Foundations - Kate Canterbary Page 0,23

could see inside me and page through my thoughts. Except he didn't, he couldn't. I didn't allow it. He saw only what he chose and only the worst of me.

Get your hands on Professional Development

Will Max Love Again?

A knock sounded behind me, and then, "Is this a bad time?"

Oh my god. I dropped my hands and jerked out of my chair with a force that sent it crashing into a tower of stacked soccer nets. They skittered to the side, knocking over a pillar of orange safety cones and bag of softballs, sending both straight for Jory's head.

"What is wrong with me?" I panted, diving in front of him to snatch the bag and steady the cones before they flattened him on the floor. I gained control of the equipment before it could do any damage, but I'd also shaved a few years off my life.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to sneak up on you like that." Jory folded his lips together and blinked away from me. "Thanks for intervening, though. You've got some reflexes."

I settled my hands on my waist and blew out a ragged breath. "I didn't hear anything you just said because I'm still reliving the moment when a sack of softballs went flying toward your head."

Get your hands on Orientation

II

From the Walsh Family Vault

7

A Visit to New Hampshire: An Andy and Patrick Deleted Scene

Patrick

"Where is your sense of adventure?"

Andy eyed the fried seafood plate between us, grimacing as she lifted the beer bottle to her lips. I studied the rhythmic bobbing of her throat while she swallowed, and I immediately regretted the decision to cash in on my months-old seafood campaign to drive to New Hampshire when keeping her in my bed was an option.

She lifted an indifferent shoulder and said, "We agreed I would drink beer and criticize things."

"How is this weirder than the green pepper and fennel smoothie you had for breakfast on Thursday?"

Andy waved a hand dismissively, and reached across the white-washed picnic table for my beer. "Peppers aren't the cockroaches of the ocean."

"You're killin' me, Smalls." I shook my head and tossed another fried clam in my mouth. "So you're telling me you'll eat Korean barbeque from that nameless truck near Fort Point, where you've most definitely had kimchi that spent a few years rotting in a basement, but you won't touch a scallop?"

"Yes."

"That's weak," I murmured. "There's gotta be a better reason."

Andy considered me over the beer bottle while I ate, an eyebrow raised in challenge. "Don't you ever want to rebel against everything you knew as a kid? Just give it all away, and say, 'no, this is not me'?"

My eyes drifted over her shoulder, landing on the choppy ocean just beyond the restaurant. April was not filled with gentle showers this year. "Yes and no," I murmured. "Working with my brothers and sister means that there's no escaping, but I like that, and I like them. Usually. The past few years have been hard, but I wouldn't want to do this with anyone but my siblings."

"That's the no. What about the yes?"

Andy propped her feet on my bench and tapped my thigh with her booted toe. "The yes wants to bulldoze Wellesley and never deal with it again."

Andy gasped. "Don't you dare say that about an 1880s Arts and Crafts."

"Don't tell Riley I said this, but that place is fucking haunted, especially considering we can't figure out why the walls moved in some of the rooms."

"So that adds some character. Half of the properties we deal with are haunted," she laughed, sending a curtain of dark curls falling across her face.

"You won't eat seafood because you're from Maine. How is that any more reasonable?"

"It's not, Patrick, it's not even close to reasonable. But the last thing I am is Maine." She shrugged and polished off my beer. "And I went on a field trip to the nuclear reactor up the street when I was in high school, and I'm not convinced I want fish from these waters."

"You can be Persian, and still eat clams," I offered. "Maine has nothing to do with it. Neither does Seabrook Station. But you already knew that."

We stared at each other for several beats while a worker dumped several five-gallon barrels of ice into the soda fountains, each pour roaring through the otherwise empty room.

Andy nodded, her eyes softening. I fell far into the depth of her dark brown eyes with nothing but gray skies and the deserted seacoast around us. They had a language all