Page 9 of Tangled Up

“Goodnight, Beckham.”

We disconnect, and I stand in the middle of my living room, in the penthouse apartment I own on Davis Island. The lights of south Tampa illuminate the dark sky, sending a sheen across the waters of the bay. It’s a beautiful location, and I’m completely alone here.

Touching my phone face, I hit the speed dial. It goes straight to voicemail, as I knew it would at this hour. “Hey, Marcy. I’m sorry for the last-minute call. I need you to reschedule all my appointments for tomorrow. I have to make an unexpected trip.”

With my business settled, I head to my room to catch a few hours of sleep before I hit the road. Tomorrow, I’ll make the hours-long drive south to face whatever lies waiting for me there. I don’t know if this will work, but I’ve got to try.

CHAPTERTHREE

CARLY

My aunt’s home isn’t named. It isn’t on the waterfront, and it doesn’t have twelve bedrooms and twenty-four bathrooms for one teenage boy and the people paid to mind him, not that I’ve thought abouthimin seven years.

Why am I thinking about him now?

My older brother Henry and I had been through the worst pain imaginable losing our parents back-to-back, but I still managed to feel sorry for this strange boy, this outsider.

Young Beck Munroe lived in a beach mansion the size of a church, and he was the loneliest little mouse in it. He was like an item his parents left behind and forgot, and the more we got to know him, the more I believed he belonged with us.

I was a foolish child.

It didn’t take long for my brother and him to be best friends, and it took even less time for me to develop a massive crush on him, dreaming all winter of the next summer he would appear.

My stomach warms, and I am definitely a fool. What happened between Beck and me is packed away in a box of childhood memories in my mind, a box I sealed the lid on never to re-open. Seeing the Ocean Pearl after my day-long drive has me nostalgic and silly.

Rearview mirror, Carly.

Pulling my truck into my aunt’s red-brick driveway, I park under a heavy pine tree. I’ve just killed the engine when a petite girl with a thick mane of blonde hair bursts out the side screen door.

“Finally!” Jessica Bliss, my best friend since forever, runs up to my door. “Thank God you finally made it. Girl, you know I love that old lady, but Aunt Viv is about to make me nuts.”

I open the door and hop out, throwing my arms around her, grunting as I squeeze. “It’s been too long since we’ve seen each other.”

“Three whole months.”

Reaching into the back, I lift out my suitcase. Jess visits me in Pensacola pretty regularly, but I always feel guilty about our one-sided arrangement. It’s my first visit home since I moved away.

“What is this?” I stop walking at the foot of a long, wooden wheelchair ramp extending from the driveway up to the side door of the house.

My eyes widen, but Jess takes my arm. “Everything is fine. Your aunt, who I also call ‘Chicken-Little,’ decided she needed a ramp installed so she’ll be ready for the stroke that’s going to confine her to a wheelchair.”

“Oh, my God.” I exhale a groan, dropping my head backward. “What am I going to do with her?”

“See what I mean?” Jessica continues to the house. “I think it’s time you put your psychologist brain to work on her. See if you can’t find the screw that got loose in her head.”

Looping my arm through Jessica’s, I roll my suitcase up the well-constructed handicapped ramp. “If she were acting differently than she ever has, I’d be worried. As it is…”

“I swear to God, I’m going to name this house The Yin and the Yang, the eternal pessimist meets the eternal optimist. It has to be the center of some sort of multiverse.”

“You watch too much Marvel.”

“Carly? Is that you?” My aunt’s voice rises from the living room, and as I enter, she carefully stands from her power-lift recliner. “I’d hug you, but hugging is the express-delivery system for germs.”

Jessica snorts a cough, and I leave my suitcase at the door, crossing the room to her.

“What if I hug you like this?” Leaning far to the side, I hug her, keeping my mouth and nose behind her shoulder as I exhale a grunt. “Argh. I’ve missed you so much, Aunt Viv!”

Her rigid body loosens, and she hugs me back. “Caroline. You were always the sweetest child. The Lord always seems to test the sweetest hearts the most.”

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