Page 19 of At First Catch

At least a real touch has an ending. Skin meets skin. The moment happens. You survive it, or you don’t.

But almost?

Almost has no ending. It just follows you home. Into traffic. Into grocery stores. Into perfectly ordinary Tuesday afternoons until suddenly you’re gripping a steering wheel wondering what would’ve happened if he’d closed the last few inches.

Heat crawls up my neck despite the fact that I’m alone in my car, safely parked in front of a tourism office decorated with a driftwood wreath and a window display advertising kayak rentals.

I stare through the windshield toward Main Street, where Mrs. Henderson is currently scolding a teenager on an electric scooter with enough intensity to frighten traffic into slowing down.

I let out a breath that doesn’t quite steady me. The memory rises before I can stop it.

Rain tapping against Nolan’s bedroom windows. Cool dawn light spilling over tangled sheets. His arm heavy around my waist. My cheek on his chest. The steady beat of his heart beneath my ear. The quiet, terrifying certainty that if I stayed for coffee, if I saw what Nolan looked like in the morning light with sleep in his voice and warmth still in his hands, whatever happened between us would stop being a reckless night and become something I had to acknowledge.

I’m very good at handling other people’s feelings.

The tourism office smells faintly like printer paper, sea salt, and whatever candle Diane insists on burning near the front desk year-round. Today, it’s vanilla coconut. Last week, it was pineapple. Before that, something aggressively labeled Ocean Breeze that smelled like chemically enhanced sadness.

I step inside, balancing my laptop bag, coffee cup, and the emotional stability of a woman who almost let a man touch her cheek beside a marina office and is apparently still processing it like a Victorian scandal.

Diane looks up from behind the front desk with the smile of someone who already knows too much.

“There she is,” she says. “How is our local celebrity?”

I stop halfway to my desk. “I’m sorry?”

She props her chin in her hand. Diane is in her late fifties, has worked for the town longer than I’ve been alive, and knows every piece of information that passes through Coral Bell Cove before the people involved do.

“Walter Greene came in twenty minutes ago talking about how nice the new marina owner is.”

I freeze.

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes.” Her grin widens. “Apparently he’s ‘broad-shouldered in a financially reassuring way.’”

A horrified simper escapes me. “That cannot be a real sentence.”

“It absolutely is. I wrote it down.”

“Why would you write that down?”

“For the historical record.”

“The historical record does not need Walter’s marina thirst.”

Diane points a pen at me. “Interesting that you reacted before I said Nolan’s name.”

“I hate this town.”

“No, you don’t.”

She’s right, which is deeply inconvenient.

I dump my bag beside my desk and wake my computer, determined to become the productive public servant I pretend to be. The tourism office occupies the first floor of an old converted cottage just off Main Street, with pale blue walls, white trim, and framed photographs of Coral Bell Cove through the seasons. There’s one of Otter Creek Farm in fall, pumpkins stacked near the barn. Another of Back Bay at sunrise, the water glowing pink. A photo of A Page in Time at Christmas, wrapped in lights beneath a dusting of snow.

And, tucked near the back hall, a faded print of Sweetspire Hotel and Marina from years ago.

I stand without meaning to and cross toward it.