The Reality of Everything (Flight & Glory) Read online

  “It gets windy around here,” Steve remarked.

  “It’s an estimate, not a contract. A girl’s gotta keep her options open,” I quipped so quickly that I almost felt like me for a second.

  The edges of Steve’s mouth quirked up as he took notes. “Give me a couple days and I’ll get the estimates over to you.” He shook our hands, and when he got to mine, his gaze darted toward the truck, which I still hadn’t managed to get into the boathouse that would serve as its garage. I’d tried twice after the moving company had unloaded her but couldn’t bring myself to open the driver’s door. “Something that big can be a little impractical out here on the islands unless you’re in my line of work. Any chance you’re looking to unload it? I’d give you a fair price.”

  My heart galloped, and every hint of sass that had risen to my surface since the Hello Kitty incident sank like a block of cement in that huge ocean behind me.

  “She’s not for sale.” The words came out in a strained half whisper.

  “Okay, well, if you change your mind.” He turned to talk to Jackson about some upcoming festival or something I immediately tuned out.

  I pivoted to look at my house, barely registering when Jackson left for his own.

  Once Joey started up the stairs, I followed, pausing on the piece of plywood I’d cut myself with the new saw she had recommended I purchase this morning from the only hardware store on the island.

  Sure, it was a little loose and undeniably imperfect, but it was proof I could do this. I’d be okay when Sam left in a few days. I could repair this house. Repair myself.

  Jackson and Finley raced down the stairs of their house with battle cries, and I looked up in time to see Finley hit Jackson square in the chest with a spray from her massive water gun.

  “Ha! Got ya!” she shouted.

  He fell to his knees in the sand, exaggerating his death for a moment before spraying her legs when she came in for a second shot.

  She squealed, taking off through the backyard, and he quickly followed over the dune to the beach.

  I smiled at how happy they were. It was as simple as that. Sam was right; here, there were no expectations on how long it took me to recover myself. Here, I could have a moment where I missed Will like hell and still smile a breath later. No one was judging.

  Here, I could fix my stair— Wait.

  The board didn’t shift those centimeters when I moved my feet like it had this morning. I peered closer and saw that there were a few screws next to the nails I’d hammered in. Screws I knew I hadn’t used, because I didn’t own a drill. Yet.

  Maybe Joey had guaranteed my handiwork while I’d gone to see Dr. Circe. It would make sense, seeing as she knew way more about building stuff than I did.

  I climbed to the deck and looked out over the beach, past the shadows creeping toward the ocean from the late-afternoon sun.

  As Finley sprinted into the water, Jackson ran behind her, grasping her waist and spinning her low enough for her toes to skim the water. I heard her laughter and felt it echo in my chest, somewhere in the vicinity of where I used to think my heart was. I wanted to be that happy, to find joy in…something.

  He turned in my direction, and I knew it was impossible—the distance was too great—but I could have sworn our eyes locked and held for a moment.

  And as certain as I was that he’d catch Finley when he tossed her up in the air, I knew he’d secured the board.

  But it didn’t make me feel infantilized or undermined.

  Oh no, it was worse than that.

  It made me feel protected, and that scared the crap out of me. But that little spark of yearning I felt as I watched Jackson and Finley play in the ocean? That was terrifying.

  …

  “Maybe it makes me a bitch, but I’m kind of glad everyone left yesterday.” Sam handed me a cup of coffee and sat across from me the next day, stretching her legs out in front of her on the sun-warmed deck.

  “Thanks,” I said and took a sip. “I am, too. I mean, I’m glad they came, and I’m thankful, but I’ve gotten used to quiet.” Once Sam had moved out, I hadn’t taken another roommate. I’d grown to crave the silent hours I had at home.

  “Do you want me to go? I absolutely can,” Sam offered.

  “No, please stay. It’s different being around you.” The wind ruffled the spiral notebook pages next to me.

  “I can stay longer, too, you know.” She tilted her face at the sun. “If you need someone—I’m here. I don’t start grad school until the fall, and it’s not like Grayson is waiting for me at home in Colorado.”

  I flinched. She was two months into his first deployment. Will hadn’t survived his first two weeks. “How are you holding it all together so well?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m not. I miss him like hell, and there’s not a second that I’m not scared shitless. I guess I just hide it well. Military brat and all that.”

  I reached across the distance between us and took her hand. “You’re the strongest woman I know, Sam.”

  “Look in the mirror sometime.” She stared at me in that way she had, forcing me to accept her words as truth, but I felt anything but strong. “You’re going to be happy again. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but one day. You know that, right?”

  I didn’t mention Dr. Circe. Her offer was ludicrous…right? But what if it wasn’t? What if there was a real chance that I didn’t have to feel like this for the rest of my life?

  But seeing how my luck ran, I was probably one of the 30 percent.

  “Maybe I’m one of those people who doesn’t get to be happy. Maybe my chance for happy died with Will.”

  “I don’t believe that,” she whispered.

  “Happy people never do.”

  …

  The sun had barely turned the sky pink over the ocean when I woke the next morning. That same sense of dread hit me that I had to get up, had to move through my day, had to pretend. The heaviness of it all was unbearable.

  I rolled over on my queen-size mattress and stared at the dark screen of my sleeping laptop. One click, that’s all it would take. One click and I’d see him again, and for those seconds, everything would be all right. My heart lurched, longing for that ten-minute eternity where he was still alive. But I wouldn’t stay for only ten minutes.

  All it would take was that first click—the sound of his voice—and I wouldn’t leave this bed all day. Some days I won. Some days I lost. Today was a coin toss, and I needed to call it in the air.

  You’re going to be happy again. Sam’s words from yesterday rang in my ears.

  But there wasn’t any happiness for me outside the video I’d seen thousands of times. I rubbed my chest, like that would somehow take away the pain, but it never left.

  Why wasn’t I okay when everyone else was?

  How long could I possibly live like this, fighting with myself over Will’s memory before I even got out of bed?

  I know we can lessen some of the pain you’re in.

  But Dr. Circe couldn’t. Or could she?

  But what would happen if I tried her way and failed? Nothing could possibly feel worse than you do now. And then there was the unthinkable: What would happen if I tried her way and it…worked?

  Was there honestly a chance? Probably not. I tried to squash the tiny flame of hope that had flared to life in my chest, but it kept whispering maybe.

  I ran my finger along the top of my laptop. Will would have called me all sorts of names for not having the courage to try. He would want me to try. He would have wanted me to watch that video once, not use it as a lullaby for twenty-two months. He would have wanted me to get out of bed and try, even if I failed.

  Maybe I couldn’t be as happy as Jackson and Finley, spinning around in the ocean, but maybe…just maybe I could hurt a little less.

  I slammed my laptop closed.
My feet hit the floor, and five minutes later, I turned the key in the ignition of my Mini Cooper—still dressed in my pajamas. By six twenty-five, I was parked outside Dr. Circe’s office.

  She arrived at seven fifteen, her eyes flying wide when she found me sitting on the wooden steps that led to her office.

  “I don’t want to feel like this for the rest of my life,” I admitted before she could ask me what the hell I was doing there.

  “You don’t have to,” she said softly, moving her bag to her other shoulder and sitting next to me on the step.

  “You really, honestly think you can help me?”

  She reached over and took my hand. “I do. Now do you think you can find someone to be your support person? This really works better with one.”

  I nodded, a slight smile curving my lips. “Yeah. I just need to buy a few cases of peppermint mocha coffee creamer as bribery before I ask her.”

  Chapter Four

  Jackson

  “Hey, Jax, Connor is looking for the volleyball,” Cassidy told me, flipping her blond hair over her shoulder. “Oh, hi, Brie.”

  Brie gave her a half wave from where she stood, leaned back against my kitchen counter. So much like Claire. And yet the two couldn’t have been more different. They’d been Irish twins—Claire older by eleven months—but Brie had always acted like the older sister.

  “It’s in the garage, second shelf, right-hand side. And tell your husband the NA beer is in this one; I know he’s on call tonight,” I told Cassidy before pouring the bag of ice into the cooler. The heat wave had weekend temps pushing eighty, which meant it was time for the first Sunday barbecue of the season.

  “Man, it’s weird to be here when Finley isn’t,” Brie said, swinging a bag of beach towels over her shoulder.

  “Yeah, but it’s your mom’s weekend, and I know how they both live for it.” Finley adored her grandmother. Hell, we both did. Vivian filled the massive shoes left empty not just by Claire but by the three other grandparents Fin was missing.

  “How’s the new nanny working out?”

  “So far, so good. I know your mom wasn’t keen on Fin spending so much time with a stranger—”

  “Look, Jax, your job is utterly unpredictable. You never know if you’ll get a call or if a shift will run late. You have no say in what happens out there.” She motioned toward the ocean. “Mom’s not taking care of her diabetes the way she should, and she’s getting older. She’s not up for those late-night drop-offs anymore. You absolutely did the right thing hiring Sarah.”

  I closed the lid on the cooler. “She still pissed about it?”

  Brie cringed. “Well, she did go off on Claire for a good twenty minutes this morning.”

  My stomach cramped. “Claire’s here?”

  “Oh no!” Brie’s eyebrows shot up. “I meant on the phone. They still talk every Saturday.”

  My jaw flexed, and I bit back every remark that came to mind, like how fucking ludicrous it was that Claire talked to her mother every week when she hadn’t bothered to call Finley in the last two months. “How is she?” I managed to ask.

  It wasn’t Brie’s fault that Claire was…well, Claire.

  “She’s good. Still in L.A. waiting to see if the last pilot she did gets picked up.”

  “Pilot. Right.” How many was that now?

  “She really does miss Finley. You, too, of course.” Her lips pressed into a thin line.

  “Yeah, misses her so much that she’s seen her once in the last eight months.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to calm the ever-present rage that boiled to my surface whenever I thought about the way Claire treated Fin. “You know what? Let’s not do this.”

  Brie forced a quick smile. “Good idea. Let’s get down to the barbecue,” she suggested, moving to hold the door open.

  “Yeah, let’s get out there.” I latched the cooler and lifted its hefty weight, then headed out of the house and down the stairs with Brie following close behind.

  My gaze caught on the massive F250 parked outside Morgan’s boathouse. Sam—her last houseguest—had left two days ago, and I hadn’t seen the truck or her Mini Cooper budge.

  None of your business.

  Except I’d gone and made it my business the minute I’d rescued her over a week ago. But what the hell else was I supposed to have done, left her stranded with her Hello Kitties blowing in the breeze, half in and half out of her staircase?

  Maybe if she hadn’t fallen through the wood, if Fin hadn’t heard her yell, if I hadn’t raced out there to dislodge her, I would have had a prayer’s chance of ignoring my new neighbor.

  Sure, until you saw her or heard her speak.

  Yeah, there was nothing ignorable about Morgan Bartley, which was really damned inconvenient.

  Not that I was going to act on that attraction. Hell no, my life was complicated enough without messing around with someone I had to see on a daily basis. Morgan was off-limits, which didn’t really matter, because something told me she wasn’t emotionally available, anyway, even if she had called me pretty.

  “Thanks for inviting me,” Brie said, jarring me from my thoughts as we reached the ground. “You saved me from tagging along to the shipwreck museum for the hundredth time.”

  “You’re Finley’s aunt—you’re always invited,” I reminded her for the thousandth time since we brought Fin home from the hospital.

  I paused by the wooden gate that separated my backyard from the path to the dune and looked up at Morgan’s house, unable to let go of the nagging feeling in my chest that I needed to check on her.

  “Need a hand?” Sawyer asked as he came up behind me, the volleyball under his arm.

  “Nawh, I’m good,” I told him.

  “You sure? You look a little scrawny to handle that.” He motioned to the cooler.

  “Fuck off.” I spent a hell of a lot of my downtime at work running and lifting, refusing to give into the dad bod, as Sawyer once implied. “You can barely handle that ball.”

  “Speaking of which, you ready to get your ass kicked?”

  “Never going to happen.” I smirked at my best friend. Movement in Morgan’s window caught my eye, and my attention drifted to her house—to her—again. Had she seen sunlight since her friend left? “You know what? Why don’t you take Brie to the party? I’ll be there in a second.”

  “No problem—”

  “I can wait for you—”

  I put the cooler down by the edge of the deck. “Brie, go ahead. I’m going to invite my new neighbor over. Go have some fun.”

  Brie rolled her eyes at Sawyer’s offered arm and took off up the path.

  “Prickly as a cactus, that one,” Sawyer remarked as she disappeared over the dune. “I swear she hates everyone but you and Fin.”

  “Nope. Just you. And she’s family, which Fin is in short supply of.”

  “She coming back tonight?” he asked. “Kinda miss your little urchin.”

  Sawyer acted all tough until faced with a certain redhead. Then he was pretty much butter, just like every other guy we worked with.

  “Tomorrow. It’s Vivian’s weekend, and it’s a three-day weekend for the preschool.”

  “Seriously? We could hit up McGinty’s tonight and catch the end-of-spring-break crowd, or you could break your not-in-my-house rule for one of the ladies currently stripping down to their bikinis. Over the dune. Fifty feet away. While we stand here. Where we can’t see said bikinis.” He raised his eyebrows.

  “One, I never break the house rule. My daughter lives in that house, jackass. Two, I’ll be there in a second.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Okay, you go invite your new neighbor, and I’ll see you down there. You sure you don’t want me to bring the cooler down? I’d hate for you to injure your back. Old age is a bitch.”

  “You’re exactly two months younger than I am,�
� I reminded him.

  “I figure Finley’s aged you at least a year for every one of hers, so that makes you five years older. Right? She just turned five? Man, you’ll be pushing forty soon if you don’t watch it.”

  “I can’t wait until you have kids so I can dish all of this shit right back at you,” I called as he headed up the path.

  “Never going to happen!” he retorted and disappeared toward the party. A steady beat dropped as Imagine Dragons came on the speakers. At least Garrett got those working.

  I took a steadying breath for the battle that was no doubt about to ensue with Morgan and crossed the yard to her stairs. Pausing on the landing, I bounced a little, testing it. Good, the screws had held.

  No doubt she’d give me shit for sticking my nose in where it didn’t belong, and she’d be absolutely correct. I had zero right interfering with her contractor, her staircase, or her life in general.

  That hadn’t seemed to stop me, though.

  It wasn’t her looks that had me climbing her stairs. It was that smile that didn’t reach her eyes. It was the way the other girls had moved closer, flanking her as if they knew she was one step away from crumbling. The way she’d gone white as a ghost when Steve had asked her about selling the truck. The way she stood on her deck in the mornings and stared out at the ocean with sad eyes and her arms wrapped around her waist while I drank my coffee unnoticed on my own.

  That girl had some damage, and it ran deep.

  Like calls to like.

  But when I riled her up, a spark lit in her eyes, which told me she wasn’t completely broken.

  I knocked on her door and waited. About two minutes later, I did it again. Another minute went by, and I knocked harder. My overactive imagination pictured her lying injured somewhere.