4. Callum
FOUR
CALLUM
Losing sucked.
Losing after a god-awful ninth inning where my best teammate let a ground ball roll straight past him? That was downright infuriating.
The guys and I played every Wednesday night for the Remington County men’s twelve-inch, slow pitch softball league. Sure, we were the second-oldest team in the league, and our postgame ritual almost always included icing sore muscles and creaking knees, but we loved it.
Losing was a serious hit to our collective pride.
“I swear, Hayes,” I muttered as I yanked off my baseball cap and dragged a hand through my damp hair before putting it on backward. “Did you not see the ball? Were your eyes closed?”
Hayes Darling, former town golden boy and reigning champion of bad luck, slumped against the dugout bench with a groan. “You think I wanted that to happen? I got caught in the sun.” He held up his glove. “Besides, the stitching tore out of this fucking thing. ”
He threw his busted mitt into the dirt and pushed it farther away with his shoe.
Brody Shepherd scoffed, unwrapping the tape around his wrists. “Sure, buddy. The sun—the same sun that’s been here all season?”
Hayes shot him a glare. “You wanna say that again, Shep?”
Brody just grinned at his best friend, always happy to poke the bear. “I’m just saying, if you need me to buy you some sunglasses, just say so.”
“Boys, boys,” Wes drawled, his voice full of mock wisdom as he leaned on his bat. “It was an early season game. Nobody’s getting a championship ring here.”
I shot him a glare. “Yeah, and yet I don’t see you giving up your MVP beer at the Lantern when we do win.”
Wes grinned. “Never.”
Brody snorted. “Oh, don’t act all high and mighty, Wes. You were two seconds away from chucking your glove into the dugout like a toddler when you struck out.”
“A toddler with dignity,” Wes corrected with a scowl.
The best part of our season included celebratory beers at the local dive after the game. Unfortunately for us, tonight they had become consolation beers, but I didn’t mind. I needed a break.
“Anyway, I think we need another player,” Brody said, tossing his mitt into his bag.
He wasn’t wrong. Our team consisted of us four plus a few others, but because of work commitments, most of them were designated subs.
“I could always ask Austin,” Brody offered.
A collective grumble of agreement rippled through the group. Having Brody’s half brother on the team would certainly be an advantage. Austin was young, eager, and athletic.
Maybe he could run his ass into the ground without getting winded.
“Did Austin find an apartment?” I asked, unlacing my cleats and stuffing them into my gym bag.
“He’s still looking,” Brody said, shrugging. “He’s couch surfing until he finds his own place, but I know he’s itching to do something besides work at the marina. He was a decent baseball player in high school.”
Hayes snorted, rubbing his shoulder and moving the arm in a slow circle. “Yeah, so was I. Look how that turned out.”
“Anyway,” Brody dragged out the word. “Beers at the Lantern?”
A round of grunts and nods signaled our agreement. Losing might’ve sucked, but postgame beers were always a win.
The Lady’s Lantern wasn’t just a bar; it was a Star Harbor institution.
As we stepped inside, the carved wooden lantern sign flickered, casting a warm glow over the entrance.
Inside, it smelled like old wood, whiskey, and history.
The walls were plastered with relics of the town’s obsession with the Lady of the Dunes—framed newspaper clippings of supposed sightings, grainy black-and-white photographs of a ghostly figure by the water, and, in one corner, a glass case housing what was allegedly a piece of her original wedding veil.
Tourists ate that shit up.
Even the drink menu played into the legend. The Lady’s Lament—a fancy gin cocktail that Brody once described as “tasting like a perfume bottle.” The Sailor’s Doom—a whiskey drink strong enough to knock out a grown man.
Ask me how I know.
As we slid into a booth, Wes stretched an arm along the back of his seat, looking around the packed bar.
“Look at this shit.” He gestured with his bottle to a group huddled around the veil taking selfies.
“Never ceases to amaze me.” His attention landed on me, eyebrows bouncing.
“When’s the Drifted Spirit finally going to live up to its namesake? ”
My eyes flicked to Hayes as he slipped out of the booth to grab another round. Talking about the Lady always seemed to get under his skin.
I took a sip of my beer, the cold liquid cutting through the summer heat still clinging to my skin. “Never. The whole thing is ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous or profitable?” Wes asked, tapping the Lady’s Love Lock Fence pamphlet left on the table.
Brody smirked. “You have to admit, the Ghost Run 5K was fun. A bunch of idiots in glow-in-the-dark outfits running from an imaginary dead woman?” His hands spread wide. “Come on. That shit’s funny.”
I ignored them, swirling my beer. Sure, the legend made money, but I never once actually believed there was a ghost haunting the streets of Star Harbor.
Conversation shifted to work and women as Hayes reclaimed his spot in the booth. Eventually, the sting of the game faded. I paid my tab and headed home.
The inn was quiet when I pulled up. The soft glow of the windows was stark against the cloudy, starless sky.
A few guests were sitting out back, enjoying a small fire as I headed toward the side entrance.
I raised my hand to be friendly, but exhaled a sigh of relief as soon as I slipped into the kitchen.
It still smelled of the afternoon chocolate chip cookies I made and Helen baked every afternoon.
The thousands of positive reviews proved that my idea of afternoon cookies was well received.
Besides, what monster doesn’t like cookies?
Fresh irritation rolled over me as I looked at my phone for the third time. Levi was supposed to have checked in with me when he got back from hanging out with his friends.
Of course, he hadn’t.
Levi was officially done with school for the summer, which meant I had three full months to keep a teenage boy out of trouble.
I wasn’t sure how the hell I was supposed to do that.
Inside, I peeked into his room and smirked. He was sprawled across his bed, one foot hanging off the side, headphones over his ears, the bluish glow of his phone illuminating his face.
At least he was here this time. That was my bar now—he made it home in one piece.
I exhaled. He had been slipping lately—staying out late, skipping school. The kind of behavior that had warning bells blaring in my head.
The last thing I needed was Levi becoming me at his age. Joining the Army was the only thing that straightened me out, and all I had to show for it was an armful of scars and an unsettling sense of regret.
The wooden doorframe was hard beneath my knuckles. His eyes flicked up, and he pulled one side of the headphones off his ear.
“Hey, Dad.” The corner of his mouth tipped up.
My chest squeezed. Sometimes there were still tiny moments when the little kid with crooked teeth and a big smile peeked through his surly teenage attitude.
Part of me wanted to remind him that he’d messed up and not let me know he’d gotten home. But lately it felt like all I was doing was riding his ass and pointing out the ways he was falling short. Trouble was, he needed to be accountable for his actions.
I couldn’t win.
Mary had a way with Levi that I just ... didn’t. His therapist assured me I wasn’t completely fucking him up, but there were days I wasn’t so sure.
His eyebrows lifted as I waged an internal war.
“You need something?” he asked.
I scoffed. “No. Just glad you’re home. Love you.”
“You too.” The words were barely out before his headphones were back in place and his attention was focused on his phone. I stood in the doorway for half a second longer than I should have, like I was waiting for something.
An opening.
Exhausted and defeated, I walked down the hall to the primary suite. Levi and I lived downstairs, away from the main guest rooms of the inn. There was only one empty bedroom across the hall from Levi, but it was never a room to be rented and was typically only used by friends after a night out.
I never let a stranger that close to where we slept.
Slipping out of my dusty clothes, I tossed everything into the laundry hamper. My fingertips brushed over the bumps and ridges my scars had left behind. They ran from my wrist to my neck as a harsh reminder of the life I had chosen.
A quick, scalding shower was exactly what I needed to wash the day away. My nightly mental gymnastics came back in full force as I ran through everything I needed to prep for the next day. The inn ran like clockwork, but only because I was always on top of it.
After the shower, I carried the clothes basket to the large laundry room off the kitchen.
Three washers and dryers stacked on top of one another lined one wall.
An oversize washbasin for bleaching and soaking linens was along the other.
During the renovation, Mary had decided to keep the oversize windows on the far wall that overlooked Star Harbor Farm.
I gazed into the darkness. Across the yard, something flickered in the distance. A glow. Too steady to be flashlights. Too low to be the moon. And coming from a place that should’ve been empty.
The abandoned cottage was glowing from inside.
My shoulders tensed as my eyes closed and I sighed.
Great.
Either the raccoons had learned how to work a light switch or some idiot was ghost hunting. Again.
After starting my laundry, I grabbed the wooden bat I kept by the side entrance and headed across the yard into the darkness. A breeze coming off Lake Michigan carried the scent of summer. If the clouds would only move out, it would have made for a beautiful, star-filled summer sky.