He tips his head up, his hand on Coho beside him. “Okay.”
I hate leaving him. I wasn’t lying when I said I met this boy for a reason, and regardless of the discoveries, I think I’m supposed to remain in his life.
IT’S HARD TO decide where to go first. Bar? House? I don’t even know, but I start walking, and I let my feet decide. I end up at the bar. The wind has eased, a calm before the next round of winds is supposed to arrive around noon. Rain pounds through, sideways, the kind that makes it difficult to see anything.
It’s all over every news outlet that a tuna fishing boat out of Ilwaco is missing, and I guess they haven’t gotten the same information Fletcher just did. It’s unnerving to not know whether he’s alive or dead, but I’m somewhat relieved to know they found them. I didn’t get that same closure with my parents, and Fletcher didn’t either. Now here we both were in the same situation.
Mal’s car is parked behind the bar—along with Avie and Everett’s. For a moment, I stand outside the doors, unsure if I want to go inside. They’re going to ask about Lincoln and what am I going to say?
The moment, the very instant I step through the back door, Mal finds me and hugs me to her chest. I burst into tears. Literally start sobbing to the point I can’t breathe. A full-blown panic attack slams into me.
She holds me. That’s all. Much like she’s done for the past ten years, she holds me until I’m strong enough to tell her what’s happening. All of it from the heart to the money, every gory detail that has somehow become my life in a matter of hours.
“Did they find his boat?” she asks, sitting next to me in the supply room.
I sink to my knees and circle my arms around myself. “They said they found them, not the boat.” My voice shakes. “But didn’t say if they were okay.”
“It’s going to be fine.” Holding me to her side, her words come as reassurance, but then, not at all. Sometimes it’s not okay.
We sit in silence for a while as Mal tells me about Avie and her taking care of the kids last night during the storm. He stayed at her house. Overnight.
“He stayed over?”
Mal narrows her eyes, her expression not matching her demeanor. “Oh, yeah. Well… just because of the storm, and the kids were scared,” she says, swallowing.
My heart hardens, and I force myself to ask what I need. “Mal, I love you. You’ve been like a mother to me, but if you’re keeping something from me, I need to know.”
She looks mildly surprised at my demand, her hand around my shoulder squeezing. “I’ve… I… well, Avie’s been helping me out with the kids for years. You know that.” I think back, and she’s right. He’s taken them to doctor’s appointments and stayed with them when they’re sick. Everything Mal didn’t have because of her one-night stand that led to twins. Her words are whispered when she admits, “And two weeks ago, the night he slept with Presley, he’d asked me to consider him. I told him I couldn’t because I knew how Presley felt about him.”
I brush my tears aside with the sleeves of my soaked hoodie. It does nothing but make my eyes burn from the salt. I notice that my entire body is soaked from the rain. A shiver works through me. “Consider him? What does that mean?”
“He said he loved me and wants to be a part of their lives and mine. And then he sleeps with Presley, a couple times now, so… I don’t know. I don’t understand any of it, and I’m so pissed that she’s involved and damn it, I never wanted to hurt her.”
“Do you… have feelings like that for him?”
She licks her lips and sighs, as if she’s disappointed by what she’s about to say. “I do, and I wish I didn’t. He should be with someone like Presley. I have baggage. He doesn’t need that crap on top of everything else. But damn it, I fucking do, and I hate it. So much. And I acted like it was no big deal that he had sex with Presley, because it wasn’t. I told him I didn’t think us being together was a good idea, because it’s not. We work together. We run this place together. But being together