Page 58 of Every Heartbeat After

“I’m saying that, if you’ll let me, then for the time we have left, I will not get in your way. I’ll help however I can to make this the best trip you’ve ever had.” I pluck the coffee cup from her hand and place it gently on the ground, then draw her hand into mine and squeeze. “And I’ll deal with my own broken heart when it’s all over.”

Her forehead crumples. “Kit?—”

“I’m kidding.” Deep down, I’m not so sure that I am. But that’s my own shit to deal with, not hers. “My flight home is in six days. I will get on that plane and refrain from begging you to join me. I’ll be a perfect gentleman. Though I can’t make any promises about behaving well on your next visit to Loveless.”

She giggles softly. It brightens her whole face, even as another silent tear slips from her eye.

“Do we have a deal?”

A half smile tugs at her lips, but her gaze is hazy. Wistful. Like she’s taken every single word I’ve said to heart. And I truly hope she has, because I meant them with all of my being. She shifts her hand in mine until my kind gesture becomes a firm handshake. “I suppose we do. Pleasure doing business with you.”

I let out a relieved chuckle that ends with me clearing my throat. “So what’s left on the list?”

That cute wrinkle appears between her furrowed brows. “What list?”

“You know, of things you need to do. Goals for the trip. Memories you wanna make.”

“Oh.” She sucks in a breath and sits up, dropping her legs from beneath my shirt till her bare feet rest on the concrete balcony. “I, um, don’t really have a list. Not really a list kind of girl.”

This fits perfectly with everything I know about Tess, so much so that it makes me grin. “Lucky for you, I’m the king of lists.” I retrieve my phone from my shorts pocket, relieved to find there’s a minuscule amount of battery left. I open my notes app and title the pageTess’s To-Dos for a Perfect Final Vacation.

She leans close to peer over my shoulder, the scent of the hotel shampoo in her hair making me shiver. “A little wordy, don’t you think?”

“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” I add a few bullet points, then glance at her expectantly. “What do you still need to do to make this the best last visit to the Carmen that it can be?”

With pursed lips, she considers this, peering out at the ever-encroaching sun as she does. Finally, she says, “I’d like to find another whole sand dollar.”

I type that out on the first bullet point. “Next.”

“Dinner, with Mo and Alex and Jenna and Mara. The whole family.” She smiles softly and adds, “You can come, too.”

Something in her voice when she saysfamilyeffectively knocks the wind out of me, but I recover quickly. “What else?”

“Crab hunting.” When I meet her gaze, she holds a finger up in warning. “I’m not explaining further, so don’t ask. It’s a Monroe tradition that’s best experienced without preconceived expectations.”

“Got it,” I say hesitantly. “Anything else?”

She sighs heavily. “I’d like to figure out what I want to do with my life.”

My shrill whistle pierces the morning air, causing a few of the early risers I’ve been running into on my jogs to glance in our general direction from their spots on the beach. One woman in a precarious downward dog tumbles over.

“What?” she asks, brow furrowed.

“Nothing.” I type it out as instructed. “Just a big ask for six days.”

“Maybe I’d have figured it out by now if you hadn’t been distracting me for the past week.”

I wave my hands in a show of innocence. “Hey now, don’t go blaming me. You’re the one who invited herself to come along to Mississippi. Could’ve had two days free of me, but no.”

“You’re right,” she sighs. “But then I’d never have seen your T-ball pictures, so I guess it was a fair trade.”

I level my gaze with hers and smile grimly, instantly tightening the air around us. “I’m glad you were there.”

She doesn’t say anything for a long while, so I drop my attention back to my phone. It’s a good enough list for the time we have left. I save the note and am about to back out of it when the phone disappears from my hand.

Tess has yanked it into her lap. I try to reach for it, but she evades me easily.

“What are you adding?”

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