plenty like him,” he says, his voice losing all expression.
“You know what? I think you’ve overstayed your welcome.”
He shrugs. “I get that a lot.”
“I can’t imagine why,” I say as I push him out the door. “And you never did apologize!”
He turns and says over his shoulder, “That’s because I changed my mind.”
I watch him disappear over the grassy bluff, descending what I can only imagine to be a sheer cliff all the way down to the water. Who does that?
And, come to think of it, what’s wrong with “settled” anyway? Predictability has its advantages. Predictable people do not take off with produce brokers from Tampa…or empty your bank account…or appear out of nowhere and disappear over cliffs. Yeah. Predictable sounds awfully good to me.
Chapter Sixteen
Bennet
By the time I get back to Sully’s cottage, I still can’t shake my conversation with the new summer girl. D’Arcy. Katherine D’Arcy. I want to understand her. That’s how I got onto all those questions. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. I’d hoped she’d take it as a game. But she saw through that. Called me out on thinking she was special. Scared the shit out of me when she did it, too. Seems like no one’s looked past the surface of me in years.
The honest truth is, the more I see of her, the more I learn, the more I don’t trust my initial impression. There’s a lot more going on there than prep-school princess. She’s here, isn’t she? On Little Bear.
Even so, I stand by what I said to her. There is no value in a life that’s so scheduled you know what you’re doing just by the days of the week. My parents were like that. Their lives planned out to the nth degree: standing manicure appointments every Tuesday, drinks with the Johnsons on Wednesday, golf on Saturdays.
It was never the life I wanted, but it worked for them, as messed up as they were. Are. Still, I can’t help envying people who know what they’re supposed to do. Direction and certainty aren’t completely overrated.
Jordan’s call has helped in that regard. Not only does Nashville give me a physical destination, it gives me a goal. So it’s weird that the lure of home would still tug at my throat. I miss them. Or at least…I miss one of them.
The sky over the lake is dusky. Dad won’t be home yet, despite the hour. Even if I know better than to tell him about Nashville, Mom might want to know. If I call now, I could find her and Buddy home alone. Maybe our conversation would go better than last time. Maybe the last time I called, Dad had been right there. Maybe he’d been hovering behind them, limiting what they could say to me. My childhood fears shudder over my skin.
I’m dialing before I ever really decide. “Mom?” I ask when I hear her soft hello.
“Bennet?”
“Yeah.” I exhale. “Mom, it’s me. Is Buddy around, too? Is he okay?”
There’s a pause. An intake of breath. “You have some nerve, mister, calling here like this.”
And just like that, I realize I’ve made a huge mistake. But I can’t hang up. I’m like a wild animal standing in a spotlight—frozen, unable to move—waiting for the bullet.
“Do you have any idea how much I’ve worried?” Mom is ranting. I can hear her high heels clicking on the tile as she paces back and forth. “Do you think these sporadic, guilt-induced phone calls can undo all the damage you’ve caused us? Do you even care?”
“Is Bud there?” I ask.
“Everyone is working. Something you might consider doing, someday when you’re tired of wasting all your potential. Goofing around on a guitar is—”
Slowly, I lower the phone until there’s a click. Then all I hear is silence.
Outside my window, a sailboat is anchored about thirty yards off shore. It’s bobbing there, peaceful like, and for some reason this pisses me off.
I pick up the first thing my hand lands on and throw it across the room. The ceramic coaster shatters into a million pieces, and that feels so good I throw another one.
“Goofing around?” I yell. “You. Have no. Idea what I’m doing.” I throw a pencil. “You’ve never asked. You don’t care about me, or my music.”
I throw something else. Not sure what. It’s heavy, but it doesn’t break like the coasters when it hits the wall to the left of the sliding glass door, which—at that exact moment—slides open a few