Page 83 of Beachside Kisses With My Enemy

“No way. Success is how you define it. Take Freddy, for instance. He was a world-class bodyguard to royalty, and now he’s a cellar rat at a vineyard.”

“And loving it!” the Kentonian yells.

Guess they’re listening after all. I roll my eyes. Jordan shakes his head and grins, waits until the pool sticks start moving again and Landon and Frederick start arguing about some rule or other before he continues speaking. “I know for a fact that Freddy moved here for Chloe and doesn’t regret it. But he also left the service because he wanted to do something different. He was clinging to someone else’s definition of success for a long time and ultimately decided that it was his life to live.”

My lungs contract. How well I can relate.

Jordan stands and claps me on the shoulder. “And as much as I know you want to honor your dad, he’s not here anymore. This is your life, dude. You’ve got to be the one to decide what kind of success you care about.”

Just like in those romance movies Mom and Mare made me watch with them, a series of clips—a montage, if you will—race through my head.

A late night at home, feeding my sister and Lucy new recipes. Me in my truck, flipping sandwiches, Lucy expectantly at my elbow, waiting to try something new.

Sitting on a porch swing, stargazing and enjoying quiet moments with the most beautiful woman in the world.

Kissing Lucy at the cliffside. Kissing Lucy in my kitchen. Looking for perfection with Lucy on the beach.

It’s all suddenly so clear, like a fog lifting from my eyes. If I was to die in a car accident tonight like my parents did, these are the clips of my life that would flash before my eyes.

And I would have no regrets.

Turning, I fire my last dart at the board. It hits the dead center.

I know what I have to do.

twenty-eight

LUCY

Blake is leaving in three days.

I try my best not to think about it, to stuff away the negative emotions, but I can’t, no matter what I’m doing.

When I’m talking to Winona on the phone, showing off the new business plan and hearing that she loves it—I’m thinking about Blake.

When I’m helping Chloe with last-minute festival details because she’s got a lot on her plate and I’ve suddenly got lots of free time—I’m thinking about Blake.

Even now, when I’m playing poker with my family on July third, and everyone else is laughing and having a grand old time, and Uncle Burt and April and Scarlett are having a root beer chugging contest, and Aunt Bea is serving up a whole heap of spaghetti—I may be smiling on the outside, but on the inside, I’m miserable.

Because, you guessed it, I’m thinking about Blake.

The whole kitchen reverberates with noise, but I’m inspecting my Diet Coke, drawing my thumb through the condensation, trying to feel something other than this misery.

But I know it’s better this way. Might not feel that way in the moment, but better this brief cavernous ache in my chest now than the slow death of my hope over time.

It’s just like when Mama left. Said she’d be back in a few months, and look. Thirteen years later, where is she?

Not. Here.

The same thing would have happened with Blake. He might not think it’s the same, but the similarities line up pretty darn well. I’m just allowing the inevitable to happen—only much sooner than it would have otherwise.

As I glance around this room at some of the people I love best, those who have claimed me even though I didn’t have to be theirs to claim, the tears well up and I can’t hold them in any longer. Grabbing my phone, I dash from the room while everyone is occupied, heading up the stairs to what used to be my bedroom. Once upon a time, it was my cousin Jeff’s, but then it became mine. Now, it’s Scarlett’s, and I hope she won’t mind me being in here.

The furniture is all the same, but the decor has changed. No longer are the walls lined with posters of Tim McGraw and the Zac Brown Band, but rainbows and unicorns appropriate for a seven-year-old girl. My chest loosens a bit as I let my tears fall and roam the room, my fingers slipping over the edge of the white wooden dresser, the bookcase painted purple. April has, not surprisingly, stuffed the shelves fuller than they ever were when I lived in here, and my index finger skims the spines, stopping on a large book of fairytales.

I kind of want to hide it away so Scarlett doesn’t grow up believing that fairytales are real life.

Somehow, I forgot.

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