Last Year's Mistake - Gina Ciocca Page 0,2

into the turreted, twenty-four-hundred-square-foot Thing with a Porch that currently stood on the property.

Whoever owned the house before obviously hadn’t been into the whole historical preservation craze that permeated the rest of Newport. Not that I complained; everything was modern and clean, and I didn’t have to share a room with Miranda. Plus, having restored mansions and the beach practically in your backyard had the crazy effect of making everything seem right with the world.

If only I could get the damn suitcase out of the car.

I wasn’t sure what happened next—if the hard smack that impacted my upper arm caused me to jostle my suitcase loose, or if the case had just broken free of whatever it had been caught on and flew out of the trunk. Either way, my butt hit the ground and so did my luggage, right after it bounced off my foot.

“Ow!” I grabbed at the stinging spot below my ankle and massaged it.

“Are you okay?”

I looked up with a jolt at the sound of the unfamiliar voice. It belonged to a boy about my age. He and an older man peered over the white fence that separated Uncle Tommy’s driveway from theirs. The boy’s thick black hair flopped over his forehead, and both his hands stretched toward me, though I didn’t know how he planned to help with a fence between us. Or while wearing a baseball glove.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

“Completely my fault,” the man added, waving his own gloved hand in the air. He pushed his glasses up his nose. “I missed it by a mile. Are you all right?”

Only then did I notice “it”—the worn-looking baseball nestled in the grass a few feet from where I sat.

“I’m fine,” I lied, not wanting to make a big deal. I let go of my foot and stood to retrieve the ball, wishing I had more hands to rub all the places that hurt.

“Jimmy!” a voice carped through one of the open windows in the house behind the fence. “Where’s my Swiss Army knife?”

The older man sighed and shook his head, his thin shoulders sagging. “In a box in the hall closet, Dad, exactly where I told you I put it,” he called back.

“I can’t find it. Get in here, would you?”

The man’s mouth twisted as he abandoned his glove and turned toward the house, stopping to give me a look of regret. “Again, my apologies.”

I waved, unsure of what else to do, before winging the ball toward the boy. A thwack sounded as it slammed into his glove, and his eyes went round as quarters.

“Nice arm!” He grinned, revealing a row of metal braces and drawing my attention to a small beauty mark beneath the left side of his bottom lip.

“For a girl?”

“For anyone.”

I laughed and walked toward him. “I’m Kelsey.”

“David.”

I threw a glance at the house behind him. “Do you live there?”

“That’s my grandfather’s house.” He grumbled when he said it and looked at the ground, like it embarrassed him.

“Really?” I pointed at the house behind me. “This is my uncle’s house. We’re here at the end of every August. I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

“We usually come at the beginning of the month. My dad helps pay Grandpa’s bills and stuff.” Under his breath, he mumbled something that sounded like, Makes sure he hasn’t killed himself yet. David cast a tense look over his shoulder at the house. “He’s needed some, uh, extra help lately, so we’ve been coming more frequently. And if you’ve been here every summer, I should probably apologize on his behalf.”

So he knew.

A nervous laugh bubbled up in my throat. “He doesn’t bother anyone.”

David smiled. “I see niceness runs in your family. Your uncle is the only one who never calls the police.”

“My uncle’s also not here most of the year.”

But I’d heard stories from when he was. Jay, David’s grandfather, had a bit of a drinking problem, one that had gotten worse as time passed. In earlier years his behavior had been more or less harmless; Aunt Tess told us he’d passed out with the TV blaring a couple of times, or failed to hear an alarm clock that could wake the dead—for over an hour. Most recently, though, my uncle had found him out cold on his back porch, wearing boxers and a parka. In the middle of an eighty-degree day in August.

“David! I see you’ve met my niece.”

I turned at the sound of Uncle Tommy’s voice. He stood at the door, smiling beneath his