an easy intimacy that feels natural. Effortless. Just like her. “I think we’re going to have a beautiful time.”
“I agree.” I kiss the top of her head.
She sighs and leans against me, and I stop worrying about what lies ahead. As long as the present keeps feeling so damned perfect, I have a feeling the future will take care of itself.
Chapter Ten
Colette
Growing up, we didn’t go on vacation.
When my mom was clean, she worked one minimum wage job after another, and money was tight.
When she was using, it was even tighter.
But we lived by the beach in a village fifty miles north of Hidden Kill Bay, where the people who couldn’t afford Hidden Kill’s upscale shops and bougie bed and breakfasts came to play. In the summer months, when the tourists flooded into our seaside community and I got to go to the beach every day with my friends, I felt like the luckiest kid on the planet.
And then, in junior high, I landed the first of many full scholarships to an arts camp near Bangor and escaped to another world for a month every July.
Camp is where I met Theodora. Where I realized there were loads of people like me, dreamy souls who felt most at home when they were bringing the stuff of their imagination into the real world. Theo was in the cooking track, and I was in arts and crafts, but it didn’t matter—we were soul sisters from the start.
Creativity is creativity. It expresses itself in different forms, but the raw material swirling around inside a chef or a painter is made of the same stuff.
Ditto for musicians.
I cut a glance across the car to see Zack still scribbling away, filling page after page in a notebook he pulled out of his guitar case. I love that he’s feeling so inspired, that music is spilling out of him in waves, coming so fast he can barely keep up with the flood of inspiration.
It bodes well for his new album. And selfishly, I can’t help but feel that all this inspired energy bodes well for our other creative endeavor, as well.
If I were a baby, I’d want in on the excitement. Dad’s about to become an even more well-respected musician, Mom is stepping into her dream career as an interior designer, and both Mom and Dad are excited about starting a family, albeit a non-traditional one.
A baby could do a lot worse.
And if we have a child, he will definitely have some cool vacations with his dad, I think as I steer the car up the long, tree-smothered driveway to the retreat house.
“Oh wow,” I whisper, eyes going wide as the woods open to reveal a massive front lawn and a mansion straight out of an incredibly lovely…horror movie.
Zack looks up, huffing in surprise as he closes his notebook. “That isn’t what I was expecting.”
“It’s very elegant,” I say, trying to look on the bright side.
“And scary,” Zack adds, making it clear I’m not the only one who finds the ornate gingerbread decoration on the four-story Victorian a little…toothy. Each window is an open mouth sporting light-and-dark-blue fangs, and the stonework surrounding the front porch looks like gnarled fingers reaching out to snag unsuspecting victims.
“The colors are fun.” I point to the right of the building. “And there’s a tower room. How cool is that?”
“Very cool. Unless that’s where the ghosts live,” Zack says pleasantly. “Or the madwoman who’s planning to set fire to the place while we’re sleeping.”
“Jane Eyre.” I poke his leg affectionately. “That’s my favorite book of all time.”
He grins. “I pretended to hate reading it like the rest of the boys in eighth grade, but I liked it, too. I loved how deeply she felt things, you know?”
I nod enthusiastically as I pull into one of the three parking spots in front of the home and shut off the Tesla’s quiet engine. “Yes! Exactly. Every time I reread it, I feel like I’m living in her heart.”
Zack’s eyes light up as he flips the notebook open again. “You mind if I steal that line?”
“Of course not,” I say, watching him write it at the bottom of a page. “I’ll take forty-five percent of all royalties and a cut of merchandising.”
Laughing, he leans over and kisses me, whispering, “Done,” against my lips before reaching across my lap to open my door. “Let’s go see what we’re in for. If it’s too creepy, we can find a place to stay in town, and I can