All That Jazz (Butler Cove #1)(31)

“Did you hear from your dad yet?” Amazing she just knew what checking the mail meant to me.

My stomach sank. “No. The last postcard I got was the one I showed you in November. I’ve written to the address in New York I’ve had for years, hoping maybe someone knows something.”

“I’m sorry.” Keri Ann’s brow furrowed.

I looked back at the path.

“But he’s had other long stretches of no communication, right?” she asked. “This isn’t the first time?”

“Yeah, I guess.” I took the right fork through the pines toward the marina. “I just … I know he’s never been around. But having him there at the end of a letter or postcard was something. And I think, thought,” I corrected, “he might be planning on moving back here soon.”

“Really?” Keri Ann sounded shocked, but I didn’t slow down. “You never mentioned that.”

“That’s coz I didn’t dare believe it,” I said quietly, then shrugged and pursed my lips. “Turns out that was a good decision.”

My best friend fell silent. I could tell she wanted to say that could still happen but didn’t want to give me false hope.

“He promised once he’d be back for good for my eighteenth birthday,” I admitted. Why was I admitting it aloud? Now it was real and he wouldn’t show up, he never did. “But obviously, if that happened, I’d die of shock, so that would make for a pretty shitty way to spend a birthday.” Summoning up a smile, I slipped my hand under the strap of my backpack on my shoulder.

“Okay, well, it’s three weeks away. I agree you’d know by now if he was coming,” she said carefully.

I nodded. He’d said he would be. Said he’d come straight to Captain Woody’s Bar and buy me an illegal drink.

The bike path emerged out of the trees to the sand and shell gravel that covered the marina parking. My apartment complex was to the right and the path to the bars and the docks to the left. I was about to tell Keri Ann to wait for me at Woody’s so I could run to our ground floor apartment and dump my bag when I saw Chase, looking damn fine, leaning against a concrete post light on the walkway to Woody’s, wearing baggy cargoes, flip flops and an artfully distressed t-shirt that probably cost more than I made in an afternoon. He stood up when he saw me and gave a two fingered mock salute. I’d told him I lived at the Marina apartments.

I slowed, a leg coming down to balance me.

“Whew,” Keri Ann whispered. “He’s even cuter in daylight.”

“He’s certainly a distraction,” I whispered back.

“You told him where you live?”

I grimaced. “I may have mentioned it.”

“Are you sure about this?”

I realized upon seeing Chase that my father was instantly forgotten, and so was Joseph. Mostly. “Yeah, I’m sure.” He was a distraction I really, really needed.





I TOOK CHASE up to the bluff on the north of the island. It was one of my favorite places. There was a beach that was only useable at low tide, but there were rocks to sit on and old gnarly tree trunks that grew out over the water. Many times there were dolphins to watch, and this afternoon there was an awesome display of a lone kitesurfer flying across the surface of the water and kissing the tops of the waves.

I was bored of Chase within hours. Okay, no. Make that minutes. I just couldn’t keep my mind on anything he was saying.

I’d rather be out there with the kitesurfer, taking my chances of being taken by a hungry bull shark at feeding time than listen to a moment more of Chase’s plans to throw the biggest frat party the college had ever seen.

I’d brought my camera, and while I’d had this fantasy of taking sunset shots of my college hottie? I ended up being far more interested in the twisted trunk of the red cypress skeleton snaking over the rocks.

When the kitesurfer crossed my viewfinder again, I zoomed in and started snapping shots as he caught some air. His legs bunched, his back flexed, and his arms braced, the wind picking him and his board up into its arms. Almost in slow motion with the suspension of the kite helping him, he gracefully executed a somersault into the wind, coming back down to skim the water. I exhaled and realized I’d held my breath. I lowered my camera from my face hoping I’d captured at least some of that. I hadn’t set it up for action shots, but the kitesurfer, while on the surface water went super fast, had slowed when hanging in the air.

“That’s like the dumbest sport ever,” Chase observed, snapping me out of my trance.

I shook my head and put my camera away. “What sport?”

“That windsurfing thing. I don’t get it.”

“It’s kitesurfing. And what don’t you get?”

“Well, I mean, if you want to surf, go surf, right? Seems a bit dumb to have a kite pull you along.”

My eyebrows seemed to go up to my hairline without my consent. “Seems too easy, huh?” I happened to know a few people who did it. Apart from being ridiculously expensive as a sport because of the equipment—the last thing you needed was the kite coming apart or tearing loose as you were in mid spin at sixty miles an hour, you’d hit the water like it was a wall of concrete—it was also unbelievably difficult to get the hang of. It required a shit load of strength.