“I’m glad to see you,” Alex said. His arm brushed against mine as wefollowed the sound of the girls’ voices down the beach, and the sensation was definitely that of a real person and not an imaginary dream man my brain had cooked up to distract me from my problems. “Not because of... you know,” he continued. “I was worried I’d be the only one under sixty in this place. How long have you lived here?”
“About seven years,” I said, grateful to move on from both the kissing and pool incidents. “I inherited my unit from my grandmother.”
“So you’re a local.”
“I grew up in North Carolina.”
“Wow, so you’re not even from Florida, Florida Girl?”
“You got me.” I smiled down at the sand. “Greyson said you just moved here?”
“New job. We moved up here from Miami.”
“Did you grow up there?”
“Sort of. I lived in an RV as a kid,” Alex said. “We traveled all over the place, but Miami was home base.”
“Greyson said your parents were hippies.”
Alex laughed. “Yeah, I’d say that’s accurate.”
“You don’t really seem like a hippie,” I said. “You seem mostly normal.”
“Mostly normal?” Alex looked at me, but I couldn’t make out his expression. “That’s because you don’t know me yet.”
Yet.I didn’t know what Alex had in mind for the future of our neighborly relationship, but after tonight, there was no way I’d be getting to know him better. Whether he was devastatingly handsome or not, I refused to risk embarrassing myself again. It would be more than enough to admire him from afar.
Luckily, the conversation didn’t last long, and we found Mia, Kitty, and Greyson sitting beside each other in the sand. I sank down beside Kitty. It had been years since I’d seen a nest hatch, and all of it—the turtles wriggling down the beach, their papery eggshells scattered in the sand—took my breath away.
“Isn’t it beautiful, Aunt Jo?” Kitty said.
“Dad, can we keep one?” Greyson leapt up and pulled on Alex’s arm.
“Absolutely not,” he said, and at her disappointed face added, “It’s illegal.”
Greyson groaned and collapsed back down beside Kitty.
“Samson always wanted to see this,” Kitty said.
Mia’s face changed then, and she stared at the baby turtles as if she blamed them personally for Florida’s beach erosion. Dread settled in my stomach. One moment, I had the girls happy and distracted, and the next,wham.
“Who’s Samson?” Greyson asked, looking between Mia and Kitty.
No one answered her. It was cooler down here by the water, and I rubbed my arms to brush off the chill. Was I supposed to explain or let the moment pass? I glanced at Alex, who seemed to be purposefully keeping his eyes on the turtles and pretending he hadn’t heard.
“This is boring,” Mia said. Before I could stop her, she sprang to her feet and bolted in the direction of the condo. I watched her, unable to move. The sudden change in atmosphere made piecing my thoughts together like swimming against a current. My mind and body were too slow to call out or run after her.
The sound of the gate closing with a bang made me jump. Kitty and I exchanged looks, and I hoped she’d know what to do, like Mia had earlier.
“Did I say something wrong?” Greyson asked.
I gave her the best smile I could manage. “No, you didn’t say anything wrong.”
I turned to Alex, who had his eyes on Greyson. “I’m sorry, she...” I let the sentence trail off. How could I explain this to a stranger? What was I supposed to say?Sorry she’s being rude, her brother died? I shook my head. “We’d better go after her.” I helped Kitty to her feet and dusted the sand from the backs of my thighs. “Thanks for the towel.”
“Anytime,” Alex said, and I forced myself not to look back at him as Kitty and I trudged up the beach.
—
