Bad Girl Reputation (Avalon Bay #2)(3)
“Did you see Miss Grace? From middle school?” Billy, who’s still not old enough to drink, tries to offer me a flask, but I wave it off. Jay snatches it instead. “She showed up a minute ago with Corey Doucette carrying her stupid little purse dog.”
“Moustache Doucette?” I grin at the memory. In freshman year, Corey grew this creepy serial killer strip of hair on his lip and just refused to shave the nasty thing until it escalated to the threat of suspension if he didn’t get rid of it. He was scaring the teachers. “Miss Grace has got to be, what, seventy?”
“I think she was seventy when I had her class in eighth grade,” Shane says, shivering to himself.
“So they’re, like, screwing?” Craig’s face contorts in horror. His was the last class she taught before retiring. My youngest brother is now a high school graduate. “That’s so messed up.”
“Come on,” I tell them. “Dad wants to talk to us in the den.”
Once assembled, Dad starts in again on his tie and shirt collar until Jay hands him the flask and he takes a relieved swig. “So I’m just gonna come out with it: I’m putting the house up for sale.”
“What the hell?” Kellan, the eldest, speaks for all of us when his outburst stunts Dad’s announcement. “Where did this come from?”
“It’s just me and Craig here now,” Dad says, “ and with him going off to college in a couple months, it doesn’t make much sense to hang on to this big, empty place. Time to downsize.”
“Dad, come on,” Billy interjects. “Where’s Shane gonna sleep when he forgets where he lives again?”
“One time,” Shane growls, punching him in the arm.
“Yeah, fuck you, one time.” Billy gives him a shove. “What about when you slept on the beach because you couldn’t find your car parked not even fifty yards away?”
“Will y’all knock it off? You’re acting like a bunch of damn idiots. There are people still out there mourning your mother.”
That shuts everyone up real quick. For just a minute or two, we’d forgotten. That’s what keeps happening. We forget, and then the truck slams into us again and we’re snapped back to the present, to this strange reality that doesn’t feel right.
“Like I said, it’s too much house for one person. My mind’s made up.” Dad’s tone is firm. “But before I can put it on the market, we’ve got to fix it up a little. Put a spit shine on it.”
Seems like everything’s changing too fast, and I can’t keep up. I barely had time to get my head around Mom being sick before we were putting her in the ground, and now I’ve got to pick up and move my whole life back home, only to find out home won’t exist much longer either. I’ve got whiplash, but I’m standing still, watching everything swirl around me.
“There’s no sense clearing out until Craig gets settled at school in the fall,” Dad says, “so it’ll be a little while yet. But there it is. Thought y’all should know sooner rather than later.”
With that, he ducks out of the den. Damage done. He leaves us there with the fallout of his announcement, all of us shell-shocked and staggering.
“Shit,” Shane says like he just remembered he left his keys on the beach at high tide. “You know how much porn and old weed is hidden in this house?”
“Right.” Affecting a serious face, Billy smacks his hands together. “So after Dad falls asleep, we start ripping out floorboards.”
As the boys argue about who gets dibs on any lost contraband they might dig up, I’m still trying to catch my breath. I guess I’ve never been good with change. I’m still fumbling to navigate my own transformation since leaving town.
Swallowing a sigh, I abandon my brothers and step into the hall—where my gaze snags on probably the only thing about this place that hasn’t changed one bit.
My ex-boyfriend Evan Hartley.
CHAPTER 2
GENEVIEVE
The guy’s got some nerve walking in here looking like that. Those haunting, dark eyes that still lurk in the deepest parts of my memory. Brown, nearly black hair I still feel between my fingers. He’s as heart-stabbingly gorgeous as the pictures that still flicker behind my eyes. It’s been a year since I last saw him, yet my response to him is the same. He walks into a room, and my body notices him before I do. It’s a disturbance of static in the air that dances across my skin.
It’s obnoxious, is what it is. And that my body has the audacity to react to him, now, at my mother’s funeral, is even more disturbing.
Evan stands with his twin brother Cooper, scanning the room until he notices me. The guys are identical except for occasional variances in their haircuts, but most people tell them apart by their tattoos. Cooper’s got two full sleeves, while most of Evan’s ink is on his back. Me, I know it from his eyes. Whether they’re gleaming with mischief or flickering with joy, need, frustration … I always know when it’s Evan’s eyes on me.
Our gazes meet. He nods. I nod back, my pulse quickening. Literally three seconds later, Evan and I convene down the hall where there are no witnesses.
It’s strange how familiar we are with some people, no matter how much time has passed. Memories of the two of us wash over me like a balmy breeze. Walking through this house with him like we’re back in high school. Sneaking in and out at all hours. Stumbling with hands against the wall to stay upright. Laughing in hysterical whispers to not wake up the whole house.