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“Derek wants to sail,” Marley continued, unperturbed. “Maybe we can go to the beach.”
“You want to go to the beach?”
She sighed. “Well, no. I don’t want to burn to a crisp, but I know you love it.”
“True. Are Lila and Cole coming too?”
“I invited them, but they have Falcons training camp coming up.” Marley glanced back at Derek and dropped her voice. “Plus, I think Derek wants to hang with Ash. Probably better to make a separate girls’ trip.”
“Probably. It’s not like we want a Lila-Cole-Ash drama-fest.”
“Exactly.”
“I have actually seen our lovely friend James,” I said with a smirk on my lips.
“Oh God, did y’all kill each other?”
“We did not. But”—and it was my turn to lower my voice—“I think he might be seeing Amelia.”
“What?” she squawked.
“She claims that they’re not, but …” I shrugged. “You be the judge. They’ll probably come to the beach with us for Memorial Day.”
“Well, that should be interesting. I don’t know if it will be more fun to warn Derek or to watch him explode when he realizes his best friend is going after his little sister.”
“Oh, certainly the latter,” I said, and we both burst into giggles.
“So,” Marley said, changing the subject, “what do you think of Gran’s house? The renovations are amazing, right?”
I bit my lip and leaned back. “Well, uh, about that. I haven’t been.”
“What? Why not?”
“Maddox and I are …”
Marley tipped her head back on a sigh. “Again?” she groaned.
“You have no room to talk! You and Derek were the definition of toxic!”
She snorted. “Yeah, we were.”
Our eyes met, and we said at the same time, “Are.”
I couldn’t stop laughing. I felt so lucky to have these best friends. I wished that Lila could come in town for Memorial Day too. Navigating her past relationships was a full-time job. And sometimes, I wished we could all go back to when it had been easier.
“Anyway, whatever is going on with you and Maddox, that isn’t an excuse. I didn’t give him my half of Gran’s house and let him renovate our childhood home for him to refuse to show it to anyone.”
“Mars, it’s fine.”
But there was a glint in Marley’s eyes that I knew all too well. “It’s not. I’ll fix this.”
The camera flashed black. She’d hung up on me. Oh Lord. This was going to be … interesting.
I flopped back onto the couch, bringing the diary with me. I should probably go find Maddox and apologize for whatever Marley was about to do. But after what had happened with him on River Street, I didn’t have it in me.
Fifteen minutes later, a knock sounded on my trailer door.
“Come in,” I called.
The door creaked open, and Maddox Nelson stood in the doorway. He was in the black jeans and gray T-shirt he practically wore as a uniform to set. He’d had another haircut since I’d last seen him, taming his dark curls into a semblance of order. It was so short and professional that it made me ache for the wild and unruly youth he’d been.
“Hey.”
He nodded his head at me. “Mind if I come in?”
“Sure.” I scooted over on the couch and set the diary down on the coffee table.
He stepped into the trailer and pulled the door closed behind him. “So, I have been properly chastened.”
I laughed. “What does that mean?”
“Mars called and yelled at me for not showing you Gran’s house yet.”
“I did not put her up to that.”
He held up a hand. “Trust me, I know my sister. No one can tell her what to do.”
“That is a categorical fact.”
“So … you could come over if you wanted to see it. Gran sort of raised you too,” he said, his voice catching on the word.
“She did. I miss her.”
“Yeah. Me too,” he said softly.
There was a moment of silence between us at the recognition of the loss. I hadn’t been able to be here for Gran’s funeral and still regretted it. She had been a miraculous woman.
“But you don’t have to show me the house if you don’t want to. I know … we aren’t exactly on great terms. And I wouldn’t want to impose. It was Marley’s idea.”
“Do you want to see the house?”
“Well, yeah …”
“Then, you can see it. It’s Gran’s house still, and she never knew a stranger. She’d be pissed at me for not offering proper hospitality,” he said with a slight smile. “She told me once that nothing was more important than Southern hospitality, except for people who didn’t like sweet tea. They didn’t deserve it.”
I burst into laughter. “God, that sounds just like her.”
“She always had those wise phrases that were full of compassion to a point.”
“She loved unconditionally.”
“And was the best cook.”
I smiled. “Her biscuits and gravy. I still dream about them.”
“Tell me about it. I cannot get the gravy to thicken like she used to.” He ran a hand back through his hair. “And most of her recipes are like, add a dash of this and a hint of that. No measurements, all intuition. And it turns out, I have no intuition in the kitchen.”
