So I’ll Know (Pacific Northwest Boys #3)

Prologue

MARCUS

Idon’t know how old he was. Just that he was younger than me.

He was sitting on the beach, covered in sand and framed by the dark blue ocean, while he considered an impressive sandcastle in front of him. His white-blond hair shone in the afternoon sunlight like spun silver, tangled strands falling across his furrowed brows.

My steps faltered when he looked up, his eyes an aquamarine color that I’d never seen on another person before. He wore a terrycloth hoodie almost as teal as his irises, and it gave him an otherworldly air, like he was some sort of merman.

I swallowed as we stared at each other.

“What?” His voice was so soft that I could barely hear it over the crashing waves.

“Nothing,” I mumbled. “I just like your sandcastle.”

“Thank you.”

It was early spring, so the coastal breeze was still chilly, and I pulled my hood over my ears and looked around the deserted beach.

“Where are your parents?” My stepmom would have never let me wander alone on the beach at his age.

“I don’t have any parents.” His gaze dropped as he said it.

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

He picked up a piece of sea glass from a small pile by his scabbed knee and started placing the white and green bits into the towers as though they were windows. “They’re dead. I live with my aunt.”

“Like Peter Parker?”

He looked up at me again, his expression perplexed. “Who’s Peter Parker?”

I raised my eyebrows. Who the heck doesn’t know who Peter Parker is? “He’s Spider-Man.”

“Oh, so being like him is a good thing?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Okay,” he said with a shrug. Then, he narrowed his eyes. “Where are your parents?”

“They took my brother and sister to get ice cream.”

“And you didn’t go with them?”

“I don’t like ice cream.”

His eyes widened so dramatically that I almost laughed. “Who doesn’t like ice cream?”

“Me, obviously. It hurts my teeth.”

He shook his head and picked up a small shovel, then started digging a shallow trench around the castle. I sat in the sand and watched him work. We didn’t talk until I heard my stepmom yelling my name from the condo.

“I have to go.” I stood, wiping sand from my backside. “I’m Marcus.”

“Hi, Marcus.”

I waited. “Aren’t you going to tell me your name?”

“Why do you want to know my name?” he asked doubtfully.

“I dunno. We could be friends.”

He dropped the shovel and started tracing patterns on the castle walls with his delicate fingers. “I don’t get to come here much, so I doubt we’ll see each other again.”

For some reason, his words made me feel sad. “Sure, yeah, you’re probably right.”

But he was wrong.

I saw him a lot over the years.

Turns out we were from the same small town in Washington State.

What’re the odds?

I saw him at the arcade playing Pac-Man, his dainty fingers punching the buttons furiously.

I saw him at the movie theater watching the new Spider-Man movie, which made my stomach flutter for some reason.

Every time, I hid before he noticed me. Looking at him gave me a weird feeling in my throat, like I couldn’t get a full breath.

Then I left Brighton.

I attended Whitmore University, graduated early with a business degree, then immediately moved to Vancouver, B.C., to open a pub with my younger brother, Sebastian.

Years later, I’d still catch a flash of silver on the SkyTrain or a slim figure in a teal hoodie. But it never mattered because I didn’t know his name. He was just a ghost.