Call Me When You Get to The Point
She never settles down. She rarely gets to the point. This time, she might do both.
About
Aella has never met a stranger.
Only characters she hasn't written yet.
Aella can turn a simple answer into three tangents, two strangers' life histories, and a story about something that happened six countries ago, taking the scenic route to a point she may or may not ever reach.
She collects places the way other people collect things. Houses to renovate. Rooms to rent. Stories to write. Runways to land on. People to meet over drinks and forget later.
Wherever she lands, she builds a little life. A property. A story. And more often than not, a romance. Each becomes its own chapter, complete in its own right, none expected to become the whole book.
When she leaves, the houses tend to fare better than the men.
To her, freedom has always required an exit.
Tide understands exits.
He spends his summers diving the shipwrecks off the Carolina coast, taking people beneath the surface to explore what the ocean kept. When the tourists disappear and winter settles over the island, he follows the warm water south to the Caribbean.
By spring, he returns home.
His relationships are considerably more shallow.
Tide prefers tourists. One night. No promises. Women who arrive with something he can trust:
a departure date.
When Aella and Tide meet, he mistakes her for one of them.
She doesn't correct him.
One night. No expectations. No complicated morning after.
Perfect.
Until Tide discovers the tourist has just bought a house.
Aella insists she never actually said she was a tourist. And technically, buying a house doesn't mean she intends to stay in it.
It's a gray area.
Tide disagrees.
He has spent years searching dark water for things that have disappeared.
Aella has perfected the art of disappearing.
He goes out with the tide, but always finds his way back.
She blows into places, changes the landscape, and is gone before anyone realizes they should have prepared for a storm.
Neither has ever had much use for staying.
Until they crash into each other.
CALL ME WHEN YOU GET TO THE POINT
She never settles down. She rarely gets to the point. This time, she might do both.