8. Aurora
8
AURORA
ONE MINUTE POST-MORTEM
W eathered eyes that had softened with age blinked at me in what could only be described as pure shock.
"Well, I’ll be damned,” he said as the burgers on the grill started to smoke.
Jack caught the man’s attention and pointed to the flat-top.
Blinking out of the stupor, he shuffled over and gave the patties a flip. He dropped the spatula and wiped his hands on a towel. “ It’s like lookin’ in a magic mirror.” A wry smile cropped up behind silver stubble. “ If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was looking right at June .”
“You knew my aunt?”
“Sure did. I used to see her sitting up on the widow’s watch of her house. If my boat came close enough to shore, she’d stand up and wave.”
Something pricked in the back of my mind. “ You were a fisherman?”
“Forty-five years. I loved the sea and the sea loved me. When I retired and opened up this place, your aunt would come in from time to time.”
But he loved the sea, and promised that the sea would love me, too.
Was the letter we had found under the floorboard about him?
“Were you two close?” I prodded. “ I’ve never heard anyone call her June .”
He chuckled. “ We were ships in the night. Never made anything of it. June wasn’t one to be tied down. But my stars, she was a force of nature.” Extending his hand to shake mine, he said, “ Ernie Bell . It’s a pleasure to meet you, sweetheart. Any kin of June’s is welcome any time."
I almost introduced myself as Wander , then decided against it. “ Aurora Whitlock .”
“Is this fella giving you a hard time, Miss Aurora ?” Ernie asked, cocking his head toward Jack as he pulled the burgers off the grill and slid them down to one of the other cooks to be dressed.
“Something like that,” I joked, glancing at Jack out of the corner of my eye. “ I can’t seem to get rid of him.”
He was freshly showered and had changed out of his sweat-soaked workout clothes. His hair was still damp, tucked under a backward baseball cap. It was an irresistible look on him. He was boyish and manly all in one. A mischievous gentleman.
“I’ll let you in on a secret,” Ernie said. “ He’s a hot commodity ‘round these parts. So if he’s got his eye on you?—”
Jack sputtered. “ That’s enough, old man. Two chicken cheesesteaks. Onions , peppers, and provolone on mine.” He glanced at me. “ You like mushrooms or nah?”
“No mushrooms,” I said. “ But you promised me hot potato chips.”
Ernie slid a steaming fry basket lined with checkered paper between Jack and me. Curly potato chips were piled high. He grabbed two plastic cups of dip and slid one in front of each of us.
“Sandwiches will be up in a minute, lovebirds,” Ernie said. “ Sit tight.”
The minute his back was turned, I spun in my chair. “ Oh my God .”
Jack lifted his eyebrows as he munched on a chip.
“The floor letter!” I hissed. “ She was waiting on the beach for her fisherman.” I pointed to Ernie as he diced up shaved chicken, peppers, and onions on the grill. “ He was her fisherman!”
Jack grabbed another chip. “ Okay . Just one question. Have we figured out time travel yet? Because that’s the only way that would be possible.”
"Killjoy," I grumbled as I grabbed a chip and dragged it through the ranch. The first bite was heaven. Salty , greasy, crunchy, tangy, and creamy.
“Tell me something,” Jack said as he found the perfect chip from the side of the pile. “ What had you all riled up at the house?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied. I knew damn well what he was talking about. It was just that I didn’t want to talk about it.
Not completely, anyway . . .
I didn’t feel like a failure. I was a failure. And , in some strange way, that made it easier to grasp the reality of the situation. But my pride was still hanging on for dear life, desperate to combat the idea that this was my new normal.
“What’d you say your name was, sweetheart?” Ernie asked as he slid two more baskets of loaded chicken cheesesteaks in front of Jack and me. “ Sorry . My memory isn’t as sharp as it used to be.”
“Aurora,” I said with a smile.
There was an odd twinkle in his eye. Something I couldn’t quite explain. “ That’s what I thought you said,” Ernie said with a nod as he shuffled off to get our drinks.
“That was cryptic,” I said as I manhandled my sandwich out of the deli paper.
“Nice try. You can’t get out of this,” Jack mumbled as he hunched over the bar and wolfed down half of his sandwich in one bite.
I made it through three more bites before he gently elbowed me.
I took my time, wiping my hands with paper napkins and downing sweet tea that I was certain was going to give me a cavity.
I grimaced as the syrupy taste coated my mouth. “ Is sweet tea an acquired taste or something?”
Jack chuckled. “ I guess it is if you’re not from around here.” He rested his arms on the bar and clasped his hands together. “ You doing alright?”
There was something about the way he said it that made me believe he actually cared and wasn’t trying to get into my pants.
“Is it the move and the house, or something else?”
“The house is fine,” I muttered as I grabbed a chip and aimlessly swirled it around in my dwindling cup of ranch. “ It’s a piece of shit, but at least it gives me something to do.”
“Because you’re retired .” He punctuated that disgraceful word with air quotes.
“Because I was forced into retirement,” I said. There was a sharp edge to my voice that I didn’t recognize as my own. “ Because I was blocked for so long that I lost my book deal and had to pay back my advance to the publisher. And then my boyfriend, who I was living with, decided to break up with me after running up my credit cards. And because everything in our shared lives was in my name, I got stuck with rent I couldn’t pay, a car I couldn’t afford, and very, very limited income.”
Jack swore under his breath.
“So, I sold the nice car and bought the piece of shit I drive now. I moved back in with my mom. Which sounds great on paper, except she flip-flops between freaking out over my well-being because she doesn’t understand that I’m a whole adult, or being frustrated because she doesn’t understand me .”
He winced.
I decided to put the now-soggy chip out of its misery and let it drown in the dip. “ So yeah, I had a bad morning. Because here I am. I peaked at thirty-two, which means I probably have fifty or sixty years left where it’s all downhill.”
“Nah. I don’t know about that.” Jack turned on his stool. One foot was braced on the support bar between the legs, and the other was flat on the floor. He was infuriatingly tall. “ I don’t think anyone ever actually peaks.”
“No,” I said as I stuffed a chip in my mouth. “ I peaked. I wrote one bestseller. Top of the charts, there was a book tour, talk show appearances—the whole shebang. There was even talk of a movie option. And then the hype settled, and I sat down at my computer and I couldn’t write. I couldn’t plot. I couldn’t even come up with an elevator pitch.” I looked him dead in the eye. “ I choked. I couldn’t handle the pressure of having to follow it up.”
Jack rested his arm on top of the bar. His fingers grazed my wrist, gently stroking back and forth. “ You’re from Colorado , right?”
I nodded.
“You ever climbed any mountains?”
I scoffed. “ Do I look like the kind of woman who climbs mountains? I’m outside-y. Not outdoorsy.”
His smile made the corners of his eyes wrinkle. “ Have you ever watched videos of the people who climb Everest ?”
I nodded.
“They climb across bridges made entirely out of metal ladders. They have to pause and camp if the weather sucks. They fall. They get injured. They go through hell for just a few moments on top of the world.”
“What’s your point?” I said with an annoyed huff.
“The whole time they’re struggling and fighting and failing, they’re still going up in elevation.” Jack nudged my shin with his foot. “ I watched you throw mattresses off a second-story balcony.” He stroked the spot where my sleeve of tattoos started, just above my wrist. “ There’s a fighter in you still. Don’t let all this ink go to waste.”
“You don’t know me,” I mumbled.
Jack’s fingers stilled, and he wrapped his hand around my wrist. “ I want to.”
No. No . No . I wasn’t ready for this. I couldn’t be ready for this. The last guy had taken everything from me. My money. My heart. My trust. I didn’t have anything left.
“What’s the deal with the house?” he asked gently. “ Lay it all out. I can help you. Hell , I can get the guys at the station out to tackle the big stuff. I mean this in the nicest way possible, but there’s no way you can get it ready to sell in three months if you’re doing it all by yourself.”
“The house is . . . It’s my way out.”
“Renovations are expensive.”
I nodded. “ After my great-aunt died, the house went to her sister—my grandma. But my grandma was just as old and couldn’t do anything with it. When my grandma passed away, the house was left to my mom. She needs to sell it so she doesn’t have to pay the property taxes, but she doesn’t have time to go across the country to fix it since she actually has a job. So , the deal is, I have her credit card to use for renovation expenses. When it sells, I pay back whatever I spent on renovations using the money from the sale, and get to keep the rest to start over.”
Jack didn’t skip a beat. “ What does starting over look like?”
I just shook my head and rummaged around in my bag for my debit card. “ Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Lunch is on me,” Jack said as he beat me to the punch and passed his card to one of the girls behind the counter. “ I’m the one who dragged you out here.”
“I don’t want your pity,” I clipped. “ I can buy my own lunch.”
“I don’t pity you, Roar .” His hand was warm and strong on my back as he guided me out of the little diner. “ I’m just waiting for the day when you stop pitying yourself.”
I was silent on the drive back, but so was Jack . Something about what he said when we were walking out of the diner ate at me. Honestly , it pissed me off. Jack didn’t even know me. We certainly weren’t close enough for him to make a brash statement like that.
I wasn’t pitying myself. I had been crushed. Everything I had ever worked for had culminated in—what? Being a one-hit wonder? A one-trick pony?
Instead of pulling into my driveway, Jack pulled into his. That was fine. I could hop the hedge that separated the properties. All I wanted was to be left alone.
“What the hell?—”
Jack grabbed my hand and laced our fingers together, tugging me toward his house. “ Come on.”
“Oh my God . I was totally right. You are a serial killer.”
But Jack didn’t laugh. He didn’t take me into his house either. To my surprise, he led me around the stilts that kept his place safe in a storm to a narrow boardwalk that led down the beach. It was a far cry from the overgrown deathtrap on my side of the hedge. I had tackled the jungle of a front yard, but the back was a project for another day.
The Atlantic was a crisp blue. Whitecaps crested across the horizon as sand squished underfoot. We paused at the end of the boardwalk and abandoned our flip-flops.
But Jack never let go of my hand.
“What are we doing?” I huffed when we made it out of the soft sand onto the water-packed shoreline. I had no idea how Jack managed to run the length of the beach this morning. All I knew was that I liked watching him from the privacy of the widow’s watch.
“Appreciating the beauty around us.” Jack slipped his arm around my waist and pulled me into his side. “ I wanna ask you one more thing.”
I glanced up, wary of that tone. But he was simply staring at the sea, completely calm.
“What?”
Jack glanced down at me. “ What were you doing before you wrote the book that made it big?”
I shrugged. “ Just writing. Trying to make it big.”
“Still in Colorado ?”
I nodded.
“What do you like to do for fun?”
I let a sarcastic laugh slip as I peeled away from him and kicked at the water’s edge. “ I don’t know. Drink margaritas and shit-talk with my girlfriends?”
“That doesn’t count,” Jack said in that annoyingly cryptic, “ I’m the sage, wise one in the story ” tone. “ What does your life outside of work look like?”
“Work is my life. It has to be.” The words caught in my throat. “ Or at least it used to . . .”
“So, what? You just sit at home and write books all day?” Jack stuffed his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “ Forgive me for not knowing a lot about how writing a book works.”
“Something like that. There’s a lot of emails and video meetings. Those are annoying.”
“What happens after you clock out for the day?”
I shrugged. “ Eat supper. Shower . Work a little more and then go to bed.”
The water danced at my toes, tickling them with each pass. I hadn’t even noticed that Jack had moved behind me.
“Have you ever stopped to think that maybe you’re not blocked? It sounds like you’re burned out.” His hands smoothed down my shoulders and arms. “ I’m not one to give writing advice to an author, but it seems to me like you've stopped living. I’m not really sure how you can write about new things when you aren’t experiencing new things.”
“I’m like a shark,” I said, flinging my hand at the water. Were there sharks in this part of the ocean? I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. “ If I stop working, I die.”
“And what would you call where you are now?”
The question stung because I knew he was right. I just didn’t want to admit it.
“One minute post-mortem.”