the main drag, popping into the bookstore to visit Maddy, and then settled into one of the cafés facing the beach, where she had three coffees, because they tasted so damn good, and worked on her novel.
That night, however, there was other work to be done. Craft-related work. Trent had swung past his parents’ house on the way home from the building site and had picked up a bunch of family albums they needed to start Operation Scrapbook Restoration.
“Do you think we should tell Liv about the…uh, damage?” Cora asked as she eyed the ruined gift, which had dried to a crusty, crunchy mess, with pages rippled by the water and ink bleeding all over the place. “I feel guilty keeping it from her.”
“Why don’t we tell her after we’ve redone all the work?” he replied. “Better to soften the blow.”
“You’re very good at handling people, aren’t you?” She laughed.
You wouldn’t mind if he handled you.
Great. Now even the most innocent of sentences was setting off the dirty-girl alarm in her head. He was wearing one of those tighter-than-should-be-legal T-shirts that should have had “touch me” written all over it. His hair was still damp from the shower, making it look dark gold instead of its usual sun-bleached shade.
“I’ve got three brothers. A smart one, a creative one, and an ambitious one. That makes me the charming one.” He sent her a cavalier grin that Cora felt right down to the tips of her toes.
“How does Liv fit into all this?”
He chuckled. “She’s the youngest and the only girl. Nothing else required.”
“Ah, the golden child.”
“By default.” He winked. “Don’t tell her I said that.”
Cora made a zipping motion across her lips. “I promise.”
They settled at the table, and Cora reached eagerly for one of the albums. Maybe it was weird, but she’d always had a strong sense of curiosity about other people’s families. It was almost like studying a foreign species. When she was younger, all she ever wanted to do was watch sitcoms like Malcolm in the Middle, Modern Family, even reruns of Full House. These groups of people had trials and tribulations—they fought and butted heads. But they always came together in the end to mend hurts and strengthen bonds.
Her house had never been like that.
Catriona Cabot had ruled their house with an iron fist, and her cold shoulder was frigid enough to chill the entire Upper East Side.
“Oh my gosh, look at you all!” The albums were labeled by year and contained such gems as baby “glamour” shots—cue furry mats and blurred edges—gap-toothed school photos, and cheesy family portraits, hair spiked with cement-strength gel. “Is that… Did you have an eyebrow ring?”
Trent groaned as he settled into the seat next to her. “It was a phase. A bad one.”
Now that she looked at Trent closely, she noticed the little scar intersecting his eyebrow. In the picture, he sported a silver bar through one brow and a stud in the opposite ear. His blond hair was sun-bleached and spiked, and he wore baggy jeans. “You look like a Backstreet Boys member.”
“One, seventeen-year-old Trent would be most insulted. It was System of a Down and Rage Against the Machine on my Walkman, thank you very much. And two, yeah… It wasn’t a good look.”
“Well, I’ll raise your eyebrow ring with a belly piercing.” Cora laughed when Trent’s brows shot up.
“Seriously?”
“Oh yeah.” She remembered the pain she’d gone through, hiding it from her mother. That summer she’d developed a preference for one-piece bathing suits and resorted to taping the piercing down so it wouldn’t show through the clingy fabric. Eventually her mother had caught her, of course, and demanded Cora take it out on the spot. “I had a glow-in-the-dark one and everything.”
He laughed, and it crinkled the corners of his eyes in the most delightful way. “Hot.”
Flushing, she flipped open another photo album. Trent’s parents were capital-A adorable. His mother had one of those standard eighties perms, her blond hair fluffed out like a golden cloud around her head. She also sported some serious shoulder pads. His dad, on the other hand, had an epic mustache and huge wire-rimmed glasses.
Another photo showed his mother with her mirror image—another woman with matching fluffy blond hair and the same heart-shaped face. “Is your mother a twin?”
“Yeah.” Trent bobbed his head, his expression difficult to read. “She was a twin.”
“Oh.” She traced a fingertip over their smiling faces. “I’m sorry.”
“It happened when I was a baby, and Mum doesn’t talk about it