Page 26 of Better than Famous

I hit send and watched the little bubble disappear, feeling a ridiculous surge of satisfaction. This was mine. All of this noise, all of these people, my charismatic brother—none of them knew what was waiting for me at the end of the dead-end road. They saw Ben the paramedic, Ben the brother, Ben the fixer. They didn’t see the Ben who was currently engaged in a text war with a woman whose face had been on the cover of Rolling Stone.

"Who is she?"

The voice was right in my ear. I jumped, nearly dropping the phone into a bucket of soapy water, and shoved it into my pocket with the speed of a teenager caught skipping class. Braden took a step back and leaned against the walk-in door, a grin spreading across his face that I wanted to wipe off with a bar rag.

"Who is who?" I asked, grabbing the handle of the dolly and maneuvering it aggressively toward the cooler. "I’m checking the weather. There’s a squall line forming in the Caribbean that looks like it might organize."

"Bullshit," Braden laughed as he followed me. "You just used both thumbs to type a text, and you didn’t scowl once while doing it. Come on, man. You’ve been ghosting the family for days. You bailed on Harper’s dinner tonight. Now you’re hiding in the corner grinning at a screen. Spill it."

I gripped the rubber handles of the dolly, feeling the tension coil in my shoulders. Braden meant well. We were a close family—too close, usually. Privacy in the Coleridge clan was a concept, not a reality. If I told him I was seeing someone, he would want a name. Then Harper would want to know if she had a retirement plan.

And if I told them the truth, that I was hiding Sutton Vale in my house because she was running from a controlling ex and a manufactured breakdown, the fallout would be instantaneous. They would want to help, yes, but the secret would be shared. It would be ours, not mine.

And God help me, I wanted to keep her for myself a little longer.

"It’s not a girl," I lied, keeping my voice flat. "I’m looking at parts for the truck. Found a guy in Key Largo selling an original carburetor for the F-250. I’m trying to negotiate him down before he realizes what he has."

Braden studied my face. I held his gaze, using every ounce of my paramedic training to keep my expression neutral. After a long second, he shrugged, conceding the point. "All right, keep your secrets. If you decide to open that Fort Knox-sized vault of yours, you know where I am."

"Nothing to tell, but thanks," I said, pushing past him.

The drive from the resort to the cottage usually took fifteen minutes, but I made it in ten. I told myself it was because I wanted to beat the traffic, but the traffic was nonexistent on a Sunday afternoon. The truth was simpler—I just wanted to get there.

As I turned off the main road onto the gravel lane that led to my property, the noise of the world dropped away. The lush, tangled green of the mangroves rose up on either side, dampening the sound of the wind. This was the edge of the world, the place where the land gave up and dissolved into the sea. And for the last few days, it had felt like the center of the universe.

I parked the truck next to the cottage, noting that the single lamp in the living room was already on, casting a warm, yellow glow against the gathering dusk. It was a domestic detail—a light left on for me—that hit me with a force disproportionate to its size. For years, I had come home to a dark house. I had walked into silence, turned on the TV for noise, and eaten standing over the sink.

Now, there was a light.

I unlocked the front door quietly, stepping inside and closing it softly behind me to keep the bugs out. The air in the cottage was cool.

Sutton was asleep on the couch.

She had curled herself into the corner of the sofa, her legs drawn up and covered by a throw blanket. Her head was resting on a cushion, tilted at an angle that looked uncomfortable but deeply sound. One hand was tucked under her cheek, squishing her face slightly, and the other was resting on the open pages of the book I had lent her—Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. I had recommended it because she said she wanted to read about people who had worse problems than she did, and climbing Everest during a disaster fit the bill.

I stood by the door, my keys still in my hand, and just watched her.

A sudden, horrifying clarity hit me. I looked forward to this moment—walking through this door and seeing her—more than I looked forward to anything else in my life. More than the adrenaline of a call, more than the camaraderie of the station, more than the quiet peace I had spent years cultivating.

My quiet peace was dead. And gazing at her, I didn’t want to resurrect it.

Sutton stirred. Her brow furrowed, and she made a small, soft sound in the back of her throat before blinking her eyes open. She looked disoriented for a second, staring at the ceiling fan, before her gaze landed on me standing by the door.

She didn’t startle. She didn’t pull back or reach for a mask.

She smiled.

A slow, sleepy smile started in her eyes and worked its way down to her mouth. Unguarded. The kind of smile you give to someone you trust implicitly, someone who belongs in your space.

"You’re back," she murmured, her voice rough with sleep. "Tell me you smuggled out some conch fritters."

I blinked, momentarily thrown by the culinary demand. "What?"

"Conch fritters." She yawned, sitting up and stretching her arms over her head, the blanket pooling at her waist. "You went to your brother’s brewpub. I assumed you were returning with the spoils of war. A girl can only eat so much frozen pizza before she starts dreaming of deep-fried seafood. I am loving the carb-heavy Ben Coleridge diet plan."

I let out a short, incredulous laugh as I padded over to drop my keys in the bowl. "I was moving kegs in the walk-in cooler, not raiding the kitchen. Next time, put your order in before I leave the loading dock."

"Noted. I expect full room service next time." She frowned at the book in her lap. "Also, this book is terrifying. Why would anyone climb that mountain? It sounds miserable."