Beckett’s POV
Stay. If you want to.
The words settle somewhere deep in my chest, warmer and more significant than they probably ought to be for something so simple. She didn't have to say it. Murphy had already extended the invitation, Leif had already produced a towel, I could have accepted graciously and let it be entirely about the children, entirely about Callie's insistence rather than anything more.
But she said it anyway. Looked right at me and told me to stay, if I wanted to, and something in the quiet, deliberate weight of those words feels like more progress than the last few days of careful, stilted conversations combined.
I take the towel from Leif with a murmured thanks, lowering myself onto the sand at a respectful distance, careful not to read too much into the moment, c
