Chapter 4: Salt Air and Stolen Sunsets

The first real getaway happened exactly one month after the paper-ring vows.

Luffy had closed the café for three days, something he'd never done before, and surprised Catherine with train tickets to a small coastal town two hours south. "No clients, no deadlines, no espresso machine screaming at me," he told her while packing mismatched socks into her suitcase because he knew she'd forget. "Just us, the ocean, and whatever terrible seafood we can find."

Catherine stared at the tickets as if they were made of gold. "You're serious?"

"Dead serious, wifey," Luffy replied, and kissed her forehead. "We're overdue for a beach that isn't just the city boardwalk at dusk."

They left at dawn, the windows rolled down, indie music playing softly in the background, Mochi and Matcha in the capable hands of Luffy's part-time barista who was also a certified cat-sitter. The train swayed back and forth as Catherine drifted off to sleep on Luffy's shoulder sometime during the second or third song. Luffy gazed out the window as the fields gradually gave way to salt marshes, and then the occasional glint of blue. He felt something inside him click into place.

By the time they arrived at the station in the late afternoon, the sun was still out but the air was cooler and crisper. Catherine took a deep breath, her eyes shutting in bliss.

"Wow, I forgot what fresh air tastes like."

Luffy slipped his hand into hers. "Come taste the rest of it."

They rented a small beach cottage with whitewashed walls, creaky wooden floorboards, one bedroom with a view of nothing but sand and water. It had a quilt with a faint scent of lavender and old summers. Luffy dropped the bags and immediately tugged Catherine toward the back door.

"Shoes off," he ordered. "We're doing this properly."

Bare feet on warm planks, then cool sand, then the first rush of foam over their toes. Catherine laughed with a brightness and unselfconsciousness and ran straight into the shallow waves. Luffy chased her, caught her around the waist, spun her until they both collapsed in laughter into the waves.

She kissed him back when he kissed her there, salt on his lips as the waves swirled around their knees.

"You're soaked," Catherine accused, grinning.

"You started it."

They lingered until the sun dipped low in the sky and colored it peach and rose and violent orange. Luffy spread a blanket on the dry sand; Catherine brought out the little picnic he'd secretly prepared – slices of mango, cold mango lassi in thermoses, spicy noodles from the station vendor, and a small box of mango ice cream, already melting into sticky goodness.

She ate with her fingers, feeding him bites, laughing as the juice of the mango ran down her chin, and he licked it off her face without hesitation.

"Hubby," she said, her voice muffled as she kissed him, "you are ridiculous."

"You are ridiculous," he corrected, pulling her down beside him.

They settled back on the blanket, her head on his chest, listening to the waves and each other's breathing. The sky was darkening, but slowly, as stars began to appear, tiny points of light, promises of things to come.

Catherine ran her finger along the curve of his collarbone, visible beneath his soggy shirt.

"Tell me something we'll do when we're old," she whispered.

Luffy thought for a moment.

"We'll have a house with a big porch. Not fancy, just big enough for rocking chairs and too many cats. Every night we'll sit out there with tea and watch the sunset and argue over whose turn it is to feed the strays. You'll still steal my hoodies even though they'll be too big on you by then. I'll still call you wifey and mean it more every year."

Catherine's throat constricted.

"And we'll tell our grandkids how we met because of a cat with one white sock," Catherine said softly.

Luffy rolled his head to look at Catherine. "We'll have kids?"

She nodded, suddenly embarrassed. "If you want them. I never thought I wanted them until you."

He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow and looked at Catherine as if the answers to all the questions he'd ever wanted to ask were written on her face.

"I want everything with you," he said softly. "Kids. Chaos. Sleepless nights. School runs. Teaching them how to make latte art even though they'll be terrible at it. Watching them fall in love for the first time and pretending we're not terrified."

Catherine went up on tiptoes and touched his cheek.

"Then we'll have all of it."

He leaned down and kissed her, the kind of kiss that makes you feel like you're signing a contract with the universe. And when he pulled away from the kiss, his eyes were glassy.

"I love you so much it scares me sometimes."

"Good," Catherine whispered. "Because I love you so much it scares me too. And I don't want to be safe anymore. I want to be scared with you."

They stayed on the beach until the wind was cold and the night sky was thick with stars.

Back at the cottage, they showered together, warm water sluicing over the sand and the salt in their hair. And then they went straight to bed, wrapped in each other and nothing else. No rush. No hurry. Just the slow touch and the soft sounds and the laughter when they bumped elbows and the sighs when they touched skin.

And then they were tangled in the sheets and the moonlight was on the floor.

Luffy drew patterns on Catherine's bare back.

"Wifey?"

"Hmm?"

"If something ever happens to me… promise you'll keep adopting cats. Don't stop. They'll keep you company until I can figure out how to come back."

Catherine stiffened. "Don't say that."

"I'm not saying it will. I'm just… making sure you know I want you to keep living. Even if I'm not here to make the coffee."

She turned in his arms, pressing her forehead to his.

"Nothing is taking you from me," she said fiercely. "Not time. Not anything. We're going to be disgusting old people who still hold hands in public and embarrass our kids. That's the deal."

Luffy smiled against her hair.

"Deal."

They fell asleep to the sound of waves and the soft rhythm of each other's breathing.

The next two days blurred into perfection.

Morning strolls along the tide line, gathering small shells she had promised herself she'd use to make wind chimes. Afternoons spent lounging in the hammock he had fashioned between two palms, her head resting on his stomach as he read from a well-worn paperback of poetry he had found on the shelf in the cottage. Nights spent around bonfires on the beach, gathering pilfered driftwood and making s'mores, their marshmallows burnt to a crisp because neither had the patience to simply roast them.

On the last night, they walked far down the beach, the lights of the town in the distance, a faint glow.

Luffy stopped, his hand rummaging in his pocket, producing a small chain, a charm in the shape of a coffee bean.

"I was going to wait," he said, looking nervous, "but I don't want to wait anymore."

He put the chain around her neck, the metal still warm from his hand.

"It's not much," he said, "but every time you feel this, remember that I'm thinking about you, okay? Even when I'm steaming the milk, or burning the toast, or just breathing, you're always on my mind, Catherine."

She touched the charm, her eyes brimming with tears.

"'I have something too'"

She took out a simple black cord bracelet from her pocket that had one white thread running through it, one that looked suspiciously like the strip on their balcony cat's paw.

"So you would wear something of our beginning with you."

Luffy let her put the bracelet around his wrist. He gazed at it for a long time, his throat working.

Then he wrapped her in his arms so tightly she could feel his heartbeat.

"We're going to make it. All the way to the porch and the rocking chairs and the too-many cats."

Catherine nodded into his chest.

"All the way"

They stood there until the moon was high in the sky and the tide was chasing their feet.

When they finally walked back toward the cottage, hand in hand, the future was so close they could almost taste it—like the salted air and the ice cream they had shared on the beach and every promise they had just tied around each other's wrists.

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