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“I don’t know.” I scoop up my board after twisting my hair into a messy braid, heading back to the house.
“I promise it’s after the other stuff. When you get your mom’s ashes back, we can do something else together.” His arm hooks with mine. “Also, I just really want to make sure the town pays your mom the respect she deserves.”
I’m still laughing at Cooper’s bad impersonation of Mrs. Harrison’s behavior when the sliding door opens, and Sparrow’s large body takes up the space.
“Jesus fucking Christ. Look, I’m not saying…” Cooper leans into my hair, his eyes weakening on Sparrow. “But I’m just saying…”
I shove him away playfully as he snatches my board to take with him. “Don’t forget to wash it!”
He flips me off, and I laugh before slowly going back to where Sparrow stands at the threshold of the door. He does look good this morning.
“How was it?” Dark sweatpants and no shirt are histhingwhen it isn’t the expensive Armani suits. His hair looks damp against the morning sun, and when it hits his face front on, I have to smack myself back down to reality.They called you a child.
“Good. Just what I needed, actually.”
His eyes fall to my mouth and the corner of his lip twitches.
My head tilts. “What?”
He holds my stare. “What day next week is your birthday?”
“Monday.”
“Good to know.”
I go to sidestep him and make my way into the living room when his words stop me. “We’ll head out so you can have this thing out on the beach.”
Do I want them there? No. I barely know two of them, but I can’t deny the fact that it feels like I have known them three lifetimes already. I read somewhere once that when you meet someone who you feel like you’ve known all your life, it means you knew them in past lifetimes. I’m not sure if I believe in all of the past life and reincarnation stories, but now, I see why peopledobelieve.
Leaning on the threshold that separates the living room and the steps that lead up to the rest of the house, I fold my arms across my chest. “You don’t have to. You can all stay, it’s fine. Knowing Cooper, he would have invited the whole town.”
Sparrow bows his head an inch, so I turn back around to make my way back to the room I’m staying in. I need to figure out why I feel the way I do about all three of them and how I’m going to navigate my way around my mother’s death.
I stare blankly at the orange flames as they roar against the night. I was twelve years old when I realized my mother probably wasn’t as well as the rest of us. I think over time, I assumed she was sick. I asked her many times if it was cancer or any other disease that I needed to know about.
She would wave me off, kiss my forehead, and tell me not to worry. But I did. Every month, the same time. She would lock herself in her room for an entire week and then resurface on the seventh day. As I got older, she said it was her period, but every other person I knew who had theirs would always sync up to their mother. Mine came weeks after hers.
“You think she’ll like this?” Cooper asks, massaging Dani’s bare leg.
God, he needs to leave her alone. Not that any girl deserves what Cooper will put them through, but Dani is something else. She tolerates Cooper in a way that no one else will, and I know it is because she is bi too, and they very much share the same kind of dynamic.
“I do. I think she would.”
Dani leans forward, taking out another beer from the cooler in front of her, wrapping the hoodie she’s wearing tighter around her body. She cracks the can and leans back into Cooper’s embrace. “I’m sorry about your mom, Shiloh. I know how close you both were.”
Dani’s parents owned the library downtown. The library is about as old as the caves in Hades Hollow, but no one thinks too much into that. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was the first building to be built in Hades Hollow. A bit like the mansion that sits behind us.
“Thank you.” I smile.
The group Cooper gathered isn’t bad. There are around ten people all from our school, and since it is outside on the beachfront, it doesn’t feel so crowded.
“Oh shit—” Cooper taps at Dani to get off his lap as he disappears somewhere behind us.
“Tell me something about your mother?” Dani’s dark eyes widen in excitement. I don’t want to crash her high hopes, but I probably don’t have a lot to tell her.
“Well.” I toss a handful of sand at the raging flames. “She could never sit still. She always had to rearrange our house or redecorate. I learned to never expect the house to be the way it was when I left every day.”
“I could be friends with her.” Dani laughs, tying her hair in a high bun until the ends are sitting on her shoulder. She leans back slightly, bringing the bottle to her mouth. “I could definitely be friends with her.”
