I have to do is be there. To stay. You’d think I would have learned the lesson by now, but things got tough and off I went again.
The first time Tommy called me out on my habit of running away when things got too hard, he said I should stay and face the music. He told me that some things are worth fighting for.
Of course he was right. He still is.
If there’s one thing I know, it’s that Tommy is worth fighting for. So is CeCe. I kick the sand, mad at myself for doing the same damn thing again. I need to find a way to let him know that I’m not going anywhere; even when it gets harder than it is now, I’m going to stay.
There’s got to be something I can do. I twirl the Art Deco ring on my finger, wishing an idea would come to me the way it did when I was at work, trying to solve a stupid marketing problem that in the end didn’t really matter.
What really matters is waiting for me at home; Tommy and CeCe matter more than anything. I glance down at the ring, and suddenly, I know what I have to do. But I can’t do it alone.
JILL’S CAR IS in her driveway, so I let myself in the gate and walk up to the front door. Normally I’d just walk inside, but normally she knows I’m coming.
I knock and Jill opens the door with a dishrag thrown over her shoulder and splatters of something sugary and sweet on her apron.
“Hey,” I say, trying to contain my excitement. But instead of moving aside to let me in, Jill steps outside and closes the door behind her. She puts her hands on her hips and leans against the doorframe. There’s an expression on her face I’ve never seen before. “What’s wrong?”
“Beau told me what happened,” she says in the stern-mom voice I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to replicate for the last fourteen years.
“Oh, that.”
Jill laughs in a way that makes it clear that she finds it to be anything but funny.
“What would you have done if you’d caught them making out?” I ask in my defense. This is not going the way I thought it would.
“I’d be okay with it—they’re teenagers, and they’re our kids.”
“Boys are different than girls.” I hate that I can’t explain how terrifying it felt, seeing my little girl in the arms of her son. Maybe it wouldn’t have been quite as bad if he didn’t look so much like his father.
“I’ve got one of each,” Jill reminds me. Poor Abigail is awfully forgettable.
“Abigail is different, you don’t have to worry about her. CeCe—she’s . . . I don’t even know what she is. And Beau is his father’s son.”
I’m waiting for Jill to tell me she understands. She was married to the man, surely she can see all the ways her son is just like him—but she’s still standing there, glaring at me with an icy expression I’ve never been on the receiving end of before. “He’s also his mother’s son.”
“You’re really mad about this?”
“I’m madder than mad!” She spits the words out and crosses her arms over her chest to make the point. Her eyes turn cold and her lips stretch into a disappointed line. It’s like her whole face shuts down.
I’m speechless, which I’ve never been with Jill. Not ever.
“You insulted my son—twice now,” she says. “He’s upstairs hurting, by the way.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You know, I don’t think you are.” We stand there for a second, and I’m not sure what else to say. “I think I heard the timer go off,” Jill says.
I didn’t hear anything, but I let her go.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Alexis
The next afternoon, I get my coffee from Starbucks at the Commons instead of The Broken Crown. The vanilla syrup in my iced latte isn’t as sweet as the pure vanilla Jill uses, and it didn’t come with a hug.
I find a seat at a table outside and try to get comfortable, but the air is thick with humidity and beads of sweat are already dripping down the sides of my glass. What I wouldn’t give to be sitting on the Crown’s porch enjoying the slow whirl of the fan overhead and the breeze drifting up from the ocean.
This is ridiculous.
She has to forgive me—she must know it wasn’t personal. At least, I didn’t mean it to be. The irony of it all is that she’s the one person I wish I