All That Jazz (Butler Cove #1)(10)

I started, surprised.

“I assume you go to his boat when you miss him? Maybe?” Joey sat back in his chair angled away from the table and propped an ankle over his knee. “I wish there was somewhere I could go to feel closer to Mom and Dad.” Joey smiled crookedly, then cleared his throat.

A small burn stung my eyes and nose, my chest swelling as I acknowledged my own sadness for the loss both he and my best friend had endured when their parents died three years ago. Both their mom and their dad … gone.

My dad was just terrible at staying in touch. Some days though, I felt it would be easier if he was dead.

I focused on the light dusting of hair on Joey’s athletic legs rather than look at him.

“It’s not easier, trust me,” Joey said quietly, surprising me again. I flicked my eyes back up to his, vibrantly blue in the morning light. “When they’re gone, you can never take back anything you said. You agonize over every time you were a little shit. You wonder if you remembered to tell them you loved them, or if they knew how much you did. You want to go back and be a perfect kid. Like maybe if you had been better, your father would have been at home more. And your mom would have been happier. And maybe they’d still be alive.”

I inhaled deeply.

“I feel like that,” I responded to his honesty. “Maybe if I’d been a better daughter, he and my mom would have worked it out. Maybe he’d still be here. And not picking the most dangerous and remote places in the world as if he doesn’t care that he may never come back.” My cheeks burned, and my throat closed as I tried to stem my embarrassing word vomit. Why was I being so honest? Just because he was, didn’t mean I had to be.

As if he knew I felt I’d said too much, he sat forward and grabbed his menu. “So how about breakfast?”

I nodded jerkily and followed suit. We placed our orders with the server, and I watched as Joey ignored the milk and sugar for his coffee, pushing them toward me. He took a tentative sip of the black brew, his lips tightening and his eyes creasing as he tasted the bitterness.

“Good?” I laughed.

“Perfect. Any better and I’d drink too much of it.”

I added three sugars and started pouring milk.

He raised his eyebrow. “Would you like some coffee with your milk?”

“What? If I had it like yours, I wouldn’t drink enough of it to keep me awake.”

I stirred it and took a tentative sip. “Mmm. So this is … different.”

“What is?”

“You and I having breakfast together. Talking even. Not that I don’t consider you a friend … or at least a friend because you’re my best friend’s older brother.” I narrowed my eyes. “You want something, don’t you, Joseph?”

Joey smirked and looked away toward the sparkling waters of Broad Creek. His profile was familiar, the same as it had always been and yet so different. His cheekbones seemed a little harsher, his jaw a little rougher, the crinkle at his eyes a little more serious. A little more beautiful. He looked back at me suddenly, and I widened my eyes in challenge as I waited for him to confess.

“I need a favor.”





JOSEPH NEEDED A favor.

“And here I thought you were buying me breakfast out of the goodness of your heart.”

“Who said I was buying?”

“You bet me breakfast.”

“If I couldn’t remember the event that started your irritation with me. You’ve been irritated with me since the moment we met. So it has to be that day.”

“Well, you love to irritate me. So why are you complaining?”

“Who’s complaining? I love our verbal sparring. I just want to know what you think happened that day.”

“I don’t like people fighting my battles.”

Joey frowned, looking genuinely confused. “I’m not sure I’ve ever done that for you. But I’m also not sure I wouldn’t help you, if you needed it. I don’t see the problem.”

“Well, you did it and I don’t like it.”

He frowned. “Because …?”

“It makes me feel weak and incapable.”

Joey let out a snort of laughter, wheezing as his eyes crinkled. “You? Weak? Puh-lease.”

I squirmed uncomfortably at his complete dismissal of my response.

“I’ve never seen you as weak, Jazz. Quite the opposite. I value your friendship with my sister because I know she has someone strong at her side. I saw how you were there for her after Mom and Dad in a way I couldn’t be. And I appreciate it more than you know.”

The problem was I didn’t feel strong, not really. I was the sad girl who missed her dad and hid behind humor and brashness. The girl who just wanted her dad to come home and help her figure out who she was. I often felt like half a person. A person waiting to be actualized. Waiting to get to know the other half of the duo that created her so she could really know herself. It was complete garbage, I knew. Many people didn’t have the luxury of knowing their parents. Conversely, some had the utter misfortune of knowing their parents. I recognized I was in the midst of some angsty, existential coming-of-age moment, and that for sure didn’t make me feel strong. Not at all.

Or maybe I was due for my period. Yeah, that was it.

“So what are you doing for the summer?” I asked in a blatant attempt to change the subject.