And yet… it did. It scratched at something deep inside me—something I couldn’t quite put words to yet.
I tossed my empty bottle in the trash and stumbled as I kicked off my boots. My body was heavy like lead as I made my way to bed. It was the kind of exhaustion that had nothing to do with work. It was old wounds ripping open while I pretended to ignore them. I didn’t bother getting undressed as I collapsed on the crappy mattress. The room swayed, and the wind outside taunted me, whispering his name to torture me.
Harley was back.
That thought spun through my head on repeat, whether I wanted to or not. Five years. Five fucking years of nothing. Five years of pretending he didn’t exist because I had to. Five years of telling myself I was just fine without him.
I told myself I didn’t care.
I told myself he didn’t matter anymore.
I told myself that I was over it.
I kept telling myself that as my eyes drifted shut. Sleep came quickly, fueled by the flood of alcohol in my system. And for the first time in a long time, I dreamt of seashells and the boy who broke my heart.
CHAPTER 15
harley
Stepping out of my car, I stared up at my parents’ house—well, my mother’s house now. It was surreal coming back for my father’s funeral. It was a reason I never wanted to return for. The further away I got from Wilde Bay and my mother, the more I seemed to understand him. And the longer I stayed with my grandfather, the more I pitied my father.
Five years had completely changed me, but the house looked the same. Everything had its place exactly where my motherliked it. The distance from her had only strengthened my dislike for her.Was I any better at standing up to her?Not really. Not like I wished I was.
The front door swung open as I stood there, and Clifford stepped outside. He clasped his hands behind his back, just waiting. Something like sadness settled in my stomach while I took in just how old he looked. It was subtle, but there were additional wrinkles around his eyes, a slight shift in his posture, more white in his hair. A sense of morbidity had me wondering just how much time we had left with him.
Time was a funny thing. Once you lost some of it, you became painfully aware of how easy it was to lose.
“Mr. Lowell,” Clifford greeted softly when I approached him.
“Just Harley,” I told him with a smile. “How are you, Clifford?”
“Oh, I’m good, Sir,” he replied, and I bit back the urge to correct him. I knew that was my mother’s doing. If she was within earshot, I didn’t want him to get in trouble. “I prepared your room for you. How long will you be staying?”
“Not long, I suppose,” I said.Truthfully, I didn’t know.I was here to mourn the loss of my father, and my mother was busy making plans for me. Business meetings and lunches. People I justhadto meet. Connections I justhadto make.
There was no escaping the fact that the family business would start transitioning to me. I didn’t want it, but I didn’t have a choice. It was everything my father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather had built. I couldn’t throw that away, and she’d make sure I didn’t.
In silence, I followed Clifford through the house as if I needed him to show me where my room was. I didn’t. While I hadn’t been home in five years, not a damn thing had changed. It was like stepping back in time.
That single thought made my heart ache.The house may have been the same, but I couldn’t help wondering what had changed in Wilde Bay.
Whohad changed?
Thoughts of Maverick were the only thing that kept me looking forward to this trip. I hadn’t seen him or even talked to him in five years—my whole damn family had made sure of it—but I wanted to. With every fiber of my being, I wanted to see him, even though I wasn’t sure he’d want to see me.And I couldn’t exactly blame him for that.
As a twenty-three-year-old adult, sneaking out of my mother’s house was ridiculous, but I did it. The last thing I wanted was her asking about it. Her feelings about Maverick had been made clear five years ago. I wasn’t about to bring all of that back up again, not at a time like this.
Instead, I took to sneaking out all over again and driving across town after she fell asleep. I avoided the downtown and tourist areas as I drove, sticking to backroads and winding roads. The earthy scent of the lake was thicker than I remembered, but I welcomed it nonetheless.And the quiet… it’d been a long time since I’d experienced this kind of quiet.It resonated deep. I forgot how much I craved it. Life had become a perpetual state of anxiety-inducing and overstimulating cluster sounds, smells, and interactions. Most days, I just floated through my routine.
I eased my car off on the side of the road and killed the engine. Driving into the trailer park was a bad idea. My car cost more than most of the trailers in there, and I wasn’t oblivious to thekind of people that lived there. Not all, but some, like Aidan Fox. The less attention I drew my way, the better.
It took me a while, but eventually I found my way to the spot where Maverick’s trailer was.Correction: had been.All I found was an empty slab of broken concrete covered in weeds.
I stood in the empty lot, defeated by his absence. That it wasn’tthateasy to find him. Some part of me should’ve expected this. My life had been a lot, and keeping in touch with Maverick had been an impossible task when everything I did was monitored. Had I really expected that nothing in Maverick’s life would have changed in my absence?
CHAPTER 16
maverick
