Page 1 of Not Another Beach Read
PROLOGUE
July, 2024
Clearwater, Florida
He's at Frenchy's Rockaway Grill, sitting in the booth kitty-corner to mine, peering into the eyes of a woman who's at least ten years his junior. He's dressed to impress in an impeccably tailored loser blue pinstripe suit—at the beach—and is, of course, completely oblivious to his surroundings. The air is thick with deep-fried humidity and the cacophony of a hundred souls with a hundred stories to tell. There's a tired, cranky, sunscreen-smeared toddler a few feet away having a meltdown for the ages. But he doesn't notice. A rogue volleyball from one of six games in progress just outside the front door slams into the window behind him. But he doesn't notice. He only has eyes for her.
Ahhhh... "young" love.
I'm wearing a navy Tampa Bay Rays baseball cap with thebill pulled low, a plain white t-shirt, a pair of golf shorts, and Converse. Not quite beachwear, but good enough to blend in. A wax-paper-lined basket of food sits in front of me. I pick up a french fry and dip it into a puddle of watery ketchup, pretending to play with my phone as I take pictures to commemorate the day.
His bushy, porn-star mustache twitches. He throws his head back and laughs at something she says, his throat exposed as his Adam's apple bounces up and down. I text his wife (of twenty-six years) the pictures I've been taking for the last thirty minutes.
He who laughs first and all that.
It doesn't seem as if they'll be leaving anytime soon, but it doesn't really matter at this point. I have everything I need. I slide my phone into my trusty orange backpack, put my napkin on my tray, and stand to leave. He glances up and looks at me, but no recognition crosses his face. It wouldn't. He doesn't know what I look like. He doesn't know me at all, which is what makes me so useful.
1
ELYSE
Drew was stirring his world-famous pasta sauce when I walked into my kitchen fifteen minutes later. He traveled so much for work, it was always a nice surprise to find him at home when I returned after a long day at the bookstore. The familiar aroma of garlic, oregano, and bay leaves greeted me at the door and I floated cartoon-like on its trail. Drew was most likely listening to a history documentary through his AirPods and didn't see me standing there right away, giving me a chance to enjoy a rare occurrence: him standing still. He was turned away from me, but even his partial profile still gave me butterflies.
One navy-golf-polo-clad arm was stirring while the other was supporting his weight as he leaned his six-foot-four frame against the counter, his right foot crossed behind his left. Around the bottom of the green golf hat he'd picked up during our most recent trip to Arizona, the curls that seemed to pop up overnight were attempting to make a run for it, turning this way and that to escape. After nearly thirty years (off and on), he was still my favorite person.
Eden was sitting at attention by his feet, two pointy ears andevery brown and black hair quivering with the anticipation of what she knew was to come. She might not have had what it took to be a police dog like some of her littermates, but she had an award-winning track record of snapping up every last morsel of food that had ever fallen within six feet of any cooking or food prep surface in our kitchen. She was looking up at my husband like he had hung the moon, and I couldn't say I blamed her.
He was deep in concentration, but his face opened into a huge smile when he saw me. "That's quite an outfit you've got there." His smile faded when he looked down and saw my shoes.
"I was just checking on a few things at the store."
"Your shoes are covered in sand. Do you have a new immersive beach reads display at work or do you want to just tell me where you really were?"
"Well, I was going to stop by work?—"
"Save it, Elyse. You and I have known each other long enough that I can tell when you're not being truthful. Just tell me where you were."
"Well, there was this mom?—"
He rolled his eyes and turned back to his sauce. "And here we go."
"Drew just, hear me out. This mom has four kids at home, and her husband is constantly coming home late. He smells like sunscreen, and he was supposedly at the office all day. And he's smiling."
"Oh, no, not smiling."
"Yes, smiling. And he hasn't been very kind to her lately."
"Couples fight, Elyse. It's a normal part of marriage."
"Well, couples especially fight when the husband is sitting at Frenchy's with his little side piece while his wife is at home taking care of the children he helped create."
"Good grief, Elyse. How long is this going to go on? You're going to end up really pissing someone off."
"I'll be fine, Drew. You worry too much."
He set the wooden spoon down on a nearby spoon rest and crossed the kitchen to stand in front of me. He was close enough that his vivid green eyes blurred. "I worry exactly the right amount for the kinds of shit you get yourself into," he said as he gently squeezed my shoulders.
I shook him off and took a step back so I could breathe. "I didn't get myself into anything today. I sat down, I had lunch, I took a few pictures, I came home. What's the big deal?"
