The ocean air always drifted in before dawn, carrying salt, cold, and the kind of silence Ethan Navarro hadn't realized he missed. He stood on the pier's edge, hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket, watching the horizon soften from black to a bruised violet. After eleven years of deployments, bases, and steel-gray skies, this small coastal town looked almost unreal—too gentle, too still.
He didn't feel like he belonged here.
Not anymore.
Boots clacked behind him, a familiar mix of frustration and impatience in each step.
"You've been back twelve hours," his younger sister Camila said, "and you're already hiding."
Ethan smirked. "Not hiding. Just… adjusting."
"To the fact that Dad expects you to singlehandedly keep the Navarro legacy from crumbling?"
He didn't answer. Camila didn't push.
Instead, she shifted beside him, arms wrapped around herself as a gust of wind rose. "Mom says breakfast is ready. Dad says you're late."
Ethan nodded, taking a last breath of the ocean before turning toward home. But something caught his eye just beneath the pier—a splash of color where there shouldn't be any. Blues and scarlets, curling in detailed strokes like flames.
A mural.
A new one.
He frowned. "Who's painting under the pier now?"
Camila followed his gaze. "The Carver girl. Lila." Her tone tightened, and Ethan understood why. The Navarros didn't talk about the Carvers unless they had to.
"She gets permission for that?" he asked.
Camila snorted. "Do the Carvers ask permission for anything?"
Ethan let it go, though the thought of someone alone under the pier at dawn tugged at him. Old instincts. Protective ones. The kind he couldn't turn off even if he tried.
They walked back toward town together, wooden boards groaning under their steps.
Later—That NightThe storm warnings had been wrong; the rain held off, leaving the evening oddly warm. Ethan found himself wandering—restless, aimless—along the beach boardwalk after a strained dinner with his father, whose disappointment hung as heavily as the humidity.
He eventually drifted back to the pier.
This time, he wasn't alone.
She stood beneath the structure, ankle-deep in sand, illuminated by a battery lantern. Paints scattered around her like a palette exploded. Dark curls blew across her face as she worked, one hand steadying the wall, the other moving in smooth, confident strokes.
The mural was breathtaking—an enormous wave reflecting the town's skyline in its crest, half-realistic, half-magical.
Ethan stepped closer before he even realized it.
"Excuse me," he called out.
The woman spun, eyes wide, startled. A streak of blue paint crossed her cheek like a mark of war—or art. Then she narrowed her eyes.
"Look, if you're here to complain about me defacing public property, save it," she said, grabbing a rag to clean her hands. "I already got lectured by a fisherman, two teenagers, and a seagull today."
Ethan blinked. "The seagull lectured you?"
"It was very judgmental."
He laughed—a short, surprised sound he didn't expect.
She folded her arms. "So what are you? A critic? A cop?"
"Neither." He raised his hands, disarming. "Just saw someone here at night and wanted to make sure they were okay."
Her stance softened. "Oh. Well… thanks. But I'm okay." She dipped her brush into a jar again, glancing up at him. "You're not from around here."
"I grew up here," he said. "Left a long time ago."
She smiled faintly. "That explains the look."
"What look?"
"The 'I'm not sure if I miss this place or want to run from it' look."
Ethan felt something flicker inside his chest—recognition, maybe. Or surprise at being so easily read.
"I'm Ethan," he said.
"Lila."
He should have walked away then. Said goodnight, gone home, avoided anything that might complicate the fragile balance he had to maintain here. But he didn't.
Instead he stepped closer, looking up at her mural. "It's beautiful."
Lila tilted her head, studying him. "You say that like you're surprised."
"I am."
"Because I'm painting under a pier in the dark?"
"Because it feels… alive."
She stared at him for a long moment, warmth flickering in her eyes. "Most people just call it graffiti."
"Most people don't look closely."
Thunder rumbled in the distance. Lila sighed. "Guess the rain finally decided to show."
"You should pack up," Ethan said gently. "Storm's coming."
"Are you always this protective?" she teased.
He didn't answer—mostly because he didn't know how to explain that protecting people had become second nature, almost more doctrine than instinct.
She began gathering her brushes. "Well,
Ethan-who-left-and-just-came-back… thanks for checking on me."
He nodded. "Anytime."
When she walked past him up the pier ramp, he caught the faint scent of paint, salt, and something floral. And he knew—without reason—that he would be back here tomorrow.
Even if he told himself he shouldn't.
He didn't know her last name.
She didn't know his.
And for now, that was the only thing keeping the world from cracking open.