Page 8 of Key West Promises

“I guess they don’t want the help sitting out here with everyone else,” Tess said.

Leah laughed, “Either that, or they don’t want to keep giving us free food.”

As they walked the few blocks to their house, Tess grabbed Leah’s arm.

“By the way, did you hear Connie say eleven to four? Did I hear that right?”

Leah nodded. “Yup, you sure did.”

“Oh, Leah, I don’t know about this. Tonight was hard enough, I can’t see myself staying awake until four in the morning. I think this job is meant for younger people. My feet are killing me.”

Leah chuckled, “Let’s just take this one shift at a time. Who knows? We might not even last a week.”

When Tess and Leah returned home, exhausted but still sparkling slightly from the night's misadventures at Max's, they found Kaitlyn curled up on the sofa, fast asleep. Her phone had slipped from her hand, open to a draft of a post about "finding authentic island experiences."

“I thought she was going to check out Duval Street?” Tess said.

Leah smiled. “It was a long day for her, driving for hours. Her body gave out before her spirit did.”

“What’s this?” Tess asked, picking up a brochure from the floor.

“Let me see that,” Leah said.

“This is that Paradise Harbor House we saw yesterday. It’s a shelter for displaced families. I was reading about it online. How funny that she went there.”

"Well, she wanted adventure, it looks like she's already found one," Tess whispered, draping a blanket over Kaitlyn. She brushed some leftover party glitter from her shirt, adding softly, "Though I'm not sure it's the one she was expecting."

Leah stared at the brochure, her thoughts swirling despite her exhaustion from their first shift. On the inside of the pamphlet was the same blue sign that had caught her attention earlier, the same sense of purpose she'd noticed in the woman on the porch. Despite Kaitlyn’s earlier enthusiasm about documenting their bartending debut, she'd apparently found something else to capture her attention.

Tomorrow would bring another shift at Margarita Max's, another day of pretending they had everything under control. But for now, watching Kaitlyn sleep peacefully on their worn sofa,

Leah allowed herself to hope that their niece's arrival might be more than just another complication in their increasingly complicated lives. After all, if they could survive their first night of Trivia Tuesday, maybe anything was possible.

CHAPTER 4

The next morning, Kaitlyn awoke to the golden light of the Key West sun streaming through the blinds. She stretched, savoring the gentle hum of the ceiling fan and the faint scent of salt in the air.

The bungalow was quiet except for distant mockingbirds and the occasional shuffle of Ernest's feathers as he conducted his morning inspection of the withered herb garden.

On the kitchen counter, she found a note in Tess's looping handwriting: "Gone to the market—still recovering from Trivia Tuesday! Back soon with stuff for breakfast and lunch. DON'T post those photos from last night! T&L"

Kaitlyn smiled, scrolling through her phone to the unposted documentation of her aunts' first night at Margarita Max's. The images told quite a story—Tess doing her improvised serving ballet through the crowd, Leah's increasingly exasperated expressions at the trivia answers, and the infamous moment when the bachelorette party had started their conga line. She'd promised not to share them online, but they were too precious to delete.

Another notification buzzed—a message from her mother, probably another thinly veiled attempt to discover her whereabouts through questions about job applications and "real world plans." Kaitlyn ignored it, just as she'd been ignoring the LinkedIn notifications and emails from her college career center.

For the first time in months, she felt like she could breathe without the weight of expectations pressing down on her, away from her mother's constant stream of "suggestions" about law school applications and corporate internships.

Through the window, Ernest strutted past, his feathers gleaming in the morning light like he was posing for his own Instagram story. The rooster paused to eye his reflection in the window, adjusting his stance as if practicing for his close-up.

Kaitlyn tossed on a breezy sundress and sandals, pausing briefly to consider if the outfit would photograph well for her social media updates. The dress was new—a graduation gift to herself that had maxed out her credit card, but she'd justified it as an "investment in her personal brand."

Now, standing in her aunts' modest bungalow, the price tag felt slightly ridiculous. Like so many things in her carefully curated life, it was starting to feel more like a prop than a necessity.

Deciding to forgo breakfast, she grabbed her phone and a water bottle and stepped out into the morning heat. Looking left, she could see the streets were coming to life—tourists on bicycles wobbling their way through intersections, shopkeepers setting out racks of brightly colored dresses, and the occasional rooster strutting confidently across the road as if it owned the place.

She remembered seeing a cruise ship the day before and wondered if another wave of visitors seeking their own slice of paradise would descend upon the island.

Instead of immediately documenting everything for her followers, Kaitlyn found herself simply observing. A local coffee shop owner arranged chairs with practiced efficiency, nodding hello to passing neighbors.

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