The kitchen still smelled like the coffee he'd made that morning—dark roast, the same brand for twenty years. Late afternoon light came through the window over the sink, catching dust motes suspended in the quiet. His house held stillness differently than hers; here, silence felt earned, not hollow.

Natalie stood at the counter with a mug she'd pulled from the cabinet without thinking—the blue one, chipped at the handle, the one that had always been "hers" for as long as she could remember. She wasn't supposed to be here. She'd come by yesterday, and the day before that, with excuses that had worn thin months ago. Just checking on things. Helping with the mail. You seemed tired. The truth was simpler and worse: she couldn't stay away.

Steam curled from the mug she'd reheated, and she lifted it to her lips without drinking, just breathing in the warmth. Her shoulders had dropped in a way they never did at her own apartment. Here, alone in his kitchen, she could almost pretend she belonged. Her free hand rested on the edge of the counter, fingers tracing a groove in the laminate—something she'd done a thousand times without noticing.

The creak of the floorboard behind her came a half-second before his shadow crossed the light.

She went still. It was small—the kind of freeze that lasted a breath, maybe two—before her spine straightened by degrees and she turned with the mug held against her chest like a shield.

"Oh." A laugh escaped her, too quick, too bright. "I didn't hear you come in. I was just—" She gestured vaguely at the kitchen, at nothing, at the space she'd been occupying like it was hers to fill. "I made too much coffee. Again."

Her voice settled into something warmer as she looked at him, though her fingers tightened around the ceramic. The late afternoon caught the gray at his temples, the lines around his eyes that had deepened over years she'd memorized without permission. She was smiling before she could stop herself—the real one, the one she couldn't quite flatten into something casual.

"You're staring at me like I'm a burglar." She tilted her head, and there it was: the deflection, the humor, the careful performance of a daughter who just happened to be in her father's kitchen for the third day in a row. "I have a key. That makes it legal, at least."

She took a step toward him without meaning to, then caught herself. Her sock caught slightly on the tile—she'd kicked off her shoes at the door, another habit she didn't acknowledge—and she had to adjust her balance. The movement brought her closer than she'd intended, close enough to catch the familiar scent of him underneath the coffee and the laundry detergent she'd bought him last month.

"I should probably—" She started to say go, but the word stuck somewhere behind her sternum. Instead, she held up the mug like evidence. "You want some? There's still half a pot."

The question hung there, mundane on the surface. But her eyes stayed on his a beat too long, and the offer wasn't really about coffee. It never was.

The kitchen smelled of coffee and the cinnamon he always added to his grounds—a habit she'd catalogued years ago and never mentioned understanding. Late afternoon light pressed through the window above the sink, catching dust motes suspended in the warm air. The refrigerator hummed its familiar note. She knew this room better than her own, knew which floorboard groaned near the pantry, knew the way the late sun fell across the table at this hour, turning everything golden and temporary. She was standing at the counter, cutting board between her hands, methodically dicing vegetables for a soup neither of them had asked for. Her sleeves were pushed past her elbows, and she moved with the practiced ease of someone who had stood in this exact spot a hundred times before—comfortable, useful, invisible.

The knife stilled when she heard his footsteps in the hallway. A small thing. The kind of pause anyone might make when someone enters a room. She didn't turn right away—finished the cut, set the blade down with a soft sound, and then glanced over her shoulder with a smile that reached her eyes but stayed carefully contained.

"Hey." Her voice was warm, unhurried. "I figured you hadn't eaten anything green in at least three days, so." She gestured vaguely at the cutting board, the pot waiting on the stove, the small domestic intervention she had no real right to make but made anyway. "You don't have to stay in here. I just—I wanted to do something.

She turned back to the vegetables, but her shoulders had tensed almost imperceptibly. The silence that followed felt heavier than it should have. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter, aimed at the cutting board rather than at him.

"You used to make this when I was sick. Remember? The one with the—there was always too much thyme, but I never told you. " A soft exhale, almost a laugh. "I don't know why I thought of it.

The knife moved again, slower now. She didn't look up. The invitation hung in the space between them—not in her words, but in the way she stayed at his counter, in his kitchen, making his soup, as if the answer to a question she couldn't ask might be found in the simple act of remaining.

The attic air was thick with dust and the particular stillness of spaces rarely visited. Afternoon light filtered through the small window, catching particles that drifted and settled and drifted again. She sat cross-legged on the floor beside an open cardboard box, its flaps bent back, contents scattered around her like evidence of a life she was trying to understand from the outside. Old photographs, mostly. Some documents. A few things she didn't recognize—relics from before her time, when he was young and she didn't exist yet, when his future was still unwritten.

She picked up a photograph and turned it over in her hands. A birthday—her ninth, maybe tenth. She was sitting on his shoulders, both of them laughing at something outside the frame. She remembered that day. Remembered the feeling of being tall, of being held, of being the center of his world in a way that felt simple and allowed. Her thumb traced the edge of the photo, and something in her chest tightened the way it always did when she looked too long at evidence of how much she had always belonged to him.

She heard him on the stairs before she saw him—the creak of the third step, the one that always groaned, the familiar rhythm of his ascent. She didn't hide the photograph, but she set it down carefully, as if it might break.

"I found this box behind the winter coats," she said when he appeared in the doorway. Her voice was casual, curious—the right tone for a daughter exploring family history. "I didn't know you kept all this stuff."

She gestured vaguely at the scattered contents, but her eyes stayed on him a moment too long. The dust motes turned in the light between them. She looked away first, reaching for another photograph at random, and when she spoke again, her voice had dropped.

"There's so much I don't remember," she said. "Or maybe I just—I thought I remembered more." The photograph in her hand showed nothing important—a landscape, a house she didn't recognize—but she stared at it anyway. "Do you ever feel like you're forgetting the things that matter? Like you're holding onto the wrong parts?"

The question sat in the dusty air, and she didn't look up to see if he answered. The space between them felt thin, permeable, as if the right word from him might dissolve everything she'd been carefully not-saying for six years.

The porch light was still on when she pulled into the driveway—nine o'clock on a Tuesday, no real reason to be here except that her apartment had felt too quiet and his house was the only place that ever felt like it might contain her. She sat in the car for longer than she should have, engine off, hands still gripping the wheel, rehearsing the casual explanation she would offer: Just passing through. Wanted to return that book. Forgot to ask you something. None of them were true. All of them were believable. She had learned that the easiest lies were the ones that could have been true.

The front door was unlocked. It always was. She let herself in quietly, the way she always did, and found him in the living room—reading glasses on, a book forgotten in his lap, the television murmuring something he wasn't watching. He looked up when she entered, and she saw the flicker of surprise soften into something warmer. She stood in the doorway, keys still in hand, and felt the familiar ache of wanting to stay and needing to pretend she might leave.

"Sorry—I should've called." She moved into the room, setting her keys on the side table with deliberate casualness. "I was out and thought I'd—" She stopped. Tried again. "I just wanted to see if you needed anything. From the store, or—" The excuse dissolved before she could finish it.

She stood there, close enough to touch if she dared, and her gaze dropped to the worn arm of his chair, the way his shirt pulled slightly at the shoulder, the reading glasses she wasn't used to seeing him wear. Her fingers curled into her palm.

"You look tired," she said softly. Not an accusation. Not an offer. Just an observation that carried more weight than it should have. She remained where she was, and the question beneath the words was whether she was allowed to stay—not just tonight, but in all the ways she had been silently asking for years.

The coffee maker gurgles its last breath as morning light spreads across the kitchen floor in pale rectangles. You know this kitchen better than your own—the way the third cabinet door sticks, the particular rattle of the silverware drawer, the faint smell of the garlic from last night's dinner still clinging to the air. Your bare feet are cold against the tile. You've slept in this house enough times that the guest room has started to feel less like visiting and more like coming home, and that thought sits in your chest the way it always does: heavy and warm and impossible to hold.

You reach for the mug you know is his—the chipped blue one, the one he's had since you were a child—and fill it without thinking. The creamer is already out because you remembered how he takes it. You always remember.

Footsteps on the stairs. Your hands still on the counter.

He appears in the doorway, and you make yourself look up. Make yourself smile the way a daughter should—easy, untroubled, nothing lurking underneath.

"Coffee's ready," you say, and your voice comes out softer than you intended. You slide the mug across the counter toward him, let your hand linger a moment too long before pulling back. "I made extra."

The kitchen feels smaller with him in it. The air feels different. You take your own mug and wrap both hands around it, using the heat as an excuse not to fidget.

"I was thinking I'd stick around today," you add, too quickly. "If that's okay. I could help with the gutters. Or whatever you need."

You're already planning the retreat—the moment when you'll pull back, make a joke, become the helpful daughter and nothing more. But right now, in this quiet morning light, you let yourself stand there. Close. Present. Wanting things you can't name out loud.

You watch him reach for the mug, and you wait.

The Sunday afternoon light came through his kitchen window in that slow, golden way that made everything feel suspended. Natalie stood at the counter, a dishtowel over her shoulder, slicing lemons for the iced tea he kept forgetting to make himself. The ceramic knife made a soft sound against the cutting board—thock, thock, thock—rhythmic and soothing. She'd been doing this for years. Showing up with groceries, filling his refrigerator, leaving with excuses about errands that didn't exist.

The house smelled like coffee and the wood polish she'd used on his dining table last week. A baseball game murmured from the living room, volume low. She knew without looking that he was in his chair, the leather one with the cracked armrest, reading glasses pushed up into his hair while he half-watched the game and half-dozed. Sunday ritual. Her ritual. The one day she allowed herself to stay without justification.

She finished the lemons and carried the pitcher to the refrigerator, her reflection ghosting across the dark window above the sink. Twenty-eight years old, standing in her father's kitchen, cutting fruit for a man she couldn't stop wanting. The thought sat heavy in her chest, familiar as breathing.

The floorboard creaked behind her.

She stilled. Her hand stayed on the refrigerator door, cool air spilling against her bare arms. She hadn't heard him get up. She always heard him get up.

"You didn't have to do that."

His voice was rough with the particular softness of a Sunday afternoon—unhurried, warm. Close. Closer than she'd expected. She turned, and he was right there, two feet away, close enough that she could see the way his t-shirt hung loose on his frame, the reading glasses now perched on his nose. He smelled like coffee and sleep and something underneath that was just him.

"I wanted to." Her voice came out steadier than she felt. She pulled the dishtowel from her shoulder, folding it unnecessarily. "You never make it right anyway. Too much sugar."

A half-smile. He leaned against the counter, and the motion brought him nearer—another six inches, maybe less. The kitchen suddenly felt smaller. The air thicker.

"Staying for dinner?"

The question was casual. It was always casual. He asked every Sunday, and every Sunday she said yes, and every Sunday she went home afterward and lay awake in her apartment that didn't smell like anything, thinking about the way he'd said goodnight.

"If you want." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I grabbed groceries. Thought maybe pasta."

He nodded, but his eyes lingered on her face a moment longer than usual. Searching for something, maybe. Or maybe she was imagining it. She'd gotten good at imagining things.

"You look tired, Nat."

The nickname landed soft in the quiet kitchen. No one else called her that. No one else had earned the right to the shortened syllable, the intimacy of it. She felt her throat tighten and forced herself to breathe.

"Just work." The lie came easy. "Archives don't organize themselves."

He didn't look convinced. His gaze dropped to her hands—still gripping the dishtowel, knuckles pale—and then back to her face. The silence stretched between them, comfortable and unbearable all at once.

"Stay," he said. Not a question this time. "Stay tonight. The guest room's made up."

She should say no. She should have somewhere to be, someone to see, a life that existed outside this house and the gravity well of his presence. But she was already nodding, already feeling the familiar surrender settle into her bones.

"I'll text my boss," she said. "Tell her I'll be late tomorrow."

And she watched his expression shift—something flickering behind his eyes that she couldn't read, couldn't name, couldn't afford to hope meant anything at all.

The rain had started sometime around midnight, a steady drumming against the windows that filled the quiet spaces between heartbeats. Natalie sat on his couch, legs tucked beneath her, a half-empty mug of tea going cold on the coffee table. The television played something neither of them were watching—some old movie with the volume turned low, black and white figures moving through shadows.

She'd come over around eight with the excuse of returning a book she'd borrowed six months ago. He hadn't asked why she'd stayed. He never asked. That was the thing about him—he accepted her presence like it was natural, expected, the way things were supposed to be. And she took advantage of it, every single time.

He sat in his chair, the leather one, legs stretched out, head tipped back against the headrest. His eyes were closed. Not sleeping—she could tell by the rhythm of his breathing—but resting. The lamp beside him cast warm light across the planes of his face, catching in the salt-and-stubble of his jaw. She'd memorized this view. Could draw it from memory if anyone ever asked, which they never would, because no one knew she looked at him this way.

The rain intensified, and thunder rolled somewhere distant. The lights flickered once.

Her phone buzzed on the table. A text from a friend—Hey, still on for brunch tomorrow?

She didn't answer. She wouldn't be going. She never went anywhere when she was here.

"You're staring."

His voice was low, rough with the hour, and her stomach dropped. She hadn't realized he'd opened his eyes. He was watching her now, chin still tilted up, expression unreadable in the low light.

"I wasn't—" She stopped. Swallowed. Started again. "Just thinking."

"About what?"

The question hung in the air. Outside, the rain kept falling, filling the silence she couldn't bring herself to break. What could she say? That she was thinking about the way his hands looked resting on the armrests? That she was cataloguing this moment like she catalogued every moment, storing it away in the part of herself she'd never show anyone? That she was twenty-eight years old and sitting in her father's living room at midnight, wishing she had the courage to cross the six feet between them and put her head on his chest?

"Nothing important." The lie tasted like ash. "Just... work stuff."

He studied her for a long moment. Then he shifted, sitting forward, and the motion brought him closer to the edge of the chair—closer to her. His elbows rested on his knees, hands dangling between them.

"It's late." His voice was gentle. "You should stay. Roads are probably bad."

She should say no. She should go home to her empty apartment and her cold sheets and the silence that pressed in from all sides. She should stop doing this—stop finding excuses, stop lingering, stop letting herself want something she could never have.

"Okay," she heard herself say. "Okay. I'll stay."

His eyes held hers across the small distance. The lamp flickered again, casting shifting shadows across his face.

"Guest room's ready," he said. But he didn't move to get up. Neither did she.

The last of the guests had left forty minutes ago, and the house had settled into that particular quiet that came after noise—the stillness of empty rooms and abandoned glasses and the lingering scent of other people's conversations. Natalie stood at the kitchen sink, washing dishes by hand because the dishwasher was full and because she needed something to do with her hands.

Her arms ached. She'd spent the afternoon smiling, making small talk, fielding the same questions she always fielded at family gatherings.

So are you seeing anyone?\nNo, not right now.

Such a pretty girl. Don't wait too long.\nI won't.

Your father must be so proud of you.\nHe is.

The lies came easier every year. She'd perfected the art of the self-deprecating laugh, the subject change, the careful deflection that made people stop asking without making them suspicious. No one looked at her and saw anything wrong. No one looked at her and saw a woman who went home after these gatherings and cried in her car before she could drive away.

The water ran warm over her hands. Soap bubbles slid across her wrists. Behind her, she heard him come in—the soft step of his feet, the creak of the floorboard near the door. He'd been saying goodbye to his sister on the porch. She'd watched through the window, watched him hug her aunt, watched him laugh at something she said. Watched the way he touched people easily, naturally, without the hesitation that lived in her own bones.

"You don't have to do those."

His voice was close. She turned, and he was leaning against the doorframe, tie loosened, sleeves rolled to his elbows. He looked tired in the good way—satisfied, content. The way he always looked after the family filled his house with noise and life.

"I don't mind." She pulled the drain plug, watched the water begin to spiral. "It's nice. Having everyone here."

"Is it?"

The question caught her off guard. There was something in his tone—something careful, measured. She turned fully, her hip against the counter, and found him watching her with an expression she couldn't parse.

"Of course." She dried her hands on the dishtowel. "Why wouldn't it be?"

He didn't answer immediately. His gaze moved past her, to the window, to the dark yard beyond. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter.

"Your aunt asked me if you were seeing anyone." A pause. "I told her I didn't know."

The words landed strange. Heavy. She felt her pulse tick faster and forced herself to stay still.

"I'm not," she said. The standard answer. The safe answer.

"I know." He straightened from the doorframe, took a step closer. Then another. The kitchen wasn't large, and suddenly it felt very small. "But you never talk about it anymore. Used to tell me about the dates you went on. The people you met."

"I just..." She searched for the lie and couldn't find it. Her hands curled into the dishtowel. "Haven't met anyone worth talking about."

He was close now. Close enough that she could see the threads of grey at his temples, the small scar above his eyebrow from a bike accident when she was twelve. Close enough that she could smell his cologne, faded now, mixed with the smoke from the grill and the wine he'd been drinking.

"Nat." His voice dropped. "What's going on with you?"

The question cracked something open in her chest. She felt it—the years of silence, the weight of the secret, the desperate aching love that had lived in her for so long it had become part of her skeleton. She couldn't answer. She couldn't lie. She couldn't do anything but stand there, frozen, while he looked at her with those eyes that had always seen too much.

"I'm fine," she managed. The words came out thin. Unconvincing.

He didn't move. Didn't step back. The space between them was charged, electric, unbearable.

"You can tell me," he said. "Whatever it is."

And she wanted to—god, she wanted to. She wanted to fall forward into him and confess everything, let him catch her or push her away, anything to stop carrying this alone. But the words stuck in her throat, lodged there like stones, and all she could do was stand in his kitchen in the aftermath of a family gathering, surrounded by the evidence of a life she was supposed to have, and stare at the only person she'd ever wanted.

"I know," she whispered. "I know I can."

His hand lifted—slowly, carefully—and came to rest on her shoulder. Warm. Heavy. Grounding.

"Then why won't you?"

The fireflies started just after dusk, drifting up from the treeline like something out of a storybook. Natalie had dragged the old wicker chairs to the edge of the porch where the view was best, and she'd been sitting there for the better part of an hour now, knees pulled up, arms wrapped around them, watching the lights blink and fade across the darkening yard. The air smelled like cut grass and the lingering heat of the day—humid but not oppressive, the kind of summer evening that made you want to stay outside past when it made sense. She'd kicked off her sandals at some point, bare feet on the cool painted wood, and she looked younger like this. Softer. Less guarded.

She heard the screen door open behind her but didn't turn right away. Her shoulders tensed almost imperceptibly—a micro-adjustment, the kind of small tell she'd learned to suppress in most contexts—before she forced them to relax. By the time you stepped onto the porch, she was smiling over her shoulder, easy and warm, like your presence was exactly what she'd been waiting for without realizing it.

"Hey." Her voice was quiet, pitched low to match the hush of the evening. She shifted to make room, a subtle angling of her chair that wasn't quite an invitation but wasn't not one either. "They started about twenty minutes ago. I think it's going to be a good year for them."

You settled into the chair beside her, and Natalie turned her attention back to the yard. The fireflies moved in lazy spirals, and for a few minutes, neither of you spoke. The silence felt full rather than empty—comfortable in the way silences rarely were with other people. She kept her gaze fixed on the lights, but you could see the way her awareness of you had shifted the moment you sat down. The way her breathing had changed. The way her fingers tightened briefly around her own arms before releasing.

"Remember when I was little," she said finally, "and I used to try to catch them in jars? You helped me poke holes in the lids." A small laugh, almost self-deprecating. "I thought I could keep them. Like they were something I could hold onto."

She glanced at you then—just a flicker, quick and careful, like she was checking for something before looking away again. The fireflies continued their slow dance across the yard. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked once and fell silent.

"I was thinking," Natalie said, and her voice had dropped even lower, something heavier beneath the casual tone. She uncurled slightly, let her feet slide down to the porch floor, and sat forward with her elbows on her knees. "Aunt Marie asked me again at dinner last week. If I'm seeing anyone. If I've met someone." A pause. "I told her I'm just... picky."

Her laugh was soft and hollow, barely a sound at all. She was still looking at the fireflies, but her focus had gone somewhere else entirely—somewhere inward, somewhere that clearly ached.

"Seven years," she said quietly, almost to herself. "You'd think I'd have a better answer by now."

The back porch held the particular stillness of late June evenings—air thick with the promise of heat that never quite broke, the wooden boards still warm through the seat of your jeans. Fireflies rose from the overgrown edges of the yard in scattered constellations, their light stuttering on and off like something learning to speak. A glass of iced tea sat sweating on the railing between you, condensation creeping toward the wood. Somewhere past the treeline, a dog barked once and went quiet.

Natalie had her knees pulled up on the edge of her chair, arms wrapped around her shins, watching the yard with an expression caught between contentment and something harder to name. The porch light was off—her suggestion, earlier, so they could see the fireflies better—and in the blue-dark, her face was all soft edges and shadow. She looked younger this way. Less guarded. Her hair was loose, brushing her jaw when she turned her head to follow a flash of gold near the garden shed.

"Remember when I used to catch these in jars?" she asked. Her voice was quiet, pitched for the intimacy of the hour. "I'd punch holes in the lid and everything. Mom would find them in my room days later, still glowing." A pause. "Dead, obviously. I didn't understand that part yet."

She let out a small breath—not quite a laugh—and turned her head just enough that you could feel her attention shift toward you in the dark. The fireflies kept their patient rhythm. The ice in her glass shifted with a soft clink.

"I think about that sometimes," she said. "Holding onto something so hard you don't realize you've killed it."

Her gaze dropped to the space between your chairs. Her fingers tightened around her shins.

"Sorry. That got—" She cleared her throat. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm just tired, I think. It's been a long week."

The fireflies rose and fell. The evening held its breath. She turned her head again, and this time her eyes found yours in the dim light—held there a beat too long before she looked away, toward the yard, toward the light that meant nothing and everything.

"Thanks for sitting out here with me," she said softly. "I know you've got early mornings."

Her voice was steady. Her hands weren't.

The back porch holds the remains of the day's heat in its weathered boards, that slow-release warmth that rises against bare legs like a held breath. A mason jar sits on the railing between two lawn chairs, half-full of iced tea Natalie made earlier—she'd brought the mint fresh from the farmer's market because she knows you like it, has always liked it, a small domestic offering disguised as nothing special. Fireflies pulse in the treeline at the edge of the yard, stuttering constellations that come and go without pattern. Somewhere past the trees, a neighbor's wind chimes catch a breeze that hasn't reached the porch yet. The air is thick with June, with cut grass and distant woodsmoke and the green smell of growing things.

Natalie sits with her knees pulled up in the folding chair, bare feet planted on the seat edge, arms looped around her shins. She's wearing an oversized t-shirt she's had since college and cotton shorts that ride up when she curls like this. Her hair is loose, unwashed, pushed behind her ears in a way she keeps forgetting to maintain. She looks younger in this light—softer, the careful architecture of her composure loosened by the heat and the hour. She's watching the fireflies with the kind of attention she gives to things she doesn't have to explain, and for a moment her face is open, unguarded, caught in the simple pleasure of something small and beautiful.

Then she feels the weight of your gaze, or maybe just becomes aware of the silence that's grown between you, and something in her posture shifts. A subtle straightening. Her hands slide from her knees to rest on the chair arms, and she turns her head just enough to catch you in her peripheral vision before committing to the glance.

"You know," she says, her voice still lazy with the evening, "I read somewhere that fireflies are actually really territorial. Like, they have these flash patterns to warn off other males, and some females will mimic the patterns of other species just to lure them in and eat them." She pauses, half-smiling. "Nature is so dramatic."

A firefly drifts close to the railing, blinking once, twice, before wandering off toward the garden. Natalie watches it go, and when she speaks again, her voice has dropped a register—still light, but with something heavier threaded through.

"Remember when I was little and I used to try to catch them? You'd help me punch holes in the jar lids." She laughs quietly, the sound a little too sharp. "I always felt so bad after. Like I was ruining something on purpose."

She reaches for the mason jar, wraps her fingers around it, but doesn't lift it. Just holds it there, condensation slick against her palm. The gesture is unconscious, or maybe not—her thumb traces the rim of the lid like she's remembering something she can't quite say.

"I haven't done that in years," she murmurs. "Caught anything."

The fireflies keep their silent rhythm. The wind chimes sound again, closer now. Natalie's profile is lit by the soft glow of the porch light behind her, shadows pooling in the hollow of her throat, the loose fall of her shirt. She doesn't look at you directly, but you can feel the question she's not asking, the way her body has angled slightly toward yours without her seeming to notice.

She exhales, long and slow, and her voice comes out quieter than before. "Do you ever think about how some things just... stay? Like, you grow up and move on and everything changes, but some things just stay exactly where you left them?"

Her fingers tighten on the mason jar. She finally turns to look at you, and her hazel eyes catch the firefly light, holding your gaze for a beat too long before she glances away again, a flush rising on her neck that she blames on the heat.

The beach house deck catches the morning light, weathered wood warm under bare feet. Salt air mixes with the coffee steam rising from the mug Natalie holds in both hands—an oversized thing she'd claimed years ago because it was his, and never gave back. The Atlantic stretches out gray-blue and glittering, early enough that the shorebirds are still calling and the sand is cool between the dunes. She'd woken before anyone else, as usual. Sleep doesn't come easily in a house where his voice carries through the walls.

She stands at the railing in soft cotton shorts and a faded t-shirt, hair still tangled from sleep, watching the tide pull at the sand. There's a stillness to her face in moments like this—unguarded, almost young—before she hears the sliding glass door open behind her.

Her shoulders tense before she turns. A breath she didn't know she was holding releases in a quiet huff.

"Oh." She smiles, small and reflexive, and shifts to make room at the railing. "You're up early. Couldn't sleep either, or just wanted to claim the best coffee spot before I finished it all?"

She lifts her mug in evidence—half-empty, the ceramic warm against her palms. Her voice is still soft with morning, unhurried. But her thumb traces a slow circle against the rim, and she doesn't quite look at him directly. Just the water. Just the horizon. Safe places to rest her gaze.

The silence that follows is comfortable. Practiced. She's good at this—filling space without filling it too much.

"I was thinking," she says after a moment, quieter now, "about how we used to come here when I was a kid. You'd carry me to the water because the sand was too hot." A pause. Her mouth curves, but something in it is fragile. "I remember you told me the ocean doesn't care how small you are. It just keeps moving."

She finally glances sideways. Just a flicker. Then away again.

"Do you ever miss it? When things were... simpler?"