“What would I do without you?” I ask quietly.
“Fall apart like a house of cards,” Caspian says, but he’s joking. He pokes me lightly in the ribs. “You’d be fine.”
We say goodnight after that, Caspian leaving with a slightly embarrassed nod. He gets that way when I call out his kindness. Hegrew up in a family that treated kindness like weakness, and yet it’s the very thing that made us friends.
It was soon after Xaden’s dad died. My parents and Lizzie were constantly fighting, throwing cruel words like knives, and in the middle of it was Noah, Lizzie’s brand new baby. Lizzie refused to tell us who the father was. I still don’t know. She doesn’t want to talk about the pregnancy: how she found out so late, or about her reasons for leaving Baywood. If someone asks about Noah’s biological dad, Lizzie shuts down.
The first month after Noah was born was horrible: Mom, Dad and Lizzie in a nonstop shouting match, Xaden slipping away under the weight of his grief. The two people I’d leaned on most, Lizzie and Xaden, were unraveling, and I didn’t want to add to their burden.
***
One night, I escaped to Baywood Beans.
Caspian was there, reading on his Kindle. He looked up and smiled. “Hey. No offense, but you look like hell.”
That was all it took. I sat down, and the tears came without warning — big, ugly ones. I didn’t even know what I was crying for most. Lizzie. Her baby. Xaden. His dad. Me.
“Shit,” Caspian said, handing me what had to be ten napkins. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. You look really nice. You always do.”
That made me laugh. A full-body, ridiculous cry-laugh.
Later, he bought me a hot chocolate and a cookie. “It’s oatmeal raisin,” he said. “Please don’t start crying again, but they were out of chocolate chip.”
For the first time in days, I smiled.
***
I sit down now with my sandwich and tea, feeling raw. From the high of my gig to the low of seeing Xaden, I feel like I’ve been tumble-dried.
Steam curls from the mug, suddenly reminding me of Christmas.Xaden always came over, even if just briefly. Sometimes he stayed for dinner if his dad was working through the holidays forbetter pay. After dinner, I’d sing him carols in my room. I always chose the silliest ones, just to hear him laugh.
The memory fades, the ache doesn’t.
I’m used to exhaustion, but the single-dad kind. I love Noah so much I’d die for him, but there’s always something going on. A new phase that “only lasts a little while.” When that ends, another one begins.
Maybe Mom’s right: maybe I’m in a phase too. The one where I pretend everything’s fine when it isn’t. It really isn’t. Seeing Xaden again made me realize that. Sometimes I’m barely keeping up. Especially when things change overnight. Like the way Noah hated socks for two years and then suddenly loved them.
Or like Xaden coming back.
He has no right to be back.
And I have no idea what I’d do if he left again.
XADEN
The garage smells like oil, dust, and my childhood. A chaotic kingdom ruled by Frankie Dawson, an unimpressed frown of a man who’s always been around. He looks every bit of his fifty-six years, though he probably was born looking a little tired. He’s not just Baywood’s most dependable mechanic, he’s Baywood’s most dependable man. At least to me.
I sit across from him, oddly moved by his solid presence. Seeing Cole tonight was pain and regret. Seeing Frankie? A different kind of ache. The man rarely smiles, but I know he’d take a bullet for me without blinking.
I clear my throat. “Most of your hair’s gone.”
“It flew out the window with your manners,” he shoots back.
I grin, raise my can. “I owe you. No way was I spending the night in Kieran’s trailer. Smelled too much like ball sweat and stupidity.”
Kieran’s one of JJ and Ronnie’s many deadbeat relatives — a whole swamp of them scattered around Baywood. Kieran has an extra trailer at Bay Hollow’s park, which somehow makes him royalty in their eyes.
“You owe me more than one favor,” Frankie grunts, but there’s warmth behind it.
