“Huh.” He continues to eat.
“So… You’re going to live with your dad in the beach house, right?”
“He’s my uncle.”
“Oh. That’s nice.” I’ve never met someone before who lives with their uncle. I need to tread carefully.
“Are you thirsty? Can I get you a glass of water?”
“Nah.”
Mom would know exactly what to say—she’s a great hostess. If only she was home! I try to make my voice soft, like hers. “You’ll like it here. This is a nice town, actually. And there’s a great little cove by the beach. I can show you one day.”
He just nods. God, but he’s silent! No one in my class at school is this quiet. Maybe something is wrong with him. He shovels another spoonful of cereal into his mouth, and I notice his hands.
“Why do you have so many Band-Aids?”
Hayden’s eyes grow guarded. “I cut myself.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
I take my empty bowl to the sink and try to think. He’s silent. He’s a boy. And he looks pretty… well, disheveled. I know that my mom wouldn’t let my brothers wear a shirt that’s the wrong size, like his, which hangs awkwardly from his shoulders.
I feel a sudden and very heavy responsibility to be the perfect host. Dad is handling the business side—I’ll handle the boy.
“Have you ever played Nintendo?”
His head snaps up. “Once or twice.”
“Do you wanna play?”
“Yeah.”
“All right,” I say, heading for the staircase. “Let’s go.”
An hour later, when Hayden’s uncle comes to fetch him, they find us sound asleep on the couch in the basement, the TV still on.
4
Lily
The present
“Lily! Get in here!”
I roll my eyes at Turner’s voice. “I’ll take my sweet time, thank you very much.”
“No, you won’t. Have you forgotten that I’m your boss?”
“Actually, your father is. Technically speaking he’s both of our bosses.”
Startled laughter sounds from his glass office. “That was a low blow. I’m eating your lunch too as retaliation.”
“No, no, I’m coming!” I close my laptop and hurry across the ten feet that separates our offices. Turner is sitting at his conference table, two poke bowls on the table. A sparkling water for me and a diet soda for him.
“You work too hard,” he chides. “Decompress.”
“Well, we have to work hard. The Anderson deadline is in five days.”
“It’s almost ready, Lily. You’ve done an outstanding job with the decor, not to mention the landscaping. It passed the house inspection with flying colors.”
I nod at his words, poking at my raw salmon. He’s right. But even so, the Anderson development is the first house I’ve been running lead on since I was hired at Turner’s family company. Property development was never my dream, but I took enough architecture classes in college to understand the basics—not to mention the decor part.
It’s exhilarating, the mix of responsibility and teamwork that goes into building. It had made Dad happy too. Yet another one of the Marchand kids choosing his profession.
“Thanks.” I shoot him a smile. “It’s a thrill, isn’t it? Building?”
Turner nods. “The biggest. You can spend years on a project, slogging over every detail, but then at the end, when you walk through the finished house…”
“Finally seeing your masterpiece complete,” I say, thinking of Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel that took him four years to paint. Studying art history in college hadn’t exactly paid off, according to my dad, but it had been some of the best years of my life.
“I’ll let my father know you called his developments around the marina masterpieces,” Turner says. “You’ll become more popular with the old man than you already are.”
I chuckle. “Flatterer. I already know I got this job because of you.”
“Okay, so maybe I put in a good word or two. But trust me, the board was in complete agreement.”
“Thanks for letting me know.”
“Of course.” He nods at the ginger in my bowl. “Still avoiding that?”
“Yep. Here.” I push my lunch toward him, and Turner carefully picks out the pieces with his chopsticks. If someone would have told teenage me that I’d one day be working closely with Turner Harris, the school’s ultimate jock and my brother’s dickish friend, I’d have laughed in their face. But things changed, I suppose. Once, I dreamed my future would be spent as Mrs. Hayden Cole and running my own art gallery.
“So,” Turner says, focusing on opening his packet of soy sauce. “I’m taking Catalina out tomorrow night. She needs to stretch her sails a bit.”
“The wind should be good. You and Parker?”
“I haven’t asked him yet, actually. I was thinking if you wanted to join…”
“Me?”
“Yeah.” He grins. “You haven’t sailed in a bit, but I’m sure you remember how to. You guys went sailing all the time growing up.”
We did, but I’m still not sure if I know the knots. My leg, too… I healed great after the accident all those years ago, and there’s no real pain left, but my leg still won’t always co-operate. There’s just a faint limp that lingers and sometimes it locks up. If the backstay fails, or if we get caught in downward wind, there’s a chance I won’t be able to pull my weight.
“We did,” I say. “Thanks, but I think I’ll stay landlocked tomorrow. I think I need a refresher course before I can play skipper again.”
“That’s probably a good choice,” he teases. “I wouldn’t want you to get seasick all over Catalina’s shiny new deck.”
“Ew, Turner.” I shake my head at him. “I’m not a complete novice.”
“No, you’re not.” He smiles at me, and it feels laden with more meaning than usual. “Are you going to the Maze Party this weekend?”
“Yes. The whole family is going, actually. I’m sure the Harrises are attending?”
He gives a nod. “My parents will be there, yeah. But I was thinking… how about we go together?”
I’m momentarily confused. The Maze Party is Paradise Shores’ biggest event in the summer. A garden party hosted on the lawns down by the beach, filled to the brim with familiar faces and cocktails. There’s a small maze, constructed for the children, which gives the party its name. It’s practically an institution. Turner and I had been there at the same time on several occasions over the years.
But now he wanted us to…
“Together, together?” I ask stupidly. “Like a date?”
He cocks his head, a faint blush on his cheeks. “If you want to, yes. Or as good friends, as co-workers. I enjoy spending time with you.”
My immediate instinct is to turn him down. It’s a bad idea for about a hundred different reasons. I’ve never been attracted to him, for starters. He’s also my brother’s friend. He was kind of a dick in high school.
And there’s a little voice whispering in my head, familiar and exasperating, saying that he’s not Hayden. Every time I think I’m ready to move on, I hear that voice.
I tell it to shut up.
“I’d love to,” I say.
* * *
You think you won’t get over pain, or betrayal, or loss, but you do.
You get up every morning and the sun still shines. The waves still crash against the shore in the distance, and your mom still makes you buttermilk pancakes. The world keeps spinning. And you find that you carry on, too.
After Hayden left, I ended up accepting an offer from Yale, and it was everything I wanted. It had art and design courses. Interesting student organizations, closeness to the city, a lively student council. Close enough to New York, and therefore also Rhys. A semester spent in Paris to study art at the Sorbonne and practice my French.
But it didn't have the seafood I loved.
It didn'
t have the beach and the ocean.
And it didn't have Hayden.
Not that he would’ve been there, even if he could. He'd made that perfectly clear. For years, no one had heard anything from him. He didn't show up in Paradise Shores. He wasn't active on social media, not that he ever really was to begin with.
Texting him that first month had been mildly humiliating. I'd sent text after text without getting a reply, not until one day, he texted back eight little words.
I'm going away for a while. Take care, Lily.
Nine words, actually, if you counted my name.
That was all I got. Rhys got even less, and Parker was just confused.
The one picture I got was through Hayden’s uncle, inadvertently. He’d showed it to my mom, who’d shown Henry, and somehow it had made its way to me.
It was Hayden in uniform. His thick, dark hair was gone, shaved close to the skull. A hat was tucked under his arm and he stood pin-straight, shoulders back. He was handsome, handsome in a foreign, adult way, in a way I’d only been able to imagine. He stared straight into the camera, eyes solemn and distant, giving nothing away. Was he happy in the military? Had he found his calling?
The man in the photograph gave me no answers, much like his real-life self.
So I put the photograph out of my mind and focused on making something of myself. I spent five years in New York, living across the hall from Rhys and working at one gallery after another. It got boring eventually, and I missed the ocean and my family. So I came back to Paradise Shores and ended up in Harris Property Development, my father’s rival. Now I have my own place close to the ocean and I spend nearly every weekend at the family house, making pancakes and eating family brunch.
It’s a good life—despite the Hayden-shaped hole in it. So what if I’d never considered Turner before? We were friendly. He was nice, and we laughed together. I’d made the completely right decision in accepting his suggestion for a date.
I would wear my white, lacey dress, my wedge heels, and I’d drink champagne and enjoy myself with Turner. No expectations, no fears.
Tonight, though, I’m snuggling alone on my couch with the TV on. There is no point in stressing about a date that was days away. There’s a new documentary about Italian art that I want to watch.
The show has just started when my phone chimes. It’s Parker.
Guess who’s coming to town this weekend? he sent. Hayden!
5
Hayden
Hayden, 11
“This is a nice place, isn’t it?”
I look around the beach house. We’ve already unpacked—it didn’t take us long. There’s a kitchenette and a living room with two large sofas. A gigantic bathroom with the largest shower I’ve ever seen. Technically there’s only one bedroom, but someone converted the large walk-in closet off the living room into a second one with a single bed.
The floors are hardwood, and giant windows open up straight onto the ocean. The sound of waves made it difficult to sleep the first few nights.
“Yes, I suppose.”
Gary shakes his head at me. “You’ll get used to it, kid. So will I.”
I guess I will. Gary and I have lived in worse places. And the years with my father before that, when it was just him and me… this would be nothing like that, compared to empty bottles everywhere and the sudden eruptions of violence.
“Where should we put her?” Gary is holding my mother’s picture, framed. “On the counter?”
“No,” I say with a frown. She would be staring at us eating.
Gary looks around. “The place isn’t that big, kid.”
I point to one of the windowsills. “How about there?”
He puts the picture in place and takes a few steps back, hands on his hips. “Perfect. She’ll be able to see the ocean, too.”
A smiling, blonde woman looks back at us. She died when I was five, and in my mind, she’s become a distant memory, a woman who smelled like vanilla and hugs. Gary doesn’t look anything like his sister, but he’s a good sort. He’s made sure her picture was set up in every place we’d stayed in.
“That’s good, right?”
“Yeah.” I head to the thick brochure on the counter. A giant brick building is on the front, students in uniforms sitting on the grass, laughing happily. “Paradise Shores Preparatory School?”
“That’s the one.” My uncle lifts the little clip-on tie that came with my uniform and turns it to and fro.
“Who names their town Paradise anyway? What kind of stupid name is that?”
Gary chuckles. “I know. This is… Hay, this is batshit crazy. But the school is good.”
“Who’s paying for this?”
“The Marchands. It’s a perk of the job.”
I run my hand over the pressed pants. They scream of money, of expensive fabric and high expectations. I have no idea what schools like this cost, but it has to be more than Gary makes. “That’s quite a perk.”
He reaches over and runs a hand through my hair, mussing it up.
“Stop.” I pat it down so it falls over my forehead.
“This’ll be good for us.”
“Sure.”
“All the Marchand kids go to that school. You can carpool in the morning.”
Right.
The Marchand kids.
There was Henry, the tallest and most self-important of the group. He’d reached over and shook my hand, as if he was an adult and not a fourteen-year-old with a cracking voice.
Rhys didn’t say much of anything, actually, but he’d looked me over from top to toe like he suspected me of carrying some foreign disease.
The blond boy my age, Parker, asked if I wanted to play lacrosse on the back lawn some time. I had said no. Lacrosse sounds awful.
There is an entire world between them and me, and no way to bridge it. I’m not even going to try. We sure as hell won’t be staying in Paradise Shores with their wrap-around porches and expensive preparatory schools long enough for me to get to know these kids.
“When?”
“They leave by seven thirty tomorrow. I spoke to Mrs. Marchand, and she’ll make sure there’s a spot for you.” Gary gives me an unusually serious look. “Be good in school.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, looking away. Be good. That was always the advice, everywhere we went. But it’s hard to act good when you don’t feel like you’re particularly good. Not that the youngest Marchand seemed to care about that at all.
Lily had looked at me with such curiosity that I felt like asking her if she wanted to take a picture instead. She’s kind, though. Better than her stupid brothers, even if she definitely asks too many questions.
She’s pretty brave, too. I’d seen her grab a live lobster by the tail and not flinch once as she tied its claws, saying that her father had taught her that. She had shown me her favorite climbing tree just a few days before. It was pretty tall, even if she was too old to climb trees. Lily hadn’t liked it when I said that. Her hair had been a fiery halo around her head, her freckled face contorted in a frown. What do you know? she’d hissed back at me. You’re probably just afraid of heights!
I had to climb the tree to show that I wasn’t, of course. If Lily noticed that my hands were shaking a bit when I came back down, she hadn’t mentioned it. Heights really weren’t my favorite thing.
But still. Lily is nice enough, for a Paradise Shores brat.
* * *
Lily, 13
Hayden reaches out. “Hand me the bucket.”
I give it to him, making sure that none of the saltwater tips out. “Did you find one?”
“No, but that is getting heavy by now.”
“I can carry it.”
“I know you can.” Hayden shoots me a pointed look. “But just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.”
I roll my eyes at the clear innuendo in his words. “Not from you, too!”
Hayden shakes his head so that the dark locks fly and reaches down in the shallows.
The tide is out, and there’s no better time to go mussel picking.
“I won’t. But at least tell me what you were actually trying to do.”
“I’ve already had this discussion with Rhys.”
“So have it again, with me.”
The water is cool against my ankles, soft wave after wave lapping against our legs. I haven’t seen Hayden in weeks, not since we left for our summer vacation to Europe, and this is what he wanted to discuss?
“How did you even find out?”
He shoots me another look. This time, his amber eyes are telling. Do you even need to ask?
“Parker should keep his mouth shut,” I grumble.
Hayden’s lip curls. “You’re stalling.”
“What have you heard exactly?”
“You got in a fight.”
I sigh. “It was so stupid. I was just trying to defend Henry.”
“I don’t think he needs defending.”
“Well, he did. One of our cousins said something… something stupid. And he had been annoying the entire week, stealing my pens and hiding them so I couldn’t draw, mocking me about my hair.”
Hayden’s eyes steal up to my braid. “Your hair?”
“Yeah. He said some stupid things about gingers. We’re not even that redhaired—Mom calls it auburn!”
“Idiot.”
“Exactly. So I punched him.”
Hayden’s grin is savage. “Nice, Lils.”
“Well, I thought so too. He deserved it. But I got in a lot of trouble.”
“I heard,” Hayden says, still grinning. He looks a bit wild, like he did when I saw him the first time, with too long hair and a too big T-shirt. Like he’s actually from some other place, where rules don’t apply to him. “Was it worth it?”
I think about it for a moment. “Yes. But it hurt like hell.”
Hayden sets the bucket down carefully, making sure to anchor it between two rocks. “Show me.”
Rogue: A Paradise Shores Novel Page 2