Smoothing my expression, I let him walk me toward the overlook. The railing is slick under my palms, worn smooth by salt and tourists and years of weather. Below, the Pacific throws itself against the rocks.
That’s what I love about the ocean—it doesn’t temper its existence.
It justis.
Waves folding over themselves, foam dissolving, seabirds sailing through the mist. The wind carries salt and pine, and I breathe it in until my lungs ache.
Oliver stands close enough that the umbrella covers us both. “Thank you for today,” he says, eyes on the gray horizon.
“You’re thanking me?” I glance at him, brows raised. “You planned the whole thing.”
“That doesn’t diminish the company.” The corner of his mouth lifts. “It was a good birthday gift.”
“Wait.” I turn to face him. “Today’s your birthday?”
“Tomorrow, actually. But we’ll be thirty thousand feet in the air, so today seemed like a reasonable substitute.”
I replay the last few hours. Breakfast in bed. The drive. The café, the taffy. All of it orchestrated in a way that’s justOliver, and not once did he mention it.
“You know,” I say, flicking raindrops off my coat. “It helps if you tell the person you’re celebrating with that there’s cause for celebration.”
A low sound rumbles out of him, not quite a laugh. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“So you’d rather watch me eat chowder than actually be celebrated?”
“I’d rather spend it with someone whose company I enjoy.” He turns his head toward me. “You have a birthday coming soon, right?”
“In a few weeks.”
“You’ll get to decide who to spend it with. If you choose me, it’ll be my pleasure to return the celebratory favor.”
His tone stays playful, but the reminder of what he’s referring to presses on my sternum.
The choice I get to make on my birthday.
As if that’s a gift.
Another Brotherhood tradition—the one Liam weaponized.
I want your virginity.
The railing bites into my palms.
My virginity is gone, given freely to the only man I ever wanted to give it to.
And no one can know.
Not Oliver or Liam…not even Landon.
“Where did you go just now?” Oliver shifts closer, breaking into my mental spiral.
“Nowhere.” I loosen my grip, flexing life back into my fingers. “Just thinking about home.”
Just as his perceptiveness threatens to rattle my composure, the bark of seals erupts from below the cliff, giving me an out.
“Look!” I lean over the railing, rain forgotten, and gape at the colony sprawled across the rocks, their sleek bodies piled in a chaos of flippers and open mouths. A pup slides off its mother’s back into the surf before hauling itself out again with an indignant yelp.
A sound escapes me that I barely recognize.