Page 30 of Infinite

What happened with my folks and my brothers left me in a very perilous position and dangling over a cliff of uncertainty. I wasn’t sure this was a place I’d ever call home again. I wanted to, but when I saw the ring on Becca’s finger, I went right over that cliff, sure I’d never want to make the climb back up.

Now look at me. Not only am I climbing, I’m letting Becca climb with me and allowing her bright demeanor to warm me every few feet.

She covers her phone. “Almost there,” she whispers.

I nod. She’s been doing that a lot, reassuring me, almost like I need reminding she hasn’t yet left. Even if she didn’t speak, how can I forget? Her sweet perfume fills my nose every time I inhale, and her spirit does me in every time I catch her smile.

It takes all I can to keep my eyes on the trees and Spanish moss dangling from their thick, twisting limbs. Tourists never come down this time of year. They don’t realize how beautiful Kiawah remains even when the winds steal summer away and the cold of winter smacks us across the face. There’s no place like Kiawah. Hell, I guess I should say, there’s no place like home.

I lean back, adjusting my glasses and taking another long appreciative look at Becca. As much as I wasn’t sure Kiawah would ever feel like home again, with Sean and Mason here,andBecca, it’s more home than New York ever was.

I didn’t expect a friendly reunion with Becca. At first, it damn well wasn’t. The humiliation surrounding my current predicament and my resentment of her made her arrival strained at best. But when she told me what her Daddy did—afterI left—the anger I held against her turned on him.

That son of a bitch. Of course he’d wait to beat on her until after we left. He may have held the upper hand with that shotgun, but he would have had to kill me before I’d let him raise a finger against her.

We haven’t talked about that night since, but I meant what I said. I would have helped her. I would have saved her. I’m not too stupid to recognize her need to save herself, and I more than respect her decision to stay, now. Would I have respected it then? Probably not. Especially if I’d seen how bad he’d hurt her. I huff. Knowing me, I would have made sure Becca was safe before returning to her daddy’s place and knocking on his door.

Yeah, there’s all the shit from New Year’s and beyond. Yeah, there’s still plenty of hurt that remains between us. Life isn’t so simple that I can toss all the bad between us aside, but I wish it was. I wish it could be that easy.

I take in Becca a little longer.

Nope. Life isn’t easy. I suppose love isn’t, either.

“Here we are,” Becca sings.

Mason keeps his ear on his phone as the limo snakes its way through a long driveway with more curves than those strippers Sean is now hell-bent on keeping safe. I perk up. I know this place. In high school, we used to come here for parties. A ranch house had burned down years before we were born, leaving only the foundation, the perfect place for teens to dance and set their kegs.

The windy road and overgrowth gave us plenty of coverage from the road back then. Now, instead of weeds and wild ferns growing onto and through the cracked pavement, nothing but meticulously kept landscaping line the exterior of the freshly paved driveway.

I lift my glasses for a better look. Trin and Callahan didn’t flip a house. They built a new one.

Bone white brick surrounds two stories of classic elegance. Sharp angles cut into the gray roof, creating arches over the doorways, the three-car garage, and picture windows. A modern twist to an otherwise traditional home. It’s not a big house compared to the opulence found throughout Kiawah. It’s not even as big as the house I grew up in, maybe just shy of four-thousand square feet. But it doesn’t need to be huge or flashy to be beautiful. Just like my girl, Trin, it just needs a few touches of sweetness.

We step out, Mason grinning when he sees it. “Leave it to Trin to be all nostalgic and fix this place up.”

Becca gathers the lapels of her bright blue coat when the wind picks up. “Would you ever have thought all those years ago that something this grand would stand in the same place we’d drink our faces off?”

“I think I puked right there,” Sean says, pointing to a palmetto on the opposite side of the driveway. He turns around, searching as if he dropped his keys. “Or was it there? Hard to tell, it was a rough night.”

Becca nudges me and motions with her chin to the tall tree at the center of the front garden. “I remember climbing that thing.”

I laugh, surprised, considering all that’s gone down. “I remember all of us working to get Sean down when his foot got caught between the branches.”

“That was right nice of y’all,” he says, helping the driver with the luggage. “And Trin was a real good sport about me puking in her hair.”

“No, she wasn’t,” we all mutter, remembering her screeches when it happened and when we had to hose her down in Sean’s back yard.

I reach for the last suitcase before the driver can, tipping him with a few folded bills. Anyone else would take more care in spending someone else’s money. But I’m paying all of it back if it kills me. Besides, the driver seems like a good man and a hard worker. Why should he suffer just ’cause I have?

Becca unlocks the front door and steps in to hit the security code. “Trin will be by later and so will her folks.”

“Is her momma bringing pie?” Sean asks.

“Yes, Sean,” Becca assures him.

“Pumpkin or apple?”

“She didn’t say,” Becca says, pushing a strand of her hair away.

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