Page 140 of Fire Island
“To family,” I say around the stone in my throat. Iris clinks her beer to my glass.
Every gaze settles on Cal. He studies all of us in turn. Like father, like son. His attention homes in on me as he lifts his beer. “To ending up right where you’re meant to be.”
I smile.
The sentiment warms my heart. I’m right where I need to be. This is my home.
He is my home.
I have absolutely no intention of ever wandering so far I lose my way back.
Besides, if I wander, he will wander with me.
Our one nonnegotiable promise neither of us could break, even if we tried?—
“Yeah, so I’m out of here.” Reese rolls off the shack and heads into the house, no doubt to raid the fridge again. The fridge door opens, and Cal snaps his head up, gaze shooting at the kitchen window. “Don’t you waste that hard-earned food, boy!”
I chuckle. Some things never change.
A constant, like the stars or the horizon. Always there. Stoic and permanent, like our old lighthouse. Like the McCreary legacy on Fire Island. And, if I have anything to do with it, the legacy will live on for decades after us.
“Damn hollow legs, that lad,” Cal grumbles, leaning back in his chair, sipping his beer. I rise from the chair and drop to his lap, wine in hand. “What would you fill your days with if you didn’t have us to take care of, fear milis?”
The delight lighting Iris’s face reminds me she shares our language, too.
Without a word, she sips her beer, glancing at Emmett.
I wonder how long it will take until the elegant language of her heritage starts to slip out around Em the way Cal’s did around me. When she’s going to let her wall down, brave the particular storm that is her brother, and let the floodgates open on what torturously dangles between her and Em.
Lord knows they have waited long enough.
Thirty-Eight
CALLUM
The Indian stands on the grass in the midday sunshine.
She’s done.
Weeks of hard work, cursing, and one incredible fucking memory of Evie on this bike, and it’s ready to go. There’s only one last finishing touch until I can kick out the stand and fire her up. And I won’t find it on this island.
I roll the bike toward the jetty.
Reese waits by Firefly at the ramp we rigged up to transfer the bike onto the boat and across to the mainland. Back to Bay Shore, where I intend on surprising Evie when she gets back from her meeting with Livvy for her new manuscript. She’s been gone a whole two days, and I’m antsy as hell without her.
“She looks good,” Reese says, running a hand over the black leather seat when I roll her to a stop before the ramp. “If you two are going to go and ruin this sweet leather seat, I’m never touching this relic ever again.”
Lucky for me, I have Reese to keep me grounded. I swear to god, the shit that flies out of this boy’s mouth.
Christ.
I give him a hard stare, a subtle reminder of the boundaries we agreed on.
His gaze drops back to where his hand brushes over the polished chrome, the new black paint. His fingers track to the fuel cap before he looks up. “What do you think she’s worth?”
“We still talking about the bike?”
He chuckles. “Yeah.”
