“Tell them I’m fine, but don’t tell them where I am. Say I texted you or something. And you keep your mouth shut about this place and I’ll keep mine shut about the Panther field.” They were locked in a Ransom steely stare until Cassidy broke it with a softening exhale. “Look, I know it’s been weird, and I honestly don’t mean to pop off like I do, but, Caleb, I have my reasons for what I’m doing. I’m ready to be on my own. I don’t need high school. I don’t need curfew. Can’t I just discover the world—my world—on my own? I’ll be eighteen in four months, a bona fide adult.”
“I don’t think one birthday makes you a bona fide adult.” He wanted to hug her, tell her he loved her, to come home and be her old self. He wanted her to finish school, then decide her life.
She folded her arms and stared toward the water. “Please, don’t tell them I work here, Caleb. If they find out, they’ll get this whole place in trouble. I can’t do that to them. I have a fake ID.” She made a face. “Which Dante helped me get.”
“They couldn’t find a qualified person over twenty-one to work here?”
“They wanted to hire me, okay? I work hard. I’m good at my job.”
“The West End coaches know you’re not old enough to be here.”
“Only Sanchez, and he’s keeping my secret.”
“Where are you staying when you’re not home?”
“Posey has a cute apartment by the water.”
Caleb’s phone pinged with a text. Probably Emery. He pulled it out to check, but Cassidy snatched his phone before he could see the screen, and without hesitation, hurled it toward the water. “Just when I was starting to trust you.”
“Cassidy, you dimwit!” Caleb ran to the water’s edge, but his phone was fish food. “Why’d you do that?”
“You were going to take my picture.”
“I had a text. Probably Emery.” He stood on the edge of the dock, looking into the dark water. “Guess our deal is off then. I’m telling Mom and Dad where to find you.”
“Caleb, you promised.”
“You threw my phone in the water.”
The back door creaked open, and a couple of airmen emerged. “Cass, is he bothering you?”
“Um, no.” Cassidy glanced at them, then at Caleb, her sly smile evident in the dim light. “But hey, fellas, why don’t you take him for a joyride?”
Joyride? What is a—
Next thing Caleb knew, he was upside down and thrown into the back of a truck, held down by two airmen and driven to who knows where.
After what seemed like an eternity, the driver pulled over. The two brutes in the back dumped Caleb outside the entrance of Eglin Air Force Base and wished him a good night.
EMERY
Now . . .
“They just dropped you off in the middle of nowhere?” She’d leaned into Caleb’s story from the moment he started talking.
Around them, the Blue Plate staff wiped tables and swept the floor. Paige brought out two pieces of cherry pie à la mode. “I don’t want to throw them out.”
Caleb dug in, forgetting he’d already had chocolate cake. This story made him hungry.
“I was disoriented. I’d never driven out there before. I started jogging down the road, away from the base. Didn’t know which way was home. Then it started raining. I got lost. All I kept repeating in my mind was‘Emerythinks I’m blowing her off.’At the first convenience store, the guy behind the counter pointed me in the right direction. I didn’t even think to ask to borrow his phone—not that I remembered your number anyway. It was six miles back to the Driftwood. Once I got to my truck, I beelined to the Sands and knocked on your window. When you didn’t answer, I went around front, saw the windows were dark and your car was gone. I was exhausted, mad, sad ... I sank down into one of the chairs by the firepit and apparently fell asleep, because the next thing I knew, Delilah was shaking me awake, telling me you’d gone, and I should get home. Why’d you leave so early? In the dead of night?”
“The night you helped Dad carry in a platter of burgers was the night they told me Mom was dying. She gave me the Force family pearls because she’d not be there on my wedding day.”
“So that’s why you never answered my texts or calls? I thought you were mad at me.”
“I was mad at the world. Mom, Dad, and I had a million conversations in the following days. I cried so much I was probably dehydrated. I hated Cottage 7. I hated the Sands. I hated Sea Blue Beach. And for a moment, I hated you, because I’d spent most of my summer with you and not Mom. Then I realized I had to talk to you.”
Emery picked at last of her pie. “I couldn’t sleep, so I’d be upall night, refusing to believe Mom was dying. When Dad showed me the scans and data, it all sunk in, and I didn’t want to leave her side. I curled on the settee with her for twenty-four hours straight. She told me stories of her childhood, of her college and early career days, what she learned along the way, what she thought were the important things in life. I wish I’d recorded those conversations. Dad, sweet Dad, brought us food and drinks, even read to us. Looking back, I can see that’s when Mom let go of the facade and started to deteriorate. Two nights later, she said she wanted to go home. Dad responded with, ‘Pack up, we’re leaving.’ Mom went for a walk with Delilah, and I texted you.”
