Chapter 1
Why is there so much shit in here?
When I go through one box and get everything sorted, I swear ten more magically pop up in its place.
It’s never ending. I’ve been going through this closet for the last two hours, and I’ve barely made a dent.
Truth be told, I should’ve gone through this stuff a year ago, but I kept putting it off, like if I waited long enough, it would get done on its own.
But the time for procrastination has officially run out because moving day is Sunday.
I’ve cleaned out and packed every room…except this goddamn mess of a closet that I don’t even use, and have never used the entire time I’ve owned this house.
This space was my wife, Megan’s. It’s where she kept all her clothes, shoes, photo albums—literally everything—and when she died last year, I struggled to find the motivation to go through it all.
After the accident, I feel like I cycled through the five stages of grief at least half a dozen times, always coming back to anger the most. Anger at the destruction she caused, both in life and in death.
Then the guilt would come because I wasn’t grieving the loss of my wife in the way I thought I should be.
It was a vicious, ugly cycle that I didn’t free myself of until about five months ago.
I gave myself permission to just…put it off, pretend like the room didn’t even exist. But then I had to go and buy a new fucking house and sell this one, and now I have no choice but to deal with it once and for all.
And sure, I probably could’ve asked one of my sisters to help me—or do it for me—and they would have, in a heartbeat, but this is something I need to do for me.
I’m tying off another trash bag full of shit I can take to Goodwill when my phone chimes from the shelf it’s sitting on.
Wiping the sweat off my brow with the bottom of my t-shirt, I grab the phone and swipe across the screen when I see a text from my mom.
It’s a picture of my daughter, Ellie Mae, with a ring of chocolate ice cream around her mouth and her nose scrunched up in the way she does whenever she giggles.
Mom: Sweet Ellie Mae enjoying ice cream with her nana! *ice cream emoji*
A smile tugs on my lips as I heart react to the image.
My daughter is staying with my mom and stepdad this weekend so I can finish getting the house ready for the movers on Sunday morning, because it’s dang near impossible to get anything done with an energetic and curious one-and-a-half-year-old running around.
Me: Looks like she’s having fun. Give her a kiss from daddy.
Mom: Will do. Making any progress?
Me: Yeah, some.
Mom: Well, get to it! Don’t make me send Georgia over there to kick your butt into gear. You know I will. *smirk emoji*
I huff a laugh.
Me: Stand down, boss. I got it under control.
Turning on a Cody Johnson playlist on my phone, I set it on the shelf and dive back in.
I spend the next several hours sorting everything into keep, donate, or garbage piles, loading the back of my truck with the latter to make my morning run to the dump easier.
I’m nearly finished when I find a small box in the far back corner of the closet.
It looks like all the other scrapbook containers Megan kept in here, so opening it, I expect to find much of the same, but quickly realize I’m wrong.
The organ in my chest forgets how to beat for a moment, a zap of something dark boiling the blood in my veins as my eyes fixate on the contents of the box, or at least, what I can see.
My jaw aches as I bite down on my molars, and I don’t realize how tight my grip on the box is until a sharp pain hits me in both of my palms from the corners digging into them.
Turning, I walk out of the closet and over to my bed, setting it down as I proceed to go through everything inside.
With each item I pull out, the tightness in my chest and the wretched taste in the back of my mouth intensifies.
Dozens of memories stare back at me—postcards, ticket stubs, room keys, pictures—but none of them are my memories.
Finding this box would’ve devastated me a year and a half ago.
Now, all I feel is disgust, for her, for him, and the lies, but also for myself and how fucking long this went on right under my nose.
For how naive I was, because everything inside this box spans at least five years, according to the date written on the back of one of the photos.
Years.
My wife was having an affair with one of my oldest friends for years, and I was none the wiser.
Fuck this. Shoving everything back in the box, I toss it on the floor before grabbing my phone and keys and leaving.
If I’m going to get through the rest of that fucking closet without losing my shit, I’m going to need to be a hell of a lot less sober.
Parking against the curb in front of High Tide Tavern, the one and only bar in this small town, I stroll inside and sit my ass at the counter, wasting no time ordering a beer and a shot of tequila.
“Drinking to forget?” a familiar voice drawls as they take the stool beside me.
Turning my head, icy-blue eyes surrounded by long, black lashes stare back at me.
The one who got away, but never went far.
The bartender places my drinks in front of me, and I grab the shot glass, holding it in the air between us.
“Indeed, I am. Cheers.” Tossing the liquor back, I set the glass face down a little harder than intended.
“I’ll do another one,” I drawl to the man behind the counter, my gaze never leaving hers.
A smirk tugs on the corner of Charley’s mouth before she turns toward the bartender and says, “Make that two, please.”
Huffing out a dry laugh, I take a swig from my beer. “You too?” I ask her.
“Yeah, I guess.” Charley tosses a couple of peanuts in her mouth from the dish in front of us before she adds, “There’s definitely something I’d rather forget right about now.”
Grabbing her phone off the countertop, she messes around on it for a moment, and I take the opportunity to check her out without getting caught.
Something I try to not do very often, considering our history and the fact that we work together.
Her long, black hair is tied up in a messy bun atop her head, strands falling to frame her face, and the many tattoos decorating her arms and legs are on display with the light wash denim overall shorts and tight, white, short-sleeved crop top she’s wearing.
One of the straps of her overalls isn’t buckled, letting the material hang down, revealing the outline of her nipple ring.
I shouldn’t know that Charley has her nipples pierced, and seeing them through her shirt shouldn’t make my dick thicken inside my sweats, but I do, and it does.
Even after all these years.
“What’s plaguing your mind tonight?” I ask when our shots come.
Charley sets the device down and grabs her glass, holding it up as I do the same, a smirk curling her lips. “Cheers.” Her face twists up and a shiver wracks through her as she swallows the liquor. It’s adorable. Glancing over at me again, a shimmer in her eye, she says, “You first.”
Heaving a sigh, I tell her about the box, and everything I found inside.
It’s not like the entire town doesn’t already know about the affair anyway.
Living in a town as small as Blossom Beach, gossip spreads like wildfire.
The only real new piece of information here is the length of time my wife was fucking somebody else.
Back when I first found out—at the same time as everybody else in town, thanks to the Blossom Beach Residents Facebook page and Peggy Ann, who shared a photo from her niece’s sixteenth birthday party on the beach that my wife and Landon conveniently and unknowingly photobombed—Megan swore up and down it had only been going on for a few months, and while I didn’t believe her, I also didn’t think it had been going on for that long.
“Damn," Charley huffs once I’m done as she grabs my beer, taking a sip before adding, “This is why we don’t marry our high school sweethearts.”
“Wow, really?” Taking the glass from her hand, I chuckle. “That’s how you respond to what I told you?”
Throwing her head back, Charley belly laughs, the sound washing over me like sunshine after a storm. “Okay, I’m sorry. That was insensitive. Let’s do another shot,” she suggests as she gets the bartender's attention and orders another round and a beer for herself.
Lifting a brow, I remind her, “Your turn.”
“Fine,” Charley groans, rolling her eyes. “You remember Zach? The guy I broke up with a few months ago?”
“The one you argued with out back at the inn nearly every other night for the last year?” I drawl. “How could I forget?”
She shoves my arm playfully. “Shut up. I know it was bad.”
“What about him?”
“The girl he told me not to worry about for months just hard launched their relationship on social media,” she offers.
“And you’re upset that it’s her and not you?”
“Fuck no.” She barks out another laugh. “I’m pissed because that means they were probably fucking around while he and I were still together, which I had suspected, but I don’t know… It sucks finding out you were right all along.”
“Don’t I fucking know it,” I grumble, downing another mouthful of beer.
Charley huffs out a dry laugh. “We sure do know how to pick ’em.”
The bartender drops off the shots, and we throw them back at the same time.
Holding her gaze, my body heats, even more so when she wets her full lips with her pierced tongue.
A moment passes, the air thick between us, and I wonder if she feels it too.
When the song changes, Charley stands from the stool, tosses me a grin that makes my stomach roll, and says, “Let’s play pool. ”