Salt and Sea Glass

Morning After

She woke tangled in Finn's sheets, sunlight slanting warm across the bed, his arm heavy over her waist, his breathing slow against the back of her neck. For a long minute she just lay there, cataloguing the ordinary miracle of it , the weight of him anchoring her, the particular quality of light through unfamiliar curtains that meant it was later than she usually let herself sleep.

"You're thinking too loud," he murmured against her hair. "I can feel it."

"I'm not thinking anything."

"Liar." He kissed her shoulder. "What is it?"

The old instinct was still there keep the real answer tucked away, in case it got used against her later. But something about the light, the warmth of him, made her want to just say the true thing instead.

"I was thinking about how easy this is. How much I like waking up here. And how in five weeks I won't get to anymore."

He went quiet behind her, then propped himself up on one elbow to look down at her properly.

"What if it didn't have to end of our time here?"

The question landed heavier than the casual delivery suggested. She turned to face him fully, her heart doing something fast.

"What are you saying?"

"I don't know exactly." He tucked hair behind her ear, thumb lingering against her cheekbone. "I've spent two weeks doing math in my head — your ten weeks, my six, figuring out exactly how much time before one of us has to leave. Keep landing on the same problem. Don't want to do that math anymore."

"Finn…"

"Not saying anything permanent. Not yet." Quick, like he could hear the caution creeping into her voice. "Just that my book ships in about four weeks, but I don't have to leave Marlow Cove the second it's done. There's no rule that says I do."

"What about your career? The city, the gallery contacts?"

"What about yours?" he countered, gentle but pointed. "You've got a life to rebuild too, or whatever comes next for you. Not asking you to decide anything today. Just telling you I don't want the ending to be as simple as a calendar page turning."

She let it settle, watching the sunlight play across his face. Six weeks ago this would've sounded like pressure, another person's timeline she'd be expected to fold herself into. It didn't feel like that from him. It felt like a man who'd rather risk an awkward conversation than pretend the thing between them had a tidy expiration date.

"I don't want it to be that simple either," she said finally. "Just don't know what the alternative looks like yet."

"Neither do I." He kissed her softly. "But I'd rather figure it out with you than assume the answer's already decided."

She smiled against his mouth, something loosening in her chest that had been coiled tight since the moment she'd first done that countdown math herself.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay, we figure it out. No promises. No pressure. Just an actual conversation instead of a deadline neither of us chose."

"I can live with that." He pulled her closer, chin resting against the top of her head. "For what it's worth, I already like the version of this where I don't have to say goodbye to you in September."

"Me too," she admitted, surprised at how easily the truth came now, after six weeks of guarding every real feeling. "Me too."

They lay there a while longer, the morning stretching lazy around them, neither in any rush to face the rest of the day the tide pools, the book deadline, the ten thousand small decisions still waiting. For now there was only sunlight, salt air, and the quiet, unremarkable miracle of a person who'd rather ask a hard question than let a good thing end on a technicality.

It was, Jessica thought, drifting back toward sleep against his chest, the first morning in longer than she could remember that hadn't started with her bracing for something to go wrong.

They eventually got up, well past what either of them would normally call a reasonable hour, and Finn made eggs badly while Jessica sat at the small kitchen table watching him burn the first batch with the good-natured resignation of a man who clearly did this often.

"You're not actually good at this," she pointed out, watching him scrape the pan.

"Never claimed to be. I'm a photographer, not a chef." He slid a slightly-less-burnt second attempt onto a plate and set it in front of her with the pride of a man presenting a Michelin-star dish. "Eat up. It's the thought that counts."

"It's genuinely a little bit terrible."

"Character building." He sat across from her with his own plate, equally uneven, and they ate in comfortable silence for a while, morning light spilling warm across the table, both of them still a little sleep-rumpled and entirely unbothered by it.

"I could get used to this," she said eventually, watching him over her coffee.

"Good," Finn said. "Because I'm planning on making a habit of it."

They spent the rest of the lazy morning cleaning up the kitchen together, bumping shoulders at the sink, Finn narrating an entirely fictional cooking show commentary over the dishes that made Jessica laugh so hard she had to set down the towel twice. By the time they finally parted ways, her back to the cottage to shower, him to the studio to actually get some work done, the sun had climbed well past noon, and neither of them seemed the least bit sorry about the wasted morning.

"Tide pools tomorrow," he said at her door, same as always, though it felt different now, said with the easy certainty of a couple instead of the careful hopefulness of two people testing the ground between them.

"Tide pools tomorrow," she agreed, and kissed him goodbye, already looking forward to it before he'd even reached the end of the drive.