“Okay, cool. I’m gonna take a quick shower. Do you want anything to drink? Water? Lemonade? Coffee?” he asks, body halfway behind the doorway.
Settling onto the couch, I reply, “No, I’m okay. Thank you, though.”
He slaps the wall and points. “Be right out.”
The sound of water gushing through pipes starts, and I sit on my hands, peering around the space that Declan has called home for two years. From the living room window, I can see the cottage across the street. It is a strange feeling seeing it from this perspective.
The garden is unwieldy and wraps around the small square of a house, whereas this home is a rectangular single-story with a funky roof. Declan’s house is cherry-stained wood and vaulted ceilings, whereas mine is creamy neutrals and arched doorways.
Mine. It was the first time my mind referred to the cottage that way. The feeling settled into my stomach. Not unpleasant. Just new.
A few moments later, Declan claps from the doorway. “Alright, what’re you feeling? Tacos? Ramen? Breakfast for dinner?”
He reads the way my lips flicker.
“Breakfast for dinner it is,” he says for me, smiling with a knowing look in his eyes.
His hair is wet, again, but this time from the shower instead of the ocean, and I have to manually stop my face from showing signs of longing. I was going to need a break from his incessant, easy smiles and laid-back demeanor if I wanted to be his friend. He hadn’t looked this comfortable all summer, and it was doing things to me that I didn’t want to name.
Settling into a torn-leather booth at the back of the Snug Spoon, our waitress rushes out balancing steaming plates ofpancakes in both hands. “I have a three-stack of maple sugar pancakes and a triple chocolate chip buttermilk stack. Everything looking good?” she singsongs.
“Yes! Looks great. Thank you so much,” Declan replies with a dimpled smile.
“Okay,” I say, cutting into the maple sugar pancakes. “Tell me how you ended up in that house, finally.”
Declan grins at my lack of patience and picks up his fork and knife. “Oh, that little tale. It’s a fun one.”
I can tell by his tone that it’s probably going to be a tragic one.
After swallowing a bite, he says, “The short story is that my dad sued the owner of the car that hit me.”
My fork falters on its way to my mouth.
He smiles. “Told you it was a fun one.”
“Declan,” I sigh, upset at his deflection mechanisms. “You are ridiculous,” I huff. “But please, continue.”
He laughs, humored by my reaction to his macabre attitude, but after a moment, he grows serious. “The kid in the driver’s seat took the brand-new convertible from his uncle’s house. He already had a record for speeding in school zones and driving with too many passengers. So, they considered it something they call ‘negligent entrustment’ because the uncle practically handed over the keys, even knowing all this about him. And then, that night, he and his friends had been drinking. So, it was a pretty cut-and-dry case.”
I try to remain as neutral as possible, but internally, my eyes are bulging out of their sockets. At both the way Declan maintains perfect composure while retelling the story and the ludicrousness of the situation. Just hearing about it fills me with rage. How he was able to sound calm was bizarre to me.
“In classic Randall fashion, he took it upon himself to suefor the cost of surgeries plus the value of scholarships I would no longer be able to use. Which, in case you forgot, I got scholarships to six different schools. Most of them full rides.” He smirks at me with sarcastic conceit. I cough a surprised laugh. “And on top of that, because Randall never lets anyone get off easy, he sued for the ‘lost ability to earn a living.’?”
“Mm-hmm. Sounds like him. Well, the suing part, not the Matthew McConaughey impression you just slipped in there.”
Declan lifts his eyebrows like they’re shoulders he’s shrugging. His actual shoulders shake with laughter as he shovels another forkful of pancake into his mouth. Only Declan could laugh while retelling the aftermath of getting hit by a car.
Randall, Declan’s father, was a stern man who’d been head of a philanthropic committee called the Cypress Grove Community Fund for decades. It was responsible for distributing money to maintain Seabrook, providing scholarships, and hosting charity galas. His role in the small community made the Renshaws a well-known and well-loved family in this tiny, beachside town, which was why he cared about Declan’s accomplishments so much. It was also why winning a lawsuit was relatively easy based on their good rapport.
He swallows his bite. “By the time we won the case, I was finally walking on my own and actively figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. So, I figured buying the house on Brickstone was a good first step. It was a smart place to hold the money, plus, I could finally get out of my childhood home and get some separation from Randall and Gwen’s good ole expectations.” He says his parents’ names dully. “Being in the house you grew up in always feels like regression for some reason.”
“Heard that.” I raise my water. Those words rang truer than the sky being blue. “And did it work?” I ask, wondering about the house across from his under my name.
“It did, actually. And, you know, I’m grateful for my parents…” He nods as he chooses his next words. “But I didn’t realize how much stress I was under the whole time I lived with them. You’d think being hit by a car would cause some sympathy, but my dad seemed more concerned with how it killed my future career instead of being grateful that I was still alive. The sympathy he was earning from his son getting hit by a car had run its course, and it was time for me to impress him again,” Declan says with a sarcastic lilt. It was the closest he veered toward anger, which was something he didn’t even show when relaying how he got hit by a car.
“Man.” I shake my head, pushing my empty plate forward. “Randall sounds like a piece of work.” I wanted to say more, but I was aware that it was still his father, and a son would always care about his father’s approval, no matter how broken the relationship. “Has he backed off a little more since then?”
“He has.” Declan wipes a hand over his mouth in thought. “Although, I feel like it’s less a result of any character growth, considering my work on the coffee shop giving him a new reason to brag.”
