Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 115468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
I shook my head, trying to readjust my worldview after Romeo had just given it a good shake-up.
“You thought people like your snobby ex-boyfriend Thaddeus’s opinion of this place counted for more. You accepted his take on Mud Gulch over mine. Not everyone has to aspire to some so-called fancy life, Rory. I like it here. I don’t want a life on the sea, but I love being by the water. I love waking up to the sound of the waves hitting the rocks. I love the way the lighthouse beacon cuts through the mist and directs those we love back to shore. I love the salt air and the salty women.” He grinned. “I love the foggy mornings. I love the way the mud pulls at my feet when I step outside on a rainy morning. Claiming me. Anchoring me to the earth and the generations who lived here before me. In my heart and soul, I belong here, Rory. This place brings me peace. I love this bar and the people in it. Maybe it’s not grand to you, Rory, but I never asked for that. And so you don’t get to tell me I only settled for the life I’m living when I never felt that way, not one single day.”
Romeo reached behind him and placed another glass on the shelf as I let out a harsh exhale. My God. I had put Thaddeus’s opinion of Mud Gulch and of me over the people who lived and loved in this dockside town. I was the actual snob I called everyone else. Me. “God, I’m really a screwup,” I said.
“No, you’re not a screwup. You just made some bad assumptions based on wanting the best for people you love. But people get to decide for themselves what’s best for them. And I’m sorry, but you think too much of me if you believe that anything, even an eleven-year-old orphan, would have kept me here if I wanted to go.”
“Liar,” I muttered.
“Maybe.” He grinned. “But maybe not.”
“So if you don’t want to leave Mud Gulch, what will you do? Run this bar for the rest of your life?” All my life, I’d kept this vision in my mind of Romeo, waving to us as he boarded a plane. It’d been my goal. My atonement, truth be told. And all along, it hadn’t even been necessary. No one had placed any blame on my shoulders—false or not—except for me.
“Hell yeah, I will,” he said. “And I’ll have a great time doing it.”
I started to smile, but then remembered why I could prove what he was saying was BS, whether he was delivering it with seeming candor or not. “Wait, though,” I said. “All those travel brochures in the desk drawer, for places far away—”
“All those brochures were for you, kid. You’ve always seemed so restless, searching for something that wasn’t here. I wanted to help you find what Mud Gulch could never provide. I was saving up to let you choose where to start.”
I groaned. Oh, God. I was really batting zero lately. That was why he’d put off the roof and all the other repairs this place could use. For me. Only this time, his sacrifice had been unnecessary. He’d watched as I’d constantly tried to figure out where I belonged when all along, I belonged to the people of Mud Gulch, and if that hadn’t ever been enough, it was only because of my flawed vision. Romeo was wrong on one count—I hadn’t made the wrong decision by coming back.
I glanced out the window, ashamed of the fact that I hadn’t hidden my dissatisfaction when they’d so selflessly worked hard to give me a good life here in Mud Gulch.
And yet…even now, when my gaze hit the sea, I felt that pull. It was back, even though I’d found out who my father was. Nathan Hale. He had died without ever knowing who I was or even that I existed at all. I had no reason any longer to search for answers, or for belonging. It was here, right where I’d started.
I looked back at my uncle, grabbing his hand and squeezing it. I’d misjudged a lot. But the fact remained that my place was here. My people were in Mud Gulch. “Call a roofer,” I said. “Get someone here in the morning.”
“Rory, there are a couple of people here to see you.”
I looked up at Romeo from where I was sitting at the desk in the office. “A couple?” I frowned. “Who is it?”
“I think you should come see for yourself.”
The chair scraped over the floor as I stood, following Romeo from the office out onto the mostly empty floor of the bar. It was four thirty and so only a few regulars took up their normal spots. The place would be buzzing by five thirty or six when happy hour began. I stopped short as I turned the corner and saw Archer and Bree standing near the bar next to Cassius.