My whole body stiffens. “Don’t,” I plead mildly, shaking my head.

  “I’m not going to give you any shit, Jay. You know me better than that.” Uncle Warren drops back against the backrest again, giving me an unflinching look. “He understands why you want nothing to do with him. But when I talked about you, how you were doing, that’s when he looked and sounded the sanest. The most…there.”

  Clenching my jaw, I return his stare. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.

  My uncle is visibly upset, though—upset and agitated. Which is understandable. So I soften my voice and say, “Are you okay?”

  “Yup. It is what it is. We’ve had a long time to prepare for today.” He straightens and starts stuffing wrappers and napkins into our basket. “Kind of doesn’t feel like it, though. Stuff just creeps up on you, you know?”

  I bob my head in agreement.

  And then we get up to go, throwing away our trash before we push our way out the doors.

  My watch face shows two thirty. Less than four hours until six p.m.

  Back in the car, I ask my uncle what he wants to do next, and without hesitating he says, “The beach.”

  With me giving him directions, we take surface streets west toward Huntington Beach. While he leisurely steers the Corvette down the road from one red light to another, passing residential neighborhoods and strip malls and parks and schools, we discuss the practicalities of what happens after tonight. He tells me he’s flying back to Texas tomorrow afternoon and will be claiming my dad’s body and making burial arrangements.

  Not once can I detect any hint that he thinks I should be involved, that I’m somehow shirking a responsibility by refusing to step up and help. Still, I’m having some pangs of guilt—for my uncle’s sake, anyway.

  I’m pretty sure that if it weren’t for me, Uncle Warren would be in Texas today, to witness. He’d feel obliged to put himself through that, but instead he’s here with me. The significance of that is not lost on me. In fact, that knowledge is churning in my gut, and my chest is tight with the love I have for this man. The day I get to go work with him can’t come soon enough.

  After arriving at our destination, we leave the car in the parking lot by the pier. Since neither of us came prepared to jump in the water, my uncle suggests we rent bicycles and ride the trail along the beach. Which is fine with me, and to the sound of the crashing surf and the screeching of seagulls and squealing children on the busy beach, we stroll the short distance down the boardwalk from the pier to the small rental shop, where we pick up a couple of beach cruisers.

  “So your dad asked if you have a girl,” Uncle Warren says without warning right after we start pedaling down the paved path with the golden sand and the ocean on our left side and cars rolling down the Pacific Coast Highway on our right. “I didn’t know the answer to that.”

  My stomach cramps, and I tighten my grip on my handlebars.

  I did have a girl. But I wasn’t right for her. And I knew that.

  “I don’t,” I answer, struggling to sound casual, unemotional.

  My uncle gives me a sideways glance. “Why the hell not?”

  Yeah. Going into the truth of that is way too complicated, so instead I try to blow him off with, “Haven’t found one?”

  “Give me a fucking break,” he scoffs, and apparently his irritation makes him pedal faster, because he shoots ahead of me.

  I pump my legs to catch up. Okay, so maybe I’ll try something a little closer to the truth. “Guess I just don’t have the time.”

  He throws me another quick look while we coast down a slight incline. “Don’t make work your whole life, Jay. Take it from someone who knows.”

  Surprised, I clamp my mouth shut, and we both stay silent for a while as our beach cruisers carry us smoothly down the beachside path. The sun has crested and begun its slow descent toward the horizon, and the smell of saltwater and seaweed blends with the exhaust fumes from the highway.

  This is the first time I’ve heard Uncle Warren voice anything resembling dissatisfaction with the choices he’s made. I guess I’ve just assumed he was content with dedicating his life to his job, and that made complete sense to me, because it’s tough and all-consuming work that’s extremely important and, according to my uncle, highly rewarding.

  But now he’s suggesting that maybe it’s not worth it? That news is like a punch in the nose, and I’m feeling as dazed as if he’d done just that.

  Something compels me to offer up another dose of honesty. “Okay, so there was a girl, but it didn’t work out.”

  Uncle Warren widens his eyes at me. “Again: why the hell not?”

  I take a second to mull over my answer. “A serious relationship doesn’t really fit in my plans right now.”

  “And if you decided to stay here instead?” His head swivels back and forth as he alternates watching the path and watching me. “Would she fit then?”

  Would she?

  That’d depend on Mia, I suppose. Because the truth is, I have no clue how she really feels about me. I only know what she told me, which can simply be summarized as: I was her best friend, she was attracted to me, the sex was great, but she didn’t want a boyfriend.

  Which I’m convinced is mainly because she still has feelings for Fuckface.

  If that’s all there is to her feelings for me, then she’s not worth even considering changing my plans for the future over. I’ve been telling myself that for weeks now, but for some reason, I’m not being convincing.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed her away. Maybe I should’ve fought harder to find a way to keep her. It’s a struggle to swallow past the sudden tightness in my throat.

  Realizing my uncle is arching his eyebrows at me, still waiting for a response, I give myself a mental shake. And reluctantly admit, “Possibly.”

  “Then you make it work regardless.”

  Well, that’s pretty easy for him to say, isn’t it? “I’m not going to ask her to wait for me. That’s not fair, to either of us.”

  “Uh-huh,” Uncle Warren fires back in a tone like that was exactly what he expected me to say. “I asked a girl to wait. She said she would. But she didn’t.”

  He’s kind of proving my point, isn’t he? I have enough sense not to say that aloud, instead asking, “So if you could do it again, what would you do?”

  “I’d marry her and take her with me,” he answers right away, apparently not needing to even think about it.

  Take her with me.

  Something shifts inside me. It’s as if my perspective does a one-eighty and goes from fuzzy to focused.

  Mia could go with me. She’s a nurse. And especially if she got her midwife certification, Relief International would be thrilled to have her. Midwives are always needed in the areas where they operate.

  Well, hell.

  “Tell you what else I would’ve done differently,” my uncle suddenly adds, watching the path ahead instead of me, “after all that shit went down and especially when you got into all that trouble…I should’ve stayed.”

  What? No. I frown at him, stunned and confused by his words. Sure, it would’ve been nice if he’d stayed after he came home to help straighten me out. Actually, it would’ve been great to have him around, especially if he’d convinced my mom to let me live with him, which probably wouldn’t have taken much effort.

  But still. He shouldn’t have to feel bad about that.

  “I wasn’t your responsibility,” I point out.

  “Yeah, you were,” he insists. “Who else was there? Sure as hell not your mom.”

  Okay. True. But still…“I think I turned out okay. And I have you to thank for that. You did enough to make a huge difference.”

  “Well.” My uncle squints out at the water, which sparkles like diamonds in the sunlight. “I’m just saying. Sucks to live with regret. Don’t be that guy.”

  Yeah. Message received.

  “Got it,” I grind out, because I do get it. I’m just not sure what to do about it.

  Is it too late? Does she want me back? Am I right for her?

  “Beat you to that guard tower up there,” Uncle Warren says, pointing ahead, and then I have to scramble to even keep up as he takes off, pedaling at full speed.

  My heart starts hammering, my adrenaline surging, and my legs are pumping so fast that my muscles scream in protest, because there’s just no way I’m losing a bike race to a guy almost twice my age.

  Yeah, it definitely would’ve been nice to have him around.

  It’s about five thirty when we return the bikes to the rental shop, and my uncle isn’t ready to leave yet, so I follow him as he strolls down to the beach. We take off our shoes and walk barefoot in the warm and grainy sand, walking in silence. I know what time it is, he knows what time it is, and we have nothing to say right now.

  We reach an empty turquoise lifeguard tower, and my uncle starts climbing the ladder. He’s definitely not supposed to do that, but so the hell what? Without hesitation, I climb up after him. There’s no one nearby except an older couple out for a stroll down by the water; all the surfers and swimmers still around are a way down the beach, closer to the pier.

  We sit down in the opening of the railing that faces the ocean, our feet dangling over the edge. The sun still burns bright in our faces while we sit there watching the vast and beautiful Pacific from behind our sunglasses. And it hits me with a twinge that I’m going to miss this. I’ve lived here all my life, and I doubt any other place will ever feel like home.

  I look at my watch. It’s almost six p.m. While I keep my eyes fixed on it, the second hand ticks and ticks, steadily approaching the hour. When it gets there, I hold my breath, expecting…what? I have no idea.

  Nothing changes. My uncle and I still sit there in silence, watching the surf as it washes onto the beach in a rush of white foam before retreating again. How many other people would I be comfortable doing that with? Just sitting here like this, saying nothing?

  Probably only him.

  Maybe Mia.

  What is she doing right now? How is she holding up, and does she ever think about me? I want to make sure she’s okay. With sharp, stabbing sensations in my chest, I’m wishing she were here right now.

  A hard rock song starts playing, the sound of it muffled, and it takes me a second to figure out that it’s an instrumental version of the chorus from Bon Jovi’s “Bad Medicine” and that it’s coming from my uncle’s cell phone. After digging it out of his pocket, he looks at the screen and lets it ring a few moments before he taps the green button and lifts the phone up to his ear.

  He answers with his name, and then he goes quiet, a crease between his eyebrows.

  I grip the warm metal railing next to me, grip it hard and keep my eyes averted from my uncle while he listens and sometimes responds to the person on the other end with short affirmatives. Okay. Yup. Mhmm.

  “Sure,” he says eventually. “Hang on a second.”

  He presses the Mute button on his phone. Lets out an audible breath. And then he looks me in the eye and says, “It’s done.”

  Dumbly, I nod.

  “Apparently he mentioned you in his last words, and his lawyer would like to tell you about it himself.” Uncle Warren holds out his phone to me. When I flinch and hesitate, my face prickling with apprehension, he quietly states, “You don’t have to.”

  My arm feels disconnected from my body, moving independently of me as I reach out and accept the cell phone from him. It’s heavier than it looks, and I clench my fist around it, my hand trembling.

  Tapping to unmute it, I lift the small device up to my ear and say, “Hello?”

  “Hi, Jay, this is John Beatty, your father’s attorney,” comes the deep voice on the other end. He talks fast and with a hint of a Texas drawl.

  “Okay,” is all I can think to reply.

  “He asked me to tell you something. These were literally his last words; he didn’t say anything else after this. I wrote it down, so here it is verbatim.” The lawyer pauses for a second, and I hold my breath. “He said, ‘Tell my son, Jay, that I love him, that I’m proud of him, and that he was the best thing I ever did. I wish I could’ve caught more foul balls for him.’”

  It’s like someone hit me in the chest with a sledgehammer. My vision goes blurry. Even though my tongue feels thick and stuck to the roof of my mouth, I’m somehow able to mumble out a hasty “Thank you” before thrusting the phone back at my uncle. I hear him saying something else into the phone, but it sounds like he’s far away and almost out of earshot.

  The knot in my throat and burning pressure behind my eyes are suddenly just there—rushing over me and knocking me down, and then my shoulders are shaking as I stop breathing, silent shudders ripping through me.

  Doubling over, I feel like I step outside my body, relinquishing control. It’s like I’m being shredded at the cellular level, my body fragmenting into tiny pieces. Each wave of agony starts deep in my core before shooting up my spine, and I can’t stop it, can barely even hang on to the railing to keep myself from tumbling off the guard tower into the sand below.

  My uncle grabs the back of my neck and squeezes. He keeps his hand there, and I can hear him sniffling, know he’s hurting, too, probably more than I am. He’s mourning the little brother he grew up with. To me, Darrell Miller was a father who was hardly ever around. I worshipped him. But I didn’t really know him.

  Eventually, the tears dry. I straighten my back again, and for a while I sit there, only breathing. My head feels empty, drained, and numb.

  “There’s just something about the sunsets here,” Uncle Warren says, his voice hoarse and moist. His hand shifts away from my neck to rest on my shoulder.

  Through swollen and throbbing eyes, I squint out at sea, where the sun is hanging low in the sky, casting a pink-and-orange light around the smatterings of clouds, making them look like an oil painting. Pretty soon the sun will sink all the way down and then behind the horizon, and it’ll be a fiery and beautiful spectacle.

  “You crashing on my couch tonight?” I ask, clearing my throat.

  “I don’t know,” he says, pushing off the edge so that he lands softly on the sand a short way below. “Let’s go get drunk and see where the evening takes us, huh? Maybe we’ll get lucky. I could really go for some California pussy right now. It’s been way too long.”

  Oh, Jesus. For a moment, I’m just blinking at him. Then I let out an exasperated breath with a hint of laughter. “Stay classy, old man.”

  “Always, buddy,” he fires back, grinning at me. “Always.”

  Chapter 27

  Mia

  Hugging a throw pillow, I’m sitting on the wicker love seat in my parents’ gazebo, where I had that conversation with Grandma the morning after she told us. The sun went down about an hour ago, but I’ve turned on the lamps in the ceiling fan that’s whirring above me—though two out of the three bulbs have burned out and need to be replaced, so the light it sheds is weak and murky.

  After the funeral this afternoon, my parents hosted a catered dinner for family and a few of my grandmother’s closest friends. It was a nice get-together, where, of course, stories about Grandma dominated the conversation.

  But it’s been a long-ass day of socializing, and I’m exhausted. It’s understandable why some people keep funerals a private affair. While it was nice to see how many people cared enough about my grandma—and my family in general, I guess—to show up, it made me feel like we were putting our mourning on display. And now I’m empty, emotionally drained, my mind numb from it all.

  I’m sitting here contemplating how to move forward with my life. I feel like I’m stuck in a rut and need to make a big change. What that means, I’m not sure. Maybe I should seriously consider moving back up here instead of only thinking about it whenever the whim strikes and never committing one way or another.

  Is there anything keeping me in SoCal anymore? I definitely don’t feel married to my job. Getting out of bed in the morning has been a drag lately, and that’s not just because of all the crap going on in my personal life. No, I’m having a hard time getting excited about the work nowadays. I feel…discontent.

  A few months ago—and for years before that—I would’ve been reluctant to leave because of Jay, even though I might not have admitted that was the reason.

  Until this afternoon, I thought that deterrent was gone. Until our talk that left me light-headed and bewildered.

  I wanted to see you.

  My chest tightens painfully at the memory of everything he said to me. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I spotted him inside the church, but even after such a long time without him, instead of my heart surging at the sight of him, I only felt dazed.

  Because it’s been three damn months with no sign of life from him after he made it so gut-wrenchingly clear we were done, and it had finally started to sink in that he meant it. That he really didn’t want to ever see me again.

  So why wouldn’t his presence at my grandmother’s funeral cause surprise and confusion?

  A breathless longing shudders through me at the thought of the burning look in his eyes that made me remember his hands and his lips and his tongue on my skin. Instead of annoyance, his possessive jealousy of Aaron Mitchell now sparks a thrill in my blood, because while I was talking to Aaron, it occurred to me that Jay wouldn’t care anymore.

  And then, there he was. And he did care.

  But so what that he kissed me—and that it was so hot and sweet, and that I didn’t want it to end?

  So what if he said I’m not going anywhere in that pointed tone of voice, as if the meaning of those words ran far deeper than I dared to hope?

  And so what if it seemed like maybe he’s had a change of mind?

  Because I’m not sure how I feel about that. Not sure that he didn’t break me, crush me so badly that no matter what he says or does, he can’t put me back together again.

  Which is why I was relieved that I didn’t see him after the service ended and even more relieved that my meddling sister didn’t invite him to come back to my parents’ house for dinner. I just can’t deal with this stuff right now. It’s too much.

 

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