Page 28 of Tulips and Lost Time

“I was listening to your story.” He stops on the threshold and leans against the doorframe. “Beaterman wanted to take advantage of Kari, you stepped in and dealt with it, and told no one?”

“Well…” I drag my eyes across to a grinning Jess. “I was protecting the girls, mostly. Though if you heard the part about them staying at the lake that night, that’s not on me. I thought they’d left.”

He casts a judgmental, impatient gaze toward Jess. Though fuck knows marriage and parenthood has mellowed the guy out. “You were a bad influence on my baby sister.”

Jess snickers. “And just so we have it on record, Kari was older than the rest of us. So were we the bad influences, or…?”

“Yes.” Marcus and I both answer at the same time. Then he adds, “You, Laine, and Britt were always the crazies. Even now. You married a fuckin’ thug. Laine married Ang?—”

“Hang on.” I feel the need to stand up for my friend. “What did Ang ever do to you?”

Marcus snorts. “If you don’t know what he gets up to with Bishop, then that’s on you. If you hadn’t spent so much time and effort sneaking around with my sister, you might’ve noticed how unhinged the dude actually is, especially now that he’s one of them.”

“One of them, what?” I point a finger at my sister. “Jess married Bishop! Laine got hitched to Angelo. If you have any information for me, Marcus, feel free to share.”

Chuckling, he moves further into the room and sweeps in to steal Billy from Jess with smooth movements. He’s a dad now, too. He knows how to cradle a baby and keep her safe.

Jess scowls at her loss, but when Marcus sits on the arm of the recliner and holds Billy close, Jess only presses her cheek to his arm and sighs.

“Nah.” He smiles at a sleeping Billy, stroking the bridge of her nose with fingers callused from work. But gentle enough, they wouldn’t pop a soap bubble. “I went through hell figuring things out about you and Kari.”

“You went through hell? Dude. I was the one who got his ass beat, day after day, by my best friend. All because you wanted to avenge her honor, and I was too in love to walk away.”

“Seems Beaterman’s flogging wasn’t the last you would take for Kari.” Jess pulls back and smacks Marc’s arm. “You were a jerk back then!”

“Oh sure,” Marc rolls his eyes. “Blame me for being mad my best friend was sneaking around with the one and only person on this planet I lived to keep safe.”

“Funny,” I drawl, looking down at a completely content Billy. “I felt the same way.”

7

LUC

SWEET… AND STILL TOO YOUNG

No one expected me—slutty, goofy, rarely-serious Luca Lenaghan—to graduate high school among some of the top in his grade. Nor, enter a medical technology program through the college an hour from home, graduate long before he could even drink—that’s not to say we didn’t, just that, legally, we weren’t supposed to—and go on to complete a paramedic program… all of which, on my first attempt.

But here I am, working the bus and juggling two earlies, two lates, and an overnight shift until I end up with my four-day weekend. It’s a routine I’ve come to enjoy. A way to see every hour of the day and feel productive, and yet, still get to play in the band with the guys.

Scotch is a full-fledged friggin’ lawyer these days. I mean, he has the documentation to say so, though he spends most of his time in a big brother role for disadvantaged youth. Ang bought the garage and is now someone else’s boss. Alex is a cop—a fuckin’ cop! After he beat Garth Beaterman so good, he was missing a few teeth, but had gained enough common sense to never come near me or my friends again.

Marcus makes furniture for a living. Like, the good stuff. The handcrafted, only rich folks can afford it, kind of furniture.

And the girls… well, they’re racing toward graduation. Though Kari, of course, remains a year ahead of them.

“What the hell do you mean you’re going away to college?” Marcus stomps across the Turners’ backyard, the same as he’s done a million times over the last decade, and watches his sister crash her board on the halfpipe.

Because he never wanted to teach her properly—god forbid she skin her knees—and no way was any other dude gonna step into this yard to help her. She’s a study in willpower. In stubbornness. Because she can’t do it. She doesn’t have the same natural ability the other girls have.

Or maybe they’re just better, because they’ve been on boards since they were able to walk.

Kari got a late start, and even then, a handicap named Marcus Macchio, holding her down.

“You can stay here, Kar! Get an online degree.”

Save me the heartache and mental anguish, is what he meant to finish with.

“I was accepted into the school I wanted, Marcus.” Thud! The wheels of her board slam against the aging wood. “I got accepted into four schools, but this is the one I want.”

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