Page 30 of Our Bay Will Come

"I brought more wine," I say, pulling a bottle and two plastic cups from my bag. "And a blanket if you're cold."

"I'm good for now." She accepts the wine and shifts to make room for me beside her. "This is incredible, Fox. Do you come out here often?"

"As much as I can." I settle next to her, not quite touching. "It's where I do my best thinking."

"What do you think about?" Her voice is soft and curious.

I consider deflecting with a joke, but something about the moment—the fading light, the gentle rocking of the boat, the way she's looking at me—makes me want to be honest.

"Life. Work. Family." I pause. "What kind of family I'd want someday."

She takes a sip of wine, her eyes on the horizon. "And what kind is that?"

"A close one." The words come easier than I expected. "My parents have been married forty years and still hold hands when they walk. I want that. Kids, too, eventually. Not a huge brood, but maybe two or three."

"That sounds nice," she says, her voice wistful. "My parents are still together. We grew up close, but they didn’t always appear as happy to me as they did to Cilla—" She stops herself.

"Why do you think that?"

She sighs. "Work was always their passion, and they behaved like best friends or brother and sister. Now that they’re older, I think they’re trying to reconnect."

"I think I know you well enough to believe that is not what you’d want in a marriage,” I reply confidently.

“No, it wouldn’t be. I think passion, like marriage, is worth fighting for. You shouldn’t settle for anything that doesn’t make you happy.”

"Anything or anyone worth having is worth fighting for."

The sunset casts her face in gold as she studies me. "Is that what you're doing, Fox? Fighting for me?"

My mouth goes dry. We've entered dangerous territory, but I've never been good at lying, especially not to Prue.

"Yes," I admit. "But not in a pressuring way. I just... I'm here when you're ready. If you're ever ready."

She's been quiet for so long that I start to worry that I've ruined everything. Then she reaches out, placing her hand over mine.

"I want you to know something," she says. "I came here this weekend because I wanted to, not because Cilla pushed me or any sense of obligation. I'm still figuring things out, but I'm here because something about you makes me want to try again."

The sun slips below the horizon, the last rays catching in her hair. I turn my hand over, lacing my fingers with hers.

"That's enough for me," I say.

We sit in comfortable silence as twilight settles around us, the first stars appearing overhead. When Prue shivers slightly, I wrap the blanket around her shoulders, letting my arm remain there. She leans into me, her head finding the hollow of my shoulder like it belongs there.

"Tell me about your family," I say. "Not the hard stuff, just... what were you like as kids?"

She laughs softly. "Cilla was the good one, always with her nose in a book. I was the troublemaker—climbing trees, bringing home stray animals, rearranging my mother's furniture when she wasn't home."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"Hey!" She pokes my side playfully. "I'll have you know those were very sophisticated design choices for a nine-year-old."

We trade stories as the sky darkens completely—about her parents' academic arguments over dinner, about my dad teaching me to fish in this very bay, about Cilla's obsession with marine biology, and about my mother's famous Christmas cookies.

"If we ever have kids," she says suddenly, then stops, looking almost shocked at her words.

"Yeah?" I prompt gently, trying not to show how my pulse has quickened.

She takes a deep breath. "I'd want them to have traditions. Not necessarily fancy ones, just constants. Things they could count on year after year. I didn't have much of that growing up."

---