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I haul the door open, hoping I’ll find Sierra waiting on the other side.
ONE
THE BIG C WORD.
TWO YEARS LATER.
Grayson
Cracking the tab on my beer, I sit in the Adirondack chair on my porch and look over at the moving truck that’s parked outside of the house next door. Sweet old Miss Millie has lived there since I moved in four years ago. We’re close, and not just because she’s my best friend Jake’s grandma. Over the years, she’s unofficially adopted me and my friends Holden and Tucker, who rent the place on the other side of me—despite the fact that we are grown men who are capable, for the most part, of looking after ourselves. She regularly feeds us and is always checking in to make sure we’re doing okay. Miss Mille is also kick-ass at poker; she gives us boys a run for our money every time.No joke.
I take a swig of my Miller Lite, setting the can on the arm of my chair when I spot Holden and Tuck walking across the grass, drinks in hand.
Tuck sighs as he lowers his tall frame into the chair next to mine. “I’m going to miss her, man,” he says, nodding in the direction of the movers carrying boxes out of Miss Millie’s front door. “Who would have thought I’d grow so attached to an 80-something-year-old woman?"
“Miss Millie is bad-ass,” I say, thinking about how much shit she would give us if we didn’t pop over at least once a week to pick up whatever treats she’d bake for us.“I’d hate to be the one checking her into that nursing home—she is going to light them up.”
Miss Millie has made no secret of the fact that she’s pissed right off that her family is moving her into an assisted living facility. It was Jake and his sister who had to make the decision—they are the only family Millie has left. She doesn’t talk about it, but I know she lost her only child, their mother, in a tragic accident many years ago. I tried to ask Jake about it once, not too long after we became friends, but he made it clear the topic of his parents’ deaths is off-limits. It was the first and last time I ever brought it up. Millie and I have always kept our conversations light—most of the time we just talk about her favorite team, the Yankees, and whether they can pull it together and win a damn World Series.
Yeah, right.I gave up on that dream a long time ago.
“Yeah, she’s pretty pissed,” Holden agrees, looking over at Miss Millie’s bright yellow house. It’s kind of depressing to see the flower beds, once full of colorful blooms, sitting dead and empty. Millie’s garden used to be her pride and joy, but eventually maintaining it just became too much for her. “You can’t blame Jake and his sister, though. Unfortunately for Millie, it was time.”
“If we’re being honest, it was probably time six months ago,” I say. “But I know Jake didn’t have the heart to do it.”
The situation became more urgent last month when Millie forgot a pot on the stove and it started a small kitchen fire. Not long before that she’d fallen down the stairs—by some miracle she didn’t break any bones. Her doctor advised that for her own well-being, moving into a nursing home was probably the best decision. It fucking sucks to get old.
“Speaking of… have you seen her around?” Tuck asks, tipping back the last of his drink.
“Millie?” I ask, frowning.
“No, man. The hot granddaughter. Jake’s sister,” Tuck clarifies with a grin.
“’Hot granddaughter? Jake would rip your balls off and put them in a blender if he heard you talking about her like that.” It’s common knowledge how overprotective Jake is when it comes to his younger sister. You can practically hear him growl when he’s on the phone with her and she’s talking about the date she’s about to go on. He can’t do much about it, though. Last I heard, his sister was living in Virginia Beach, which is too far away for Jake to chase away any potential boyfriends with a baseball bat. Let’s just say that the guys his sister dates are damn lucky Jake lives in another state.
Millie talks about her granddaughter sometimes too, and it’s clear she misses her. The three of them sometimes rent a vacation place in Cape May, a few hours away. It’s not enough for Millie, who I’m sure would much rather have both of her grandchildren nearby.
“I saw her this morning,” Tuck says, apparently still wanting to talk about Jake’s sister. “You were too busy riding trails. She’s a knockout, Gray. Like a fucking smoke-show. She looks like a sexier, grown-up version of the picture Millie has on her mantel, so there’s no mistaking it.”
“You’ve got to be joking. I’ve seen that picture, idiot, and she’s probably about 12 years old in it. She has braces. You should be put in jail for ogling a minor.”
“I wasn’t ogling her back then, asshole. I’m not some gross perv,” Tuck says. “But I do know a hot chick when I see one, and Jake’s sister ishot. Anyways, I was all ready to go introduce myself this morning but she got into her car and left.”
Holden laughs. “Quit dreaming, Tuck. You obviously haven’t thought this through.”
“And why is that?”
I shake my head, happy to add my two cents. “Because she’s Jake’s sister. You can’t bang her, then ask her to leave the next morning and pretend she never existed. First off, maybe you’ve forgotten: Balls. In. Blender. Second, Millie is like family, which means her granddaughter is definitely off-limits.”
Tucker is a lot like me. He doesn’t do relationships either, although according to him, this is the year he’s ready for the big C word.
Commitment.
I’m not convinced he’s really ready to settle down, but I will admit he’s been in a weird mood lately. According to his mom, he just needs to get married and have a couple of kids. I told him a dog might be a better place to start. Baby steps.
As for Holden, he’s locked down. He’s been seeing the same girl for a few months now and we all like to give him the gears over it. She seems nice enough—an elementary school teacher who surfs in her spare time. She’s even been teaching him to ride waves on the weekends.
Tucker and Holden feel more like brothers to me than friends and neighbors. We live on a quiet, dead-end street in Haven Harbor, a sleepy community in the small town of Reed Point. It feels like we have a little slice of paradise all to ourselves here, with just four small houses sitting a stone’s throw from the ocean. When the three of us say we will be on this little street until the day we die, we’re only half-kidding. We’ve got it too good.
