Page 61 of Booked for Summer

‘Drinking already?’ It was only just gone five o’clock.

He smirked, his next words slurring. ‘Who are you? My mother?’ As soon as he’d said the last word, his expression turned haggard. ‘Like she’d ever cared. She fucked off and left her mother to pick up the pieces. And she did. Christ, she was awesome at it, being my mom, my dad, my grandma, my whole fucking family. But now she… she…’ He shook his head and took a huge gulp of the amber liquid.

Jade climbed onto the boat and went to sit next to him, her hand curling around his. ‘She what?’ she asked quietly.

He hung his head lower, his long, lean body shuddering as he dragged in a few breaths. ‘Fuck off.’ But it was said without heat.

‘Why?’

Slowly he raised his head, eyes meeting hers for the first time. And that’s when she saw the red rims, the telltale glisten in their stormy grey depths. ‘I don’t want you seeing me like this.’

‘You mean like a human being for once?’

He grunted, taking another swig of his whisky. Silence descended and she wondered how long he’d been sitting here, how much he’d drunk. Whether he would open up to her or tell her to fuck off again, only with more heat.

‘I took her to the specialist today, my grandma.’ His voice cracked through the quiet. ‘Fucking AMD.’

Advanced Macular Degeneration. Jade may not be Lauren, but she’d heard of that. ‘She’s having problems with her eyesight?’

He kept his gaze firmly ahead. ‘Problems.’ His shoulders heaved up and down as he let out a sound of disgust. ‘That would suggest there was a solution, but according to the supposed top guy in his field, there is no solution for the type she has. If she’s lucky, she’ll keep her peripheral vision and learn to adapt to using it. If she’s unlucky, she’ll lose it altogether.’

Jade’s heart faltered. She didn’t need to know his backstory to understand how important his grandma was to him. She only needed to look at his distraught face. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Yeah, me too.’

Of their own volition, her arms reached up to wrap around him. Let him push her away. She couldn’t sit here and not offer comfort. Not let him know she ached for him.

To her surprise, he leant into her.

‘She loves reading.’ His voice cracked again. ‘Loved, past tense. God, I hated those books of hers, it was always a sore point between us. She used to say they offered her an escape but I’d see her in tears reading them.’ Briefly his eyes lifted to meet hers. ‘How was that helping? Sure, they were a temporary respite from her own crappy life, but then the book ended and bang she was back to reality working all hours at a shitty job just to keep our heads above water.’

Through the strained words, Jade heard his guilt, the tortured knowledge that he was the extra burden his grandma had not accounted for. ‘Just because she cried didn’t mean she was sad. Books, good books, draw emotion from us.’

‘Yeah, well, now she can’t read them. Can’t do a lot of stuff, like driving, being independent. But she just sat there, smiling at me and patting my hand, telling me not to worry. She’d be fine.’

‘Of course she will.’ Jade nudged his side. ‘She’s got you taking care of her.’

* * *

The compassion in Jade’s eyes, the certainty in her voice… it nearly broke him. He’d never been this close to bawling his eyes out. Not since that night at boarding school in the middle of the first term, when he’d known he was never going to fit in, never be anything other than the butt of jokes. The victim of pranks– like the hilarious bucket of cold water falling on him when he opened the door to the dorm.

Now, though, with Jade’s arms wrapped tightly around him, like she was trying to shield him from pain, his emotions were dangerously close to the surface. ‘The specialist mentioned some new treatment that might slow the progression.’ He wanted to talk, he realised, wanted to tell her. ‘She’s down to have it next week.’ He huffed out a breath. ‘I know there are worse things, but Christ, she does not deserve this, not after the life she’s had. She should be living it up now, not reduced to staying in her own home because she can’t see enough to leave it.’

‘But she has you to help her. And if I know you at all, you’ll move heaven and earth to make sure this diagnosis doesn’t cramp her style.’

‘Too damn right.’ He drained the rest of his glass and said a silent prayer of thanks that the build for the Sconset house was already underway. She’d wanted, in her words, to die on the island where she was born. Well she wasn’t doing that alone. She’d do it living with him, in a house fit for a queen. He’d agonised over the design with his architect, making sure everything she loved had been incorporated; big windows with views of the sea, rambling roses around a sheltered porch, a grand fireplace. If he’d had time to build it with his own hands, he would have. Instead he’d done the next best thing and overseen every aspect of its build, much to the annoyance of his vastly overpaid project manager.

Jade’s hand curled around his, her other hand removing the glass from his grip. ‘Come on, let’s walk some of that alcohol off.’

It was probably a good idea, but… ‘Wait.’ He lurched to his feet, feeling the effect of the whisky as he staggered inside to grab a baseball cap, which he secured firmly on his head. He did not want anybody else to see him like this.

Apparently he’d drunk enough to make him compliant because she threaded her arm through his and led him off the boat like a mother taking care of a difficult child. ‘I thought you were mad at me, anyway,’ he said grouchily as they turned away from the resort and towards Brant point.

‘I usually am,’ she agreed with a smile bright enough to burn his poor, raw retinas.

‘You didn’t splash “Sponsored by Haven Resorts” across the poster to make me look stupid.’ Saying it like a statement felt easier. He fucking hated apologising.

He caught the curve of her lips out of the corner of his eye. ‘Finally twigged, did you?’

---