Marina Summers signed the lease for her seaside boutique on a Tuesday. By Saturday, the shelves still stood bare. She wanted this shop to become the heart of Castaway Cove, the place where everyone stopped to talk. But empty racks don't make people stay. They send them straight back out the door. She had emptied her savings on the rent and the paint. The supplier she'd paid never shipped a single box. Now the first weekend crowd wandered the boardwalk outside her glass door. A few peeked in. They saw dust and naked hooks. They kept walking. Marina smoothed her cute shorts and stepped onto the warm sidewalk. She had to find stock today, or the shop would open to nothing. A delivery truck idled near the corner. A young man leaned against it, checking a clipboard. He was twenty-two, maybe, with dark hair and an easy grin. His shirt read a name she didn't know. "You lost?" he asked, not looking up. "I'm opening that shop," Marina said. "And I have nothing to put in it." Now he looked. His name was Ethan Carter. He ran deliveries up and down the Cove, and he knew every dock, warehouse, and back room along the water. He set down the clipboard. "Your supplier stiffed you," he said. It wasn't a question. "Happens to half the new shops here." Marina's face went hot. "Can you help me or not?" Ethan studied her door, then the boardwalk crowd. "There's a warehouse that sells returns and overstock. Soaps, scarves, candles, little gifts. Cash only. They close at noon." He checked his watch. "That's forty minutes." Marina had maybe three hundred dollars left. She said so. "Three hundred buys a lot of odd lots," Ethan said. "I've got the truck empty till two. I'll drive. You buy." She hesitated. She didn't know him. But the crowd was thinning, and noon was coming fast. "Go," she said, and climbed in. They hit the warehouse with twenty minutes to spare. Marina moved fast down the aisles. She grabbed boxes of sea-glass soaps, striped beach towels, braided bracelets, jars of local honey. She haggled over a crate of candles and won five dollars off. The clerk rang her out as the clock struck noon. Ethan loaded the truck. Back at the shop, they filled the racks together. By three o'clock, color covered every shelf. Marina stepped outside to look through her own window. For the first time, the place looked like something you'd want to enter. She turned to thank Ethan. He was frowning at the long receipt in her hand. "You spent it all," he said. "Every dollar." Marina nodded. The shelves were full. But her register was empty, and rent came due in nine days. She had goods to sell now. She just had no cushion left if no one bought them.