Page 22 of Fire Island
“See you tip, you lousy ingrate,” Errol says from behind the paper he now holds up like a goddamn shield.
Chicken shit. Come over here and say that.
“I tip everyone the same. Knock it off, asshole.”
A gruff sound halfway between a laugh and a grunt slips around the paper in his hands. Ignoring him, I continue my breakfast. Iris makes a mean plate of eggs, bacon, and hash, and I am going to take my damn time savoring it. Regardless of Grandpa Grump across the room. He’s probably here to make sure no McCreary treats his kin badly. Lord knows that’s what the entire town expects now.
Some grudges never die.
“How’s the eggs?” a sweet voice says from my side.
I look up to the brown eyes and freckles, back again.
“Good,” I say, pushing another mouthful in.
“Great!” She spins on her heel and wanders around, checking in on the other patrons.
About time Irry has someone to help out. Paige seems to enjoy the work, and if the response she’s getting from other diners is anything to go by, she’s good at it. One of those people-person types. How the hell someone as sweet as her spawned from the descendants of Errol’s loins beats me.
“Finish up. We have to get to Rockland for a meeting with the Restoration folks.” Iris stands on the opposite side of my table, arms crossed.
“We?” I scrape the last of my breakfast onto my fork, shoving it into my mouth.
“Yes, we. Hurry up, being late is not the impression I want to make after they turned us down last time.”
The shortest meeting in the history of meetings, that one was. We walked in, stated our case for the island, for the lighthouse, and they said no further permission would be granted.
Just like that.
I don’t know what going a second time will do that the first didn’t. But I’m not one to argue with my sister. Hell, if they knew what was good for them, they wouldn’t, either.
Iris has a quick word with Paige before grabbing her bag from behind the counter, picking up her phone from by the register, and sliding her sunglasses onto her face.
The woman means business.
The old croaks at the Restoration Society should be scared.
I wander to the counter and grab a coffee to go before Iris ushers me out the door.
“You sure Paige will be okay without you?” I ask.
Iris stalks down the sidewalk to her permanent parking spot, where her Jeep Wrangler waits. The small white vehicle has been hers since she was old enough to have a license and make her first down payment. To say my little sister had her life in order long before I did is the understatement of the century.
I open the door and squeeze my large frame into the small passenger seat. She tosses her bag on my lap and drops into the driver’s seat.
“The meeting is with the Restoration Society and the mayor. If anyone has a little sway with those useless haggards past their expiration date, it’s the mayor.” Iris pays me a glance, the same pitiful smile I saw back at the hospital stuck over her face again.
“Sure, Irry. Whatever.”
The Jeep pulls away from the curb and she frowns. “Whatever?”
I stare out the window. I haven’t felt this helpless since Ava. And this pity party Iris is throwing me is grating on my damn nerves. “If they decommission her, I’ll start again somewhere else.”
“Like hell you will. When are you going to fight for this, Cal?”
“I did. They said no.” The small, quaint homes of Bay Shore sail past as I stare out the window.
“When’s the last time you fought for something you wanted—I mean,reallywanted?”
