The Buy-In (Graham Brothers #1)(11)

Mari looks pleased as she disappears into the kitchen again. Tank and I wolf down our food in relative silence, which gives me too much space to think about Lindy and the colossal mistakes I wish I could unmake.

The thing was—it never should have gotten serious between us. I knew the draft was coming and didn’t want to go into my pro career attached, while Lindy planned to travel the world. Our relationship was supposed to be fun and casual. We even made rules, which seems like the most ridiculous thing now, especially considering they didn’t do a lick of good keeping me from falling in love with her.

The closer it came to saying goodbye, the more I panicked about leaving her. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I could do it.

So stupid, twenty-two-year-old Pat ripped the bandage off. I thought our goodbye would be easier if we didn’t have to say it. I told myself I was doing us both a favor. Instead of meeting Lindy as planned on our last night together, I changed my plane ticket and flew out early.

I didn’t call. I didn’t text. I just … left.

If I had access to a T.A.R.D.I.S., I would go back and punch myself in the face. Repeatedly. But as any good Whovian knows, you don’t mess with your own timeline.

And did my grand bandage-ripping plan work? No. No, it did not.

I was a mess. A hot, hot mess.

A month into my new life, I broke and called Lindy from some awful club, feeling guilty, lonely, and miserable. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to tell her I made a huge mistake, not just leaving without saying goodbye but leaving at all. I needed her forgiveness, needed to explain, needed her voice to make my head feel clear again. Nothing felt right after I left her. Nothing.

Instead, I got a chipper Lindy on the phone. She didn’t seem fazed by the end of us. I barely got a word in as she told me how much she loved traveling alone, being alone. She made it clear she was happy without me.

Then: click. She was gone.

What followed that phone call was a string of deeper misery and even worse decisions. Like my quickie Vegas marriage to a lingerie model, which my family and I pretend never happened. Padma and I got it annulled almost immediately, so it technically didn’t happen.

Shattering my ankle was probably the best thing for me, as it ended my streak of self-destructive behavior. Being back home and around my family grounded me, but the ache of losing Lindy never faded. I just got better at pretending I’m not living with a perpetually broken heart.

At this point, Lindy can’t be as large as she looms in my memory. I’ve probably fictionalized her, idolized her. She can’t be as beautiful, as electric, as important as the memory lingering in my head. Even thinking about her now has my pulse doing some kind of ninja warrior course through my veins.

Mari brings the check, and I excuse myself to the bathroom to wash off my syrup-sticky hands. On the way back, I can’t stop myself from pausing by the little girl. She glances up at me with green eyes that remind me way too much of my very favorite green eyes in the world.

“You’re not a Sheeter,” she says.

I bark out a laugh. “I’m not what, now?”

“A Sheeter. It’s what locals call themselves. At least the ones in old Sheet Cake. New Sheet Cake is a whole different town.”

“Sheeters?”

“Yup. It was that or Cakers. I personally would have gone with Caketonians.” She props her elbow on the table and rests her chin on her hand. “I’m sure the town founders had a lively debate before settling on it. Anyway, the point is—you’re not local.”

Her voice is clear and strong, filled with a poise and a vocabulary that belies her age. She looks no older than five or six, by my best guess. She’s adorable and precocious and I could talk to her all day. There’s just something about her I can’t quite pinpoint, like a word stuck on the tip of my tongue or the hazy part of a dream hanging on the edge of my consciousness.

If I were living a different life—one in which I’d married my dream girl instead of losing her—I could see myself with a whole herd of children, ones with green eyes just like this.

“Seeing as how we aren’t Sheeters, shouldn’t you be concerned about stranger danger?” I tease.

“I’m Jo. Just J-O. Now we’re not strangers.” Jo smiles and exchanges her gray colored pencil for bright pink. “Anyway, Mari has a shotgun behind the counter. And Big Mo—he’s the cook—keeps his knives extra sharp. I feel pretty safe.”

I glance over at Tank, who is watching me with quiet amusement. He must not have heard the comment about the weapons.

“I’m just giving you a hard time,” Jo says. “Though Mari does have a shotgun.”

I clear my throat. “Good to know. Is Mari your mom? Or … grandma?”

Jo’s pencil pushes so hard against the paper it’s about to make a hole right through the middle. “I don’t have a mom. Or a dad. Mari is kind of like my grandma. And I have the best aunt in the world.”

Well, now I feel like the biggest jerk in the world. I look up to find Tank giving me a dirty look and Mari giving me a worse one. This is, and has always been, my problem. I do and say things with no thought as to the consequences. Until those consequences smack me in the face.

“I bet your aunt is amazing. What are you coloring?”

Jo holds up her book, showing me the cover. I can only stare. It’s a Jaws coloring book. The cover is a cartoon version of the iconic movie poster, thankfully with dark waves blurring the details of the nude woman swimming above the shark’s open mouth.