my lips. I’m on unsteady ground, and not sure how much to say. “My dad…he was always kind of the odd man out, you know? I think he felt that way, at least.”
“Are you guys close?”
To that asshole? No way. I swallow the truth and try for a nonchalant shrug. “Ish. You know how it is.”
“I do. Especially lately.” Rain starts spattering against the window next to us, and Aubrey cups her hand against it to peer outside. “Do you think she’ll meet us at the dock?”
“Milly?” I ask. “What, you think she found better company till then?” Here’s hoping.
“No,” Aubrey says, laughing a little. “Gran.”
The laugh catches me off guard. Aubrey and I are getting comfortable with one another, and that’s not good. In the words of every reality contestant ever: I’m not here to make friends. “Yeah, right,” I snort. “She never even bothered to send a follow-up letter.”
Aubrey’s face clouds. “You too? I wrote her six times and heard nothing.”
“I wrote zero times. Same result.”
“It’s so cold.” Aubrey shivers a little, but I know she’s not talking about the temperature. “I don’t understand. It’s bad enough that the first time she ever contacted us, she made a job offer. Like we’re hired help instead of family. But then she can’t even be bothered to stay in touch? What’s the point of all this, if she’s not interested in getting to know us?”
“Cheap labor.” I mean it as a joke, but Aubrey’s mouth just turns down further. I’m about to make an excuse to leave when I catch a flash of red on the stairs: Milly’s back. That should get me moving even faster, but for some reason I stay put.
“Here you go, cousins.” Milly is balancing four plastic cups: one full of clear liquid and garnished with a lime wedge, and three that are empty except for ice. She settles next to Aubrey and starts evening out the cups, pouring the full one into the other three until it’s empty. When she’s finished, she hands one cup to me and one to Aubrey. “Cheers to—I don’t know. Finally meeting the mysterious Mildred, I guess.” We all clink cups, and Aubrey takes a long swig of hers.
“Ugh!” She spits it right back out. “Milly, what is this?”
Milly hands her a napkin, unfazed. She plucks the lime garnish from the empty cup and squeezes juice into each of ours. “Sorry, forgot the lime. A gin and tonic.”
“Seriously?” Aubrey grimaces and sets her cup down on the table. “Thanks, but I don’t drink. How’d you get alcohol?”
“I have my ways.” Milly watches as a line of people stream down the staircase from the upper deck to escape the rainstorm, then focuses her attention on Aubrey and me. “So. Now that we’ve covered all the surface stuff, let’s get real. What aren’t we telling each other?”
My throat gets dry. “Huh?”
Milly shrugs. “This entire family is built on secrets, right? It’s the Story legacy. You guys probably have some juicy ones.” She tilts her cup toward me. “Spill.”
I glance at Aubrey, who’s gone pale beneath her freckles. I feel a muscle in my jaw start to twitch. “I don’t have any secrets,” I say.
“Me either,” Aubrey says quickly. Her hands are clenched tight in her lap, and she looks like she’s about to either throw up or cry. I was right; she’s a terrible liar. Even worse than I am.
Milly isn’t interested in going after Aubrey, though. She pivots toward me and leans forward, her big watch sliding down her arm as she cups her chin in her hand. “Everybody has secrets,” she says, taking a sip of her drink. “That’s nondebatable. The only question is whether you’re keeping your own, or someone else’s.”
A bead of sweat gathers on my forehead, and I resist the urge to wipe it away as I gulp down half my drink. I don’t like gin, but any port in a storm seems like a solid metaphor right now. I try for a half-bored, half-irritated expression. “Can’t it be both?”
Rain lashes the window behind Milly as her eyes lock on mine. “With you, Jonah?” she asks, raising one perfectly arched brow. “I’m guessing it can.”
“Doesn’t look like much, does it?” Jonah asks.
I steal a glance at him across Aubrey. The rain has cleared, and we’re on the upper deck watching our approach to Gull Cove Island. Jonah rests his forearms against the rail and leans forward, the wind tousling wavy, dark brown hair that’s halfway