“I know. I know. I’m trying to give her space, but I need her to be okay.”
I look out at the inlet, the barrier island a long, green line ahead. Beyond that, the Atlantic, thousands of miles of it until anothershoreline, painted every shade of blue. Poppy’s eyes remind me of the shallows at midday.
I hear the desperation in Douglas’s voice loud and clear. I feel it like a vine, twisting around my chest. Whatever’s going on between them, this is genuine. What wouldn’t I have given, growing up, for someone to care about me as much as Douglas cares about his daughter?
I rub my breastbone with my knuckles, thinking about the bandanna she tied around her hair. Subtly telling me off for that stupid hairnet. She hasn’t broken. Hasn’t even bent, if I’m being honest.
She’s different than I thought she’d be, but that doesn’t change the fact we’re only working together by circumstance.
Green Street is all I’ve ever wanted, and I thought I had lost it forever. But now, for the first time since I left New York, it’s so close, I can practically taste it. It’s like stone crab, ramps, squash blossoms. Perfect blackberries and barrel-aged bourbon.
All good things are worth the wait.
“Please, Jack.” His voice cracks.
The future sharpens again. It takes on a shape. I breathe in the salty air and find my head a little clearer, the guilt fading. Poppy doesn’t need to know that I’m keeping an eye on her for her father. Shewon’tknow. Hell, she still might leave once we start working in earnest, although that possibility is fading by the day. She wielded that knife for the second round of onions like she had a score to settle.
“Deal,” I scrape out, finally.
“Wow,” Chester says, whistling, as I finish sharing what the hell happened to bring me back to Diamond Bay. “That’s a lot.”
“Yeah.” I take a swig of the soda I ordered instead of a beer. I glance sidelong at Chester, who drains the rest of his Modelo and gestures for another. “Fucking stupid of me.”
We’re at Salty Joe’s, a few days after he stopped by the restaurant, sitting at the bar underneath a television playing the Marlins game. In high school, Chester and I would sneak into this bar for drinks; itwas the only place in town that didn’t care how fake your ID was, so long as you paid. It’s a proper saloon, wood-paneled and decorated with old pictures of Diamond Bay that show off the train station, the long-gone pineapple plantations, the original downtown strip. It’s quiet in here tonight. We’re the only patrons besides a group of guys playing pool and a few solitary drinkers at the bar. I glance at the television in time to see one of the Marlins players whiff at a fastball.
“Well,” Chester says, an uncharacteristically careful note in his tone, “what happened with Sal was just—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Our relationship was always so rough-and-tumble, the gentleness is startling. Unwelcome. When I texted him to meet up for a drink, I’d hoped—foolishly—for things to be the same as they were back in high school. When we were reckless teenagers, looking for trouble around every corner.
He arches an eyebrow. “Jack.”
“Seriously.” I jiggle my legs; they’re restless against the bar stool. “I’ve spoken about it enough with Kiara. Douglas. Hell, even Herman. I can’t go through it again.”
Chester’s quiet for a moment. He nods to himself, fingers drumming along the bar top. “All right. But if you ever do want to talk about it, I’m here.”
I resist the urge to slide off the bar stool. “You don’t have to listen to that bullshit.”
“I know.” He grins, fingers loose on the neck of his beer bottle. “So, what’s going on with Poppy?”
I glare. “Nothing’s going on.”
I wonder where she is right now. I ruined things—like usual—earlier this week. She barely spoke to me after I ran my mouth about her Instagram account.
My blood runs hot again at the memory of those comments. Those messages, nearly every one of them sexist or disgusting or a horrible combination of the two. No wonder Douglas wants someone to keep an eye on her.
Chester snorts. “Sure, man.”
“We’re just working together.”
“Oh, come on. You look at her like a dog looks at a bone.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Keep fooling yourself.”
“She’s ridiculous.” Ridiculously charming. Ridiculously pretty. Ridiculously magnetic, from her halo of hair down to her delicate ankles. Why I can picture her ankles perfectly, I don’t know, and I don’t want to think about it. I called Chester so I’d put Poppy and what I promised her father out of my mind, not obsess over her. “Anyway, it’s not like you can talk. I can’t believe all this time has passed and you haven’t made a move on Ki.”
“Who says I haven’t?”
