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He nodded. “I know.”
“Tell your mom I’m gonna go sit out back, all right?”
By the time I sank into one of the chairs on my sister’s deck, I was ready for two naps and about ten more hours of sleep—without getting kicked in the spleen. Ford was inside playing on his Nintendo, and Iallowed my eyes to close while the sound of the ocean roared in the background.
It’s louderwas my first thought.
At the bay by the Campbell House, the sound of the water was so much quieter. It didn’t swarm your senses, didn’t drown everything out. I shifted in my chair, exhaling roughly when I couldn’t get my back as comfortable as I wanted.
“You better not be napping.”
I pried my eyes open. “Nope.”
“Good, because if anyone in this house deserves a nap, it’s me.” Tansy crumpled into the chair next to mine, tipped her face up to the sun, and sighed. “Gawd, that sucked.”
“You okay?”
My sister took a deep breath and then nodded. “Yeah. Only had one meltdown in the hospital after they took her down for surgery, which seems like a win for my first catastrophe as a single mom.”
“You could’ve had five meltdowns and it would still be a win,” I told her.
“Thanks for coming, Burke. Hopefully I didn’t interrupt anything too important.”
My jaw tightened. “Nah.”
The only thing she’d interrupted was the inevitable point in time at which I regained my senses and said the thing guaranteed to wreck the moment.
We shouldn’t.
This is a bad idea.
I’m so sorry.
Any one of those things could have—should have—come out of my mouth. Except my tongue had been shoved down her throat so I could memorize the shape of her tonsils, which made it hard to say anything at all.
“I hated having to call you, but I’m glad you could come home for Ford.”
There it was again. That word.
Home.
I managed to smile for Tansy as a singular truth rang like a fucking death knell in my head.
Florida didn’t feel like home.
It didn’t feel like any of the things I’d expected from it when I decided to leave my big empty house in Dallas and move nearer my family—and the too-loud ocean that drowned out all my thoughts.
I used to think that was a good thing.
“Uncle Burke,” Ford called from the slider. “Do you want to playMario Kartwith me?”
I muttered a curse under my breath, and Tansy grinned. “Yeah, I’ll be right in.”
“Dare I ask how many hours you’ve spent doing that the last two days?”
“He has kicked my ass every time,” I said, pushing myself up. “My hands are too big for all those stupid little buttons.”
Tansy was laughing when my phone buzzed in my back pocket, and there was an uncomfortable burst of warmth when I saw Charlotte’s name. I didn’t answer until I was out of earshot of my nosy sister.
