Aidan ignored his pathetic dig and flipped open his briefcase. Inside there were stacks of tidy papers tucked into glossy black folders. Colored tabs stuck out from the folders, and there were multiple notes written in his looping scrawl. He pulled out one of the folders and flipped it open, setting it directly in front of Yaya.
“The beach house is located on prime real estate.” Aidan flipped to a page displaying a map of Mermaid Avenue and the surrounding property lines. “And I’ve got an interested buyer.”
Brock didn’t give him the opportunity to finish. “It’s not for sale.”
“Not yet,” Aidan countered.
“Not ever,” Brock volleyed back.
Aidan arched one brow. “The house is an eyesore, Kelly.”
“That’s Brockton to you,Dad.” He took another drink of his coffee and stared at the map. He wasn’t stupid, he knew exactly the kind of business his father had planned. He’d tear down the beach house and probably build an overpriced condo in its wake.
“Yaya, you can’t sell.” Brockton placed his hand on his grandmother’s shoulder. “You love that house.”
Even though the house he stood in now was less than a mile from the ocean, the beach house had always been more like home. Growing up, he spent every summer there. Morningsconsisted of his grandfather taking him fishing on the pier that stretched out into the water and staying there until the sky filled with the early colors of dawn. Afternoons were for the beach—languid, lazy days where he did nothing but surf, swim, and sleep. When the evenings rolled around, he’d watch the rise of twilight take over the horizon alongside his grandparents, with a sweet tea in one hand, then eventually a beer.
He never noticed the paint peeling away from years of salty, wind-battered beatings. He ignored the splintered wooden steps leading to the beach, and the way the handles would fall off cabinet doors, never to be replaced. On a whim, he’d up and joined the Marine Corps right out of high school like he had something to prove, and when he returned eight years later, his grandfather had already fallen ill, and the beach house was all but forgotten.
Okay, maybeheloved that house.
“I don’t know, Kelly.” Yaya absently stirred her hot tea, considering the numbers laid before her. “There's quite a bit of money on the table.”
Right. Money that would eventually go to his father.
Yaya still had plenty of years left in her, but she wasn’t exactly young. Which meant not only would his father make a commission on the sale of the beach house property, but that any money Yaya made in the supposed deal would go right back to Aidan in the form of a will.
“Give me a chance to fix it first,” Brock pleaded. He didn’t want to lose the beach house to his father, but he also didn’t want to see an influx of tourists destroy Mystic Cove either. If he could find another way to make it profitable for Yaya, to make it worth her while to keep it, then he’d be able to tell his father and this potential buyer to back off.
“The house is in disrepair, Brockton.” Aidan shuffled his papers back together and slipped them into the folder, barely looking up. “It’s falling apart.”
“Because you let it.” Brock’s words held a bite, a layer of venom. “If you’d ever bothered to hang around for longer than a day or two, you could have helped Pop fix it.”
Aidan’s features turned to stone, and he snapped his briefcase shut. “I did what I had to do.”
“You did what you had to do foryou.” Brock shook his head and set down his cup of half-finished coffee. It was too early for this bullshit. Unexpectedly being forced to talk to his father had already soured his mood for the rest of the day. “I’m sorry, Yaya. Can we talk about this later? I have a job site to get to this morning.”
His father flicked his wrist, and his absurdly expensive Rolex glittered. “I heard you’ve been doing pretty well for yourself.”
A retort was on the tip of Brock’s tongue, but he swallowed it down. One look at Yaya told him he’d already taken it too far. Her eyes pleaded with him, a silent petition to let it go. Just because Aidan Gallagher was a crappy father didn’t mean he was a crappy son.
Brock would give her that. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Yeah. I have.”
He refused to look at the man who quit on him. Instead, he faced the woman who raised him as her own. “Yaya, don’t sell. I’ll figure something out, I promise. We’ll find a way to save the beach house.”
Of course, there was always the slim chance she actually wanted to sell. Maybe she didn’t want to keep the beach house anymore. It could be that it held too many memories, or maybe the work required to update it was too overwhelming for her. But in his gut, he knew she loved that house just as much as he did, or else she wouldn’t have held onto it for so long.
“I’ve had my will drawn up for a while now.” Yaya addressed both of them, but her eyes were on Brock.
“Yaya. Stop.” Brock shook his head. “You’re in perfect health.”
“He’s right,” Aidan added with a charming grin. “You look amazing for a woman of thirty-nine.”
“Ha, ha.” Yaya waved off their flattery with the faintest blush. “But I’m serious. My will is drawn and finalized. And I think the two of you need to understand something about that old beach house.”
She sighed a bit and settled herself into a chair at the kitchen table. Tapping her fingernails softly against her cup of tea, she leveled them with a solemn look. “You two have sixty days to get along after I leave this life. And if not, the beach house is going to the city of Mystic Cove. Then they can do what they want.”
“What?” Aidan’s mouth fell open. He looked like a fish caught on a hook.
