Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 85399 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85399 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
“You don’t need to be smoking.”
“Honey, that’s the least of my worries. I had a pound of bacon for breakfast. Now, will you stop at the store and bring some stuff for a char-cute-rie?” He says the word in his fanciest accent. “I have some beer up here. We’ll have a little picnic-y.”
“No beer.”
“You’re no fun.”
“I’ll have to tell Maddie, because I’ll have to bring her. Jack and Michael went fishing this weekend.”
Harvey coughs again. “Yeah, Jack said something about that. Why didn’t Miss Maddie Moo tag along?”
“She had cheer, but I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have gone with just the two of them anyway.”
“Well, bring that little darlin’ with you. It’ll be good to see her too.”
I sigh. “We’ll see you at . . .” I glance at the clock on the stove. “I don’t know. Around three o’clock? Maybe four?”
“Sounds wonderful. Thanks, sweetheart.”
“You owe me.”
“I always do. Oh—one more thing?”
I grin. “What?”
“Maybe bring me a few groceries? I figure I might stay up here awhile, and I got nothin’ to eat.”
“You better be glad I love you.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“Bye, Harv.”
“Bye, kiddo.”
I slide the phone across the counter and take another sip.
Why can’t Jack be as easy to deal with as his father?
CHAPTER FIVE
LAUREN
I’m going to be out of service in a second.”
“Yet another reason why this trip is wholly ridiculous,” Billie says, the words punctuated through the phone with a deep sigh. “I know you love Harvey and all, but this is a little above and beyond.”
Bright afternoon sunlight blazes through the windshield. The warmth is welcome. The strain on my sleep-deprived eyes, not so much. I flip down the visor and turn right onto a pothole-filled gravel road leading toward the cabin.
“One day, you’ll understand,” I say.
“Maybe.”
I glance over to the passenger’s seat and smile at my daughter.
Maddie’s head bops back and forth, her long hair swishing against the leather seatback. Her lashes are as long as her brother’s and flutter happily to the beat of whatever is playing through her AirPods.
“I still can’t understand why you couldn’t have Jack do it. It’s his dad,” Billie says.
Because besides Jack and the kids, Harvey is the only family I have, and I’m having a hard time thinking about letting that go.
“Maddie was thrilled to get to come to the cabin—even if it’s for one night.”
“I bet Michael will be pissed he missed it—even for one night,” she says.
I take a deep breath. “He’ll understand. He’s with Jack. I bet they’re up to their eyeballs in fish and firewood.”
The words sound a whole hell of a lot breezier than they feel.
Despite my best effort to brace myself, coming to the cabin without Jack and Michael hurts my heart. I keep growing excited for all the things we’ll do—the beach days, bonfires, and game nights around the kitchen table. The realization that those things aren’t going to happen, ever again, is sharper than I anticipated.
A part of me wishes I’d ignored it, that I’d sucked it up and gone through with our plans. But I know why I didn’t. It was to protect the kids from watching their parents melt down after a day or two. That’s not one of the final memories of our family together that I want them to have, let alone the memory of our last summer at Story Brook.
“So, are we talking about Jack or not?” she asks. “Not sure if that was an opening and you wanted to go there, or you were just stating facts.”
I chuckle.
Billie has been my best friend for twenty years—the same amount of time that I’ve known Jack. I met them on the same night, my twenty-first birthday, in a Cincinnati dive bar. Billie held my hair while I spewed tequila into a bush and cried. I was certain that I had alcohol poisoning because I’d prepared for my first night of drinking by spending too much time on medical websites. One can never be too careful. She cleaned me up and sat me down . . . next to the most attractive man I’d ever seen—drunk or not.
Jack didn’t gag at my vomit breath or laugh at my mascara-streaked cheeks. Instead, he told his friends to go on without him and handed me bottles of water while promising that I wasn’t going to die. He did it all with a smile that set my insides on fire a whole lot more than the tequila had.
I’m pretty sure that Billie and I both fell in love with Jack that night. We both thought he was perfect for me.
“Considering my current company, I was just stating facts,” I say, glancing at my daughter again.
“Shit. Yeah, yeah. I forgot you were with Maddie.”
“Exactly,” I say, turning onto the long, winding road toward the cabins. “I’m losing you, Bills. I’ll call you when I’m back.”