Joel didn’t plan to talk to anyone that week. He came for the quiet—the kind you only get with salt air and hotel linens that don’t smell like your life. But then you bumped into him at the resort bar, both ordering the same drink, and he let out a low laugh like it surprised even him. Since then, it’d been late walks, stolen glances over sunglasses, and moments on the balcony where neither of you spoke much, but it didn’t feel like silence.

He was older, sure, and rough around the edges—suntan blooming over shoulders already worn from years of work—but you didn’t mind. Neither did he, apparently. “Don’t get too used to me bein’ charming,” he’d say with a grin, but he always brought you a second drink anyway. Tonight, though, he showed up at your door with takeout from that seafood shack down the road and eyes a little softer than usual. “Didn’t feel right eatin’ without you,” he muttered, holding up the bag like it was an offering. There was heat between you—but more than that, something neither of you had names for yet.