Page 114 of Late Nights & Love Lines
“The Sailport Bay welcoming committee.” If Leo shakes his head at me one more time with thatduhexpression on his face, I might toss him out on his ass.
“The welcome parade is the bestest thing ever,” Emmy says with stars shining in her eyes. “How else will you know that everyone loves ya if you don’t get your parade?”
“Emmy,” Miles yells from upstairs. “Are you coming to play?”
The little girl looks at the bags she’s sorting, down the hall, then to Beck. He grins and nods toward the stairs. She runs off into the bowels of my home without a backward glance.
My headache sets fire to matches in my skull. “You can’t be telling me they do this for every person who buys property here. That’s insane.”
“Of course not.” Beck huffs, taking over whatever Emmy had been doing. “Just those of us who plan to make it home permanently.” He pulls out ingredients for s’mores and lines them up on my counter.
A large sign floats by my window, and I do a double take.
Welcome, Rowanis written in giant block letters. More signs follow with all our names on them.
“But I haven’t, I mean, Rowan hasn’t agreed to stay.” Even saying that out loud causes bile to burn the back of my throat.
She has to stay.
“This might be what she needs, then,” Beck says more to himself than to me. When he stands upright, something ghosts across his features, but it’s gone too quickly for me to recognize. “I’ll be honest, it was a little overwhelming for Stella and metoo when it happened. That’s why Leo and I are here. We got everyone to take it down a notch.”
He squares his shoulders as if he’s proud of that declaration. “There won’t be any carnival rides or taco trucks. They cut it back to a bonfire, some s’mores, and Wanda’s punch because she insisted.” He frowns and a shadow crosses his face. “Don’t drink more than a cup of it though, or it’ll knock you on your ass.”
“No punch. Got it. You realize that Rowan’s going to hate this.” I thought I had nerves of steel, but anticipating Rowan’s reaction has me pacing in my own home. “I didn’t even say for sure that we were staying.” My hands land on my hips, and I wait for them to both stop moving.
“You hired movers,” Leo reminds me.
“The kids need their stuff here, but I never…”
“Give me a break, Seb.” I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Beck Hayes roll his eyes before, but when he does it now, he appears ten years younger.
I pull out a stool at the island and sit while Leo helps himself to my fridge and pulls out three beers, then proceeds to paw through my drawers, searching for an opener. I don’t know why I don’t tell him where it is, but I sit frozen as he opens and closes every single drawer in my kitchen before turning to me.
“Where the hell is your bottle opener?”
I’m pretty sure my eyebrows lift to my hairline. Opening the drawer on my side of the island, I pull it out and hand it to him.
“Who organized this kitchen?” Leo grunts, then opens the beers and hands us each one.
“Why are you so prickly?” Beck asks, flopping down into a stool beside me. “You didn’t have an issue with this when we had dinner here the other night.”
“That just sort of happened,” I grouse. “And it wasn’t the entire town. All those people out there will freak Rowan out.”
“But you had fun at the sand dance,” Leo says, doing the baby bounce slide. I spent so many nights doing that with my kids. The bounce, bounce, sway. I used to think it was a mom thing, but I picked it up quickly, while Mya never did.
Leo also has no issues with it now, so perhaps it has more to do with your ability to be a caretaker than your genetic makeup.
The front door slams shut, and Alexei stomps down the hallway.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” I ask.
“I’m guessing it has something to do with why Maria gave her two weeks’ notice this morning,” Leo mutters.
I spin on Alexei. “You hooked up with the camp director and then she quit?” His blue eyes glow hotter than flames.
“That’s not—we knew each other a long time ago.” He bypasses me and helps himself to a beer. When he spins around, we’re all staring at him. “She was my sister’s best friend, okay?” He turns his back and grabs a beer of his own.
“Natalie?” I ask.
