Chapter 176

Olivia

The beach stretched ahead, an unending carpet of pale sands kissing the obsidian water under the canopy of twilight.

The sea sang its nightly lullaby, and the receding sun cast long, wavering shadows across the sand. Nathan’s silhouette was just one of them, a dark outline against the shimmering expanse of the horizon.

As I drew closer, my heart raced in a symphony of uncertainty and hope. He looked handsome as he stood as still as a statue, looking out over the waters. I joined him, quietly stopping at his side.

The blanket, tucked securely under my arm, suddenly felt heavy.

“Hey,” I whispered now that I had finally reached him. The word hung in the air for a moment before dissipating into the gentle hum of the waves.

He looked up, a silent acknowledgment of my presence. “Olivia,” he said after a moment, “what are you doing out here? You should be resting.”

Frowning, I extended the blanket to him. “You should wrap this around yourself,” I murmured in response. “It’s getting cold.”

He hesitated, fingers brushing against the fabric before pulling it close, the rough wool contrasting against the smooth surface of his tanned skin. “Thanks,” he murmured.

We stood there for a few heartbeats, just the two of us amidst the vastness of nature, with only our shared silence as a companion. The chill in the air seemed to bring with it a weight of words unsaid, emotions unexpressed.

A particularly cold breeze caused me to shiver. Without a word, Nathan extended one arm, holding one side of the blanket out. I hesitated for a moment, chewing on my lower lip as I looked up at him.

He looked stoically out at the ocean, his sharp jaw set hard in thought. The wind ruffled his hair, causing me to soften. I carefully sidled a little closer to him, noticing how my muscles automatically tensed with nervous anticipation as he gently wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled the blanket close around the two of us.

“You okay after that?” he asked quietly.

I shrugged. “Yeah. You?”

Nathan nodded. There was another long silence, broken only by the sound of the distant waves. It was a windy night already, and I imagined that there was a storm somewhere off the coast, just out of sight.

Off in the distance, however, the lights of fishing boats blinked and bobbed on the waves, finishing up their work and coming home for the night. It was a new sight to see, ever since Nathan had reopened the harbor. Hundreds of people who had previously been out of work now had lucrative jobs just off our shores, fishing for delicacies.

In a few months, when clams were at their peak, the shores would be dotted with fishermen at low tide digging in the wet sand in search of their hard shells.

"Where did Ryan go?” Nathan’s voice broke the quiet, echoing my own apprehensions.

I gave a small shrug, letting out a resigned sigh. “How should I know?” I asked. “He just drove off. Not that I care.”

Nathan seemed taken aback, eyebrows knitting in a soft frown as he looked down at me. “I just assumed you would be more concerned. He is the father, after all. You didn’t go and look for him or anything?”

“No,” I replied, shooting Nathan a strange and confused look. “I was more concerned with looking for you.”

Nathan glanced down at me, his blue-green eyes dancing with something I couldn’t quite read. “Why?” he asked quietly, as though silently hoping for some reassurance.

I took a deep breath, holding back the sting of tears that threatened to come. “He was never around, Nathan. I didn’t invite him today, and I surely didn’t want him here.”

“Really?” Nathan asked, cocking his head. “I guess I just figured that…”

“That what?” I interrupted. “That after all this time, I would still be stupid enough to want that bastard back in my life? After the way he treated me?” I had to laugh at Nathan’s assumptions. The laugh that came out was wry, cracked from the salt in the air. “Seeing him felt like a punch in the gut.”

Nathan was silent for a moment. I glanced up at him to see his tongue flick out momentarily over the cut in his lip from where Ryan had actually, physically, punched him. It seemed as though we were both left battered and bruised from our unexpected run-in with Ryan, although in different ways.

“All these months...” I swallowed hard. “You were the one I missed, Nathan.”

He looked down at me, a mixture of surprise and something else I couldn’t quite place dancing across his face, obscured by the shadows. “Olivia, I...”

But I interrupted him. The words poured out, desperate and raw.

“Even if we only end up as friends, Nathan, I want you to be the one beside me. I want you to be the one my baby or babies call ‘Dad’. Not Ryan. He doesn’t deserve it. But you, you’ve been there, even when you didn’t have to be.”

He was silent for a moment, absorbing the gravity of my words. Then he spoke, his voice carrying a weight that mirrored the depth of the ocean before us.

“I can’t just be ‘Dad’ without being there in every sense, Olivia. It wouldn’t be fair to you or to the kids. I can’t be half in this; it’s all or nothing.”

My heart felt like it was breaking, the weight of his words a burden I wasn’t prepared for. My voice trembled as I replied, “You’re right. It was a foolish thought.”

The distance between us seemed to expand, the intimate space we once shared now a chasm of unsaid words and feelings. I could feel the pull, the urge to close the gap, to let my lips find solace in his. Every fiber of my being yearned to bridge the distance, but the stark reality held me back.

After what felt like an eternity, I murmured, “I should head inside.” The words were more to reassure myself than to inform him.

Nathan nodded, his face inscrutable. “Olivia...”

I turned away, not allowing him to finish, fearing what the end of that sentence might be. With each step, the sands beneath seemed to shift, reminding me of the ever-changing tides of our relationship.

The house loomed ahead, its lights a beacon in the growing darkness. Behind me, Nathan remained, his form slowly fading into the tapestry of night. And though I was soon surrounded by the warmth of the indoors, a cold emptiness lingered within.

That night, I went to bed with tears in my eyes. Tears over words unsaid, over unexpected appearances, over a wolf who only showed herself when my lips were locked with someone whose fate seemed questionably intertwined with mine.

But those tears soon faded and made way for strange dreams. Dreams about the ocean, about a bloody lip, about two little lives instead of one.

And when I awoke the next morning to the sound of knocking on my door, and Nathan’s soft voice calling from the other side, I wondered if those tears had ever been real at all or if they were just my imagination.