The late summer sun painted a hazy golden veil over the small seaside town, the kind of fleeting beauty that felt like it might disappear if you stared too long. Spencer stood at the edge of the dock as you were sitting cross-legged on the weathered boards beside him.

The two of you had stumbled into this summer together. A chance meeting on a beach while Spencer was left alone to clear his head after a difficult case, while you, a wanderer by nature, had simply been looking for a place to land after months of uncertainty. This evening, like so many others over the past few weeks, had unfurled unexpectedly. A spontaneous picnic, a glass of wine shared in quiet camaraderie, and then now, this—silence stretching thick and meaningful between you.

The soft rustle of waves below seemed to encourage Spencer to speak, though his words came hesitantly, like he wasn’t sure they had a right to exist.

“You leave soon.”

You opened your eyes, knowing he wasn’t looking at you, but at the horizon. The sun was setting, and there was something hauntingly poetic about it—something fleeting, like what you'd both known all along.

“Yeah,” you said softly, feeling your throat tighten around the word. “I do.”

And then, his voice—a little cracked this time: “Will you miss this?”

You glanced sideways, unsure of what this meant. The salt air that clung to summer’s end? The afternoons spent wandering corner bookstores and collecting mismatched seashells? Or Spencer’s quiet, unassuming companionship, which had come to feel like an inevitability of its own?

“Of course,” you answered, trying to steady your voice. “Will you?”

He finally looked at you, his big, earnest eyes shining with something you couldn’t quite place—something that scared you a little because it looked an awful lot like longing.

“I already do,” he murmured.

The confession settled between the two of you, heavy as an anchor but bittersweet as the wine you’d shared earlier. For a long while, neither of you moved, too afraid of breaking the fragile moment.