Page 26 of Neap & Spring

“See you tonight?” Frannie asks.

“Yeah. Tonight.”

I gather my things and give them a small wave before heading for the door.

The walk to the exit feels impossibly long. Each step echoing in the quiet dining room. I can feel them watching me, and I force myself to keep my spine straight and my shoulders back.

The second I’m outside, the professional mask I’ve been holding in place all morning cracks.

The afternoon air hits me, and I breathe it in like I’ve been underwater. My legs feel shaky as I walk to my car. I fumble with my keys, dropping them once, and I have to crouch down to pick them up from the gravel.

I make it to my car and lean against the driver’s side door, my forehead pressed against the cool metal.

The shaking starts in my hands first. Then my arms. Then my whole body.

My legs give out entirely, and I turn and slide down until I’m sitting on the gravel, my back against the door with my knees pulled up to my chest. The iPad falls to the ground beside me. My bag slips off my shoulder.

And I just sit there, shaking, trying to remember how to breathe.

In through my nose. Out through my mouth.

In through my nose. Out through my mouth.

I press the heels of my hands against my eyes and try not to cry.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Callum

Sunday dinner at Dad’s is the only thing keeping me from completely losing my mind.

I pull my truck into the gravel driveway and cut the engine. For a moment, I just sit there, hands still gripping the steering wheel, staring at the house through the windshield.

The house sits about fifty yards back from the water, perched on the edge of the harbor where Dad kept his boat for thirty years. The weathered gray shingles have seen decades of salt air and storms. The front porch sags slightly in the middle because Dad keeps saying he’ll fix it and never does. Old fishing nets hang on the side of the house, decorative now, but they used to be the real deal. String lights sway where Dad put them up last summer after Beckett, my youngest brother, said the place needed “ambiance,” whatever the hell that means.

It’s not much. Just a fishing shack that Dad converted into a house when he realized we needed more than one bedroom and a boat. A little lean-to with additions built over the years — a bedroom here, a bathroom there — as Dad figured out how to raise four boys on a fisherman’s salary.

But it’s home. It’s always been home.

I can hear them before I even get out of the truck.

Loud, obnoxious laughter fills the night air. The low rumble of Dad’s voice follows. Someone — probably Beckett — says something that makes Hayes groan. The sound of it pulls at a knot that’s been wound too tight for too long in my limbs.

My head drops forward until my forehead rests against the steering wheel. I close my eyes and just breathe.

Sunday dinner. Six o’clock. Every single week since I was old enough to remember. It’s the one constant in a life that’s felt like it’s been falling apart in slow motion lately.

I should want to be here. I always want to be here.

But tonight, I’m dreading it.

They’re going to ask. They always ask. And I don’t know how to explain what’s been happening this past week without losing my shit entirely.

Vivienne has been at my restaurant. Every. Single. Day.

She shows up at nine-thirty in the morning with her iPad and her blazer and that fucking composure that makes me want to scream. She sits at her corner table by the window and takes notes. Watches service. Talks to the staff. Chats with customers like she’s doing market research, which I guess she technically is. Asks a thousand questions.

She asks everyone questions.