The Brass Winch Handle

"You kept the rust," Bo said.

Bo stood in the doorway of Tess & Co. Chandlery, blocking the light from the harbor. He was exactly as I remembered him, except broader, his shoulders stretching the seams of a faded navy work shirt gone soft with washing. He hadn’t changed his face, either. Still the same sharp jawline, still the same dark hair that refused to lay flat no matter how much product he tried to tame it. He looked at me with a calm I found irritatingly familiar, as if we were discussing the weather instead of the fact that he had been dead to me for eight years.

I was behind the counter, polishing a brass winch handle with a rag that smelled of citrus and oil. The bell above the door hadn’t even finished its rattle before he’d spoken. He wasn’t here for rope or paint. He was here for the keys to the boatyard next door, the one his father had left him and which he now intended to sell to a developer who wanted to pave it for luxury condos.