Page 42 of Second Chance with the Half-Elf
His hand brushes my knee as he untangles a particularly stubborn knot, and something hot and electric skitters up my spine. He pauses—just for a second—but doesn’t say anything.
The net falls away, and I’m free.
But I don’t move.
Neither does he.
We’re both crouched there, knees almost touching, his hands resting on the netting between us like he doesn’t trust himself to reach for me again. His eyes catch mine—dark, stormy, unreadable.
I hate that I want to lean into him. Or that I want him to stop being so careful.
“Thanks,” I say, pushing to my feet, brushing sand from my jeans like it matters.
He stands slower. Taller. Always so damnpresent.
I don’t wait for more.
I walk away like I haven’t just had my heart hijacked by a pair of callused hands and a voice that still lives in my bones.
By nightfall, the town square glows like a dream.
Lanterns sway overhead, casting golden halos on the cracked brick and driftwood benches. The ocean’s just a whisper behind the laughter, soft waves curling against the dock pylons like the world’s most persistent lullaby. The stage is set up beneath the old bell tower, and Rowan’s poetry tent is tucked nearby—fabric painted with ink-blot sea monsters and curling script in silver paint that catches the firelight.
The air smells like cider and funnel cake and salt. Kids run past in paper kraken hats, their sticky fingers trailing glitter in their wake. Somewhere, someone’s playing a steel drum, and every third note is off-key. I’m standing near the cider booth with a paper cup going warm in my hand and a knot in my chest that I can’t swallow down.
Rowan steps up to the mic with that effortless command she carries like a second skin. She’s dressed in layered linen and storm-gray lipstick, her hair in a messy braid wrapped in seaweed ribbon, because of course it is.
“This one,” she says, her voice clear over the hush, “is for anyone who ran too soon. And anyone who’s still deciding whether to stay.”
My breath catches.
The crowd shifts. The wind picks up.
And she begins.
“I loved him like weather?—
Unpredictable.
Necessary.
Lethal if you don’t respect the tides.”
The words are knives made of silk.
“He made silence a lighthouse,
Waited in shadows I never lit.
And still,
Still—
I dream of the salt in his skin
And the way my name sounded in his mouth.”
My fingers tighten around the paper cup. I don’t blink.
