Page 20 of Eleven of a Kind

As I walked down the beach back to my house, I saw Riley in the pool. Grabbing a beer from the fridge, I sat down in the lounger, pulled up Facebook, and searched for her name. I found her page but couldn’t see any of her posts because we weren't friends. So, I sent her a friend request.

She climbed out of the pool, grabbed a towel, and dried off. She grabbed her phone from the table and sat down.

“Seriously?” She glanced at me.

“What?”

“You sent me a friend request on Facebook?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Because that’s weird.”

“Why is that weird? I’m your father.”

“Exactly,” she said.

“Are you hiding something you don’t want me to see?” My brow arched.

“No.” She furrowed her brows. “Fine, I’ll accept you, but if you make one comment on any of my posts, I’m blocking you.”

“Wow. You would do that to your dad?” A smirk crossed my lips.

“You bet I would.”

“I promise not to comment on any of your posts.”

“I don’t post on there that much anyway,” she said. “I’m going to change.” She stood up and went inside.

When she accepted my friend request, I scrolled through her page. She hadn’t posted anything since before Ariana passed away. Her last post was a picture of her and Ariana celebrating her fifteenth birthday. My heart started to ache as I stared at Ariana. She was still a beautiful woman, and the memories of that summer came flooding back.

“What’s up, bro?” Grayson smiled as he walked over and sat down.

“Nothing.”

“What are you looking at?” He grabbed my phone from my hand. “Wow. Ariana still looked the same.”

“Yeah.” I tipped the beer bottle to my lips. “Can I have my phone back? Aren’t you and Ava doing anything today?” I asked him.

“Nah. We’re just relaxing.” He smiled.

His sliding door opened, and Ava/Freya walked out and put a canvas on the easel.

“Looks like Freya wants to get some painting done.” I smiled.

“Yeah. I guess so,” Grayson smiled.

“Hello, Gabriel.” She waved.

“Hi, Freya.” I waved back.

The sliding door opened, and Riley walked out.

“Hey, Uncle Grayson.”

“Hi, Riley.”

“I didn’t know Ava could paint,” she said.

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