She nods.
But as I walk away, I swear I feel her eyes on my back. Watching. Measuring.
She’s pretty, I think. But more than that—she’s hurting. And I get it.
I just hope she at least has someone to talk to… before that pain eats her alive.
CHAPTER 6
Sadie
Are all the men in this goddamn town hot?
I don’t mean to notice. I really don’t. But it’s getting ridiculous. Is there some clause in the Driftwood Cove charter that says only genetically blessed people can live here?
First Shepard in that damn black turtleneck, then the giant firefighter who looked like a statue carved from raw sex appeal, and now Boone, the paramedic with the most charming damn smile this side of my sanity.
Stop it, I mutter to myself as I twist open the second Diet Coke and take a sip.
My throat’s dry. My mouth is drier. Maybe it’s the heat. Or the nerves. Or the lingering scent of Boone’s cologne still teasing the air around me.
Or maybe I’ve just been alone too fucking long.
I look down at the sketchpad in my lap and refocus.
The bench I picked is tucked beside a little stone wall near the center of town, just past the general store and across from a rundown real estate office with peeling white paint and flower boxes spilling over with red geraniums. There’s a fountain trickling water a few feet away and a patch of sunlight warming my knees.
I sketch lightly, letting the pencil guide me.
The town’s murals need to reflect its heartbeat. That’s what I always told myself when I did this back in Memphis. I wasn’t painting for the walls—I was paintingfromthem. Like exhaling color from concrete.
So far, I’ve got three viable ideas.
The first is a nod to the sea—curved waves in motion, done in swirling colors like stained glass, with long-winged herons breaking through the tide.
The second, more abstract: a bloom of hands lifting lanterns in the fog. I like the metaphor of it. Community. Illumination. Maybe add some local flora to ground it.
The third, still just lines right now, is a townscape at dusk. Simple rooftops, soft lamplight, a kid on a bike. The quiet hour before dinner. The bones of peace.
I breathe out slowly and flip to a new page.
Then, because I can’t help myself, I pull out my phone. I scroll through my old photos—past the screenshots and receipts, past the old grocery lists, past the blurry art reference shots—until I find the folder I shouldn’t touch but do anyway.
“MURAL MEMPHIS 03 – MAX FINAL SHOT.”
The photo loads. My breath catches.
It’s Max, standing shirtless in front of my favorite wall.
The mural was huge—three stories high, painted on the side of an old factory-turned-art collective. It was my first solo commission. I spent six weeks on scaffolding and broke a toe falling off the last rung on the second week in. But I finished it.
I finished it.
A phoenix rising from a pile of junkyard parts. Car doors. Bike frames. Street signs. Every stroke layered in ash and hope.
Max had taken one look at it and said, “That bird’s you, babe. Beautiful and broken and so goddamn relentless.”
In the photo, he’s smiling. Hair a mess. Sunglasses perched on his nose. One arm flexed behind his head like a jackass. And I loved him so much in that moment, I almost dropped the phone trying to capture it.
