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“Are you going to be okay to drive?”
She waved a hand. “Shut up. We’ll get an Uber. Now un-shut up and tell me every detail that happened.”
I spent a few minutes filling her in on the entire visit to the station.
“Well? Is he cute?” she finally asked.
“He’s really cute!” I replied. “But I think I gave him my number just to be polite.” And to make Jack jealous. “I don’t expect Liam to actually text me, especially once he and Jack talk about it. Guys are weirdly territorial about that stuff.”
Brandi rolled her eyes. “You’ve been in town a day and have managed to have more excitement than I’ve had in the past year.”
“I have not!”
Brandi began counting items on her fingers. “You were inside our childhood home when it caught fire and burned down. Jack Franco, the boy you’ve been pining over for more than a decade, was one of the guys to save you.”
“Nuh uh!” I argued.
She ticked the third finger. “And then you gave your number to his friend and coworker.”
I accepted my new glass of wine from the waiter and took a long sip. “Okay, when you put it like that, I see what you mean. But enough about me. How’s Kyle? Things are boring?”
“Oh, things are exciting with Kyle,” she replied. “But it’s marriage excitement, not single girl excitement.”
The subject was successfully changed, and we talked about Brandi’s life for the remainder of dinner. Then we got a hotel room at the hotel I was originally supposed to stay at.
“Here’s the plan,” Brandi told me. “I found an Airbnb a few miles down the road. It’s right on the water, and it’s far enough from our old neighborhood that we don’t have to think about it at all. We’ll stay there for a week and see how much of our mother’s affairs we can settle, and renew the Airbnb until it’s all finished. In the meantime, I’ll have Kyle drive down here and bring a bunch of extra clothes. You can borrow some of the clothes I brought with me, and we can go shopping for anything else tomorrow. We have plenty of time since we can’t check-in until the afternoon.”
“Are you sure Kyle doesn’t mind?”
Brandi shrugged. “You’re my sister. He understands.”
I hugged her, and realized there were tears in my eyes. I wiped them away and got ready for bed.
We picked up breakfast tacos the next day and then went shopping. I bought a few necessities: jeans, tops, an extra pair of sneakers. Brandi convinced me to buy a bathing suit. Might as well soak up some sun while I was down here.
I was a little worried about money; my savings were already low before going shopping. But Brandi had a way of making all my concerns melt away. I could always pick up some extra photography work while I was down here, I told myself.
By the time we were done shopping and had gotten lunch, it was time to check-in to our Airbnb. It was the guest house in the backyard of another house, which was right across the street from the Saint Joseph Sound, a narrow strip of water between Clearwater and Clearwater Beach that led into the Gulf of Mexico.
“Right?” Brandi said when she saw my surprise. “I did well, didn’t I?”
“This place is great,” I said. “How much did it cost?”
“It costs none-of-your-business per day,” she replied. “Stop worrying and relax. Kyle and I make good money. Let me spoil my sister while I can. Once we have kids, I won’t be able to throw money around like this.”
Per the Airbnb instructions, we pulled into the driveway, which led all the way into the backyard next to the guest house. Unlike when I arrived at our mother’s house, I didn’t feel any sense of dread here. It actually felt like a new beginning.
“We can turn this tragedy into something good,” Brandi said while we got out, echoing my own thoughts. “We’ll get wine drunk tonight, watch the sunset right over there, and celebrate the death of that awful house. Like one of those ceremonies where they burn all the ex-boyfriends clothes, except with an entire house.”
A dog was barking inside the main house as we approached the guest building. Brandi entered the code on the keypad. It flashed red. She tried it a second time with no luck.
Sighing, she pulled out her phone. “I’ll call the owner and see what’s up.”
I turned to the main house where the dog was barking. “I see lights on. Let’s just knock.”
“I’ll get our stuff out of the car while you do that,” Brandi said, popping the trunk. “And if he’s hot, flirt a little bit! Maybe we can get a discount if we need to extend our stay.”
I laughed it off while rounding the building and approaching the front door. This place was nice, and it was right on the water. The owners were probably a nice retired couple.
