Page 4 of The Seascape Between Us

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By the time I sat behind the wheel of my car, my heart was thudding so fast and hard. I was half-surprised it wasn't visibly pounding out of my chest like a cartoon character. My tingling legs had felt weak and rubbery under me, barely supporting me as I attempted a casual stroll across the nearly empty parking lot to my car.

Enclosed in my car, the world shut out, I leaned forward and started the engine. I turned the air conditioning to high and aimed all the vents in the dash at me so I could hopefully cool my overheated skin and dry the thin layer of sweat slicking my skin.

I was riding on the edge of a panic attack. I needed to pull myself together before I slipped over that edge. Closing my eyes, I tipped my head back against the headrest and focused on my breathing while willing my heart to slow to a normal pace.

“This is the worst it will be,” I promised myself, hoping that I was right. After all, I had faced Daniel after seventeen years and even accepted my hopes that his hair had thinned overthe years or he’d gained a pot belly had not been realized. If anything, his body under that clinging t-shirt looked better than I remembered, broader, harder. Clearly, Daniel worked out, or maybe it was the physical labor that went into running the hotel that kept him so fit.

He’d obviously been working on the hotel when I arrived. His jeans looked ancient, stained with paint and who knows what else. Still, the faded denim clung to his ass and thighs like a second skin. No one should look that good, as sweaty and filthy and disheveled as Daniel had been when he strode into his office. Then he’d just stood there, not saying anything… I didn’t know why he was staring at me like that, but the longer he did it, the more irritated I got.

He looked like he wanted to say something, something that had nothing to do with the hotel. I thought he might apologize, and if he had, I might have taken a swing at him. What happened between us all those years ago was in the past, behind us, and sure as hell had nothing to do with this money pit of a hotel I’d been saddled with.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to be worried about any half-hearted, meaningless apologies. Not that I should have been surprised. He’d never apologized for being a lying, cheating sack of shit, not once over the past seventeen years. I doubt he would have started now.

Instead, he’d just stared at me across the desk like a kicked puppy. Where the hell did he get off looking all wounded, accusing me of selling the hotel because of him? Where did he get off playing the victim and looking at me likeIwas the villain?Hewas the liar, the cheat. Not me. And none of those things had anything to do with me wanting to dump a failing hotel. Hell, if anything, I’d held onto it longer than I wanted to, willing Daniel to pull his business together so I wouldn’t have to make this trip.

He’d grown up in this hotel, and while he was a prick, I still didn’t feel particularly good about forcing him to sell. I could have left him to exist untouched, like the cafe Daniel had mentioned. But he hadn’t managed to turn a profit over the last year, and here we were.

I let out a shuddery sigh, opened my eyes, and sat straight. Having eased back from the edge of my panic attack, my heart rate and breathing had returned to normal, but I still felt shaky.

“Shit,” I whispered, turning the air conditioning down. I was supposed to swing by my father’s house. The students would be moving out at the end of the month, and I wanted to inspect the place to get an idea of what needed to be done before listing it to sell, but I didn’t think I had it in me to confront my late, estranged father’s memory the same day I’d confronted Daniel andourpast.

I pulled out of the Seascape’s parking lot and onto the street that would take me out of The Square. While the summer season wouldn’t really kick into high gear for another six weeks with the crowds meandering up and down sidewalks visiting the eclectic collection of shops and restaurants lining both sides of the street, day-trippers and early vacationers were already starting to fill up.

My father had put his all into creating Oceanwind Square, a neighborhood made up of and supported by the queer community. Though, calling the Oceanwind a Square was misleading. The Square referred to the businesses and colorful cottages lining Oceanwind Lane and was more of a strip rather than a square. Trendy shops and restaurants ran up from the boardwalk at the edge of the beach to the intersection where Shore Drive cut across Oceanwind Lane. On the other side of the intersection, the street twisted and wound its way up a steep slope between the thick clumps of trees and prettily painted cottages. It was as quaint and charming as it was over thetop, and with the beach and the Pacific stretching out from the boardwalk, The Square was a tourist hot spot.

Unlike other touristy towns that relied solely on summer dollars, the students attending Saltwater Cove’s university helped supplement the businesses over the winter months. And I suspected that those same students had very little use for a faded, worn-out hotel. Another good reason to sell that had nothing to do with my cheating ex.

Rather than stay on Oceanwind Lane and follow it up the hill to my father’s house, I turned onto Shore Drive, which would lead me out to the highway heading back to Portland, and called Finn from the hands-free.

“What’s up?” Finn asked by way of greeting. He sounded distracted.

I frowned. “Where are you?”

“The walk-up you were interested in downtown. I’m just wrapping up the inspection.”

There was no one in my personal or professional life I trusted more than Finn. We went way back and had been friends for years. “So, what did you think?”

“It needs work, and it will cost to bring it up to code, but the location is fantastic. You’d make back your investment in no time.”

“That’s promising.” I’d have to get started on putting things in motion to buy the building. “Look, I’m calling because I need a favor.”

“No problem. What do you need?”

“I was supposed to meet the students and have a look at the house, but my meeting at the hotel ran long, and I need to get back to the office.” None of those things were true, but I didn’t want to get into how much I hated being in The Square and why. Finn was a good friend, my best friend probably, but I preferredto keep my private life private. “Can you let them know I can’t make it?”

Normally, rescheduling an appointment was something I would have my PA do, but the college students were an unusual situation. Alistair, Finn’s boyfriend, had once been their roommate, and they were close friends still, so Finn knew them all pretty well.

“No problem. Are you sure you don’t want me to handle the inspection?”

It was tempting, but I would have to face the house eventually,andmy father’s things. Last year, I tried to pawn off dealing with my father’s crap on Finn, and if everything had run smoothly, my father’s house would have been sold now, but between someone setting fire to the students’ previous house—which I’d also inherited from my father—and Finn making me feel bad that they had lost everything, I agreed to let them live in my father’s house and continue to pay an exorbitantly low rent.

Finn had mentioned one of them had a stalker tied to the fire, but I didn’t know which one. Aside from Finn’s Alistair, I wouldn’t have been able to pick out one student from the other three if I had a gun to my head.

A year later, and as helpful as Finn had been, I knew if I really wanted to put my father, Oceanwind Square and Daniel Quinn behind me for good, I needed to deal with this shit myself.

“No, I’ll handle it. You have enough on your plate,” I told him, turning onto the highway that would take me back to Portland. A little of the tension gripping my neck and shoulders loosened.

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