaking in the metal basket.
“You still planning to head out tomorrow?” I ask, keeping my tone casual.
“Yup,” Ronnie says. “Got a kitchen remodel in Seaford lined up for Monday. Why?”
I shrug, adjusting my grip on the cart handle. “Could use the extra hands for the next few days. Be easier to finish the trim with two of us.”
He glances over with a smirk. “Or is it that you don’t trust yourself alone with the pretty neighbor you’re ‘dating’?”
I shoot him a look. “It’s not like that.”
“Right,” he says, drawing the word out. “That kiss in the diner didn’t look like two people faking it. Looked more like a guy finally making a move he’s been sitting on for years.”
