Chapter 11
JULES
I come down for breakfast with a packed suitcase to find my parents at the kitchen table. My mother cooked a big spread, as usual, but neither of them seem interested in the food. They’re silent as cadavers and just as stiff. Dad’s staring at the refrigerator. Mom has her head in her hands. They’ve heard the news. I’m a magnificent liar but a terrible actor. I don’t know how to pretend to be surprised that Gino’s dead, or that I didn’t cry myself to sleep last night after Rowan told me.
The most depressing thought comes to me: Maybe Gino is the lucky one. He’s free now. Nobody can give him orders that put him in danger. Nobody can threaten him or hurt him anymore, and he can’t threaten or hurt anyone else. Maybe that’s what death is—freedom. From expectations and obligations and burdens and pain. But he’ll never do or say or feel anything worthwhile again, either. He’ll never laugh at another of my terrible puns or hug his mother or close his eyes at a gory scene in Scream 15 or whatever-number sequel. He’ll never have a family of his own. He’ll never experience love, or joy, or possibility again. Soon, all he’ll be is a pile of bones.
Fresh tears well up before I’ve been given my cue, so I improvise. Not such a bad actor. I swallow the sob that’s itching to be released from my throat. “Gino’s dead, isn’t he?” I ask my father.
His attention flutters from the distant nothing onto me. His eyes are bloodshot, as if he hasn’t slept in a week. He hasn’t lost an employee in a long time. No one’s been foolish enough to take out a Calloway man in years. Well, the joke’s on him. He’s the fool.
“Yes, he is. He died last night. His mother called this morning.”
I let the tears flow unrestrained. I’m sad, but also angry. He should still be here. It wasn’t an unlucky accident that took him away. “He was twenty-six years old. How many more of your lackeys won’t make it to thirty, do you think? And who will you lose next? Teague? Maybe it’ll be me, targeted or caught in the crossfire, who knows.”
“I will always keep you safe.”
“How can you keep me safe when you’re the danger? Your drugs and your guns and your heists and whatever other nasty stuff you deal in. You could’ve been a millionaire a thousand different ways, but you chose the ugliest way possible. Good job.”
I’ve stunned him into silence for the second time in as many days. It suits me fine; I don’t have anything left for him. I wipe my face and head over to my mother. She’s crying. I wrap my arms around her, and she does the same to me. “I’m leaving. I don’t think I’ll be back for the service. I can’t see Gino like that; it’s not how I want to remember him.”
“I understand.” When I pull away, she looks at me like it’s the last time she’ll ever see me. Part of me would love for her to be right. “I love you, topolina.”
“Love you, too, Mom.” This time, I kiss her cheek.
I don’t say goodbye to my dad, just grab the handle of my suitcase and roll it behind me. I’m out of the kitchen, out of the house, and in my car before I can feel bad about it.
I send Rowan a text letting her know that I’m on my way. She responds quickly.
Take Island Road all the way to the end. I’ll meet you at Sand Dollar Beach.
I type Sand Dollar Beach, Hermit Island, ME into my maps app. The drive will take two hours and forty-five minutes. That’s too much time to be alone in my head. I need music or I’ll go crazy. I open Spotify and Ellie Goulding’s lightly graveled voice streams through the speakers. Better. I sing along with her as I start the car up the driveway.
The Sand Dollar Beach parking lot is sprawling and mostly empty, save a few cars here and there. Rowan is sitting on the remnants of a weather-battered wooden post, where the gravel meets the sand dunes, a western wind whipping her ponytail about. She looks small. And sunken. Somehow emptier than I’d left her at the hotel yesterday morning. Was that yesterday? It feels like a whole other lifetime. A lot can change in a day. Some people die, others take lives—unintentionally or on purpose.
She spots me, stands up, shifts her weight from foot to foot. Apprehension is a new look for her. I’m sure she’s felt it before, but this is the first hint of it I’ve seen her display.
“Hey.” She can’t keep her gaze on me. Her focus drops to my rolling luggage. I relinquish my grip on its telescoping handle and cup her face with both hands. She still can’t look at me, despite me trying to force her to.
“Look at me.” She does. As strong-willed as she is, she finds it hard to refuse an order. There’s shame and regret in her eyes. “What you did is not who you are. Understand?”
“No. But I understand it’s not who I want to be.”
“That’s a start.”
“Can you just… kiss me please?”
I’m startled that she asks instead of tells, because that’s not her. She’s too confident to ask. But I think if I don’t kiss her, she’ll cry. And I want to, so I do—soft and sweet so she can taste the love on my lips. She whimpers into my mouth. It’s a one-note requiem. And then she’s holding me so tight to her it’s like we’re standing in an undercurrent that might sweep me out to sea. Maybe she thought she’d lost me. Maybe she’s thinking of all the ways she still could lose me. “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”
She rubs her nose against mine. “What a fucked up beginning to our first real date, huh? And I had some dope plans in mind, too. It feels wrong to have fun now.”
“It feels wrong not to. Gino was fun, always joking around and laughing. He never missed a chance to have a good time. So, can we try? For him. That’s how I want to honor his memory. Okay?”
“Okay, let’s try. First things first, take your shoes off.” Directions. That’s better. I slip my feet out of my sandals. She slips out of her slides. “Let’s go drop your stuff off at the campsite.” She grabs my bag with one hand and takes my hand into the other. As she leads me onto the beach, I think about how we’ve never even been out in public together before, let alone holding hands, and how nice it feels to be outside—with the sun beating down on us and the warm breeze licking our skin and her fingers laced between mine—without having to worry if anyone’s around to see it. I want this to be what my life looks like, us together, not needing to hide.
“You look beautiful, by the way,” Rowan says. “The sundress is very you.”
It’s funny because it’s true. I’ve had this pink floral print mini since high school. It’s my favorite. And it’ll never go out of style. “What, this old thing?”
“Yes, that old thing.” She smirks.
The beach is deserted, which surprises me. Except in the distance, just out of reach of the waves at high tide, is a large tent. It’s more of a yurt than a tent—a tall central pole draped with canvas. As we get closer, I notice the logos slapped across it: Gucci x The North Face. I turn to her. She reads my expression. “You thought I was kidding, huh?”
“You’re ridiculous, you know that?”
“Maybe.”
“How did you find this in a day?”
“Didn’t you know there’s a Gucci outlet in Kittery? A North Face one, too. I get shit done.”
We walk past a firepit, two recliners, and into the tent. She puts my bag down at the foot of an air mattress, inflated, draped with sheets, and ready to sleep in. “This is a glampsite, not a campsite. Hold on, how is this all set up already?”
“It’s amazing what DoorDash will deliver, and to where, and how willing people are to do manual labor when you flash a wad of hundred-dollar bills at them.”
“Oh my God, Rowan, you sound like my father.”
“Even a broken clock is right twice a day, but please don’t ever say that again.” She sits on the edge of the bed, reaches out, and pulls me down beside her. “If you want fun, I’m not sure how you feel about jet skiing, but we can rent one at West Beach.”
“Are you a water sports person?” I just asked a woman whose family business is based out of a yachting marina if she likes water.
“There are multiple meanings to that phrase. Yes to one, no to the other.” I roll my eyes and she grins before continuing. “When my mom was alive we used to spend Christmas vacation in Cancun. I don’t remember much, but there are all these pictures around the house of us doing water activities—boating, jet skiing, snorkeling. I do remember swimming with dolphins once, though. The trainer was excited to have a pregnant woman in the water and told us that one of the dolphins was expecting, too. There was like, this natural bond that formed between my mom and that dolphin; she kept rubbing her snout on my mom’s big belly. The whole experience was wicked cool. I’ll never forget it.”
“You’ve never talked about your mom before.” Or a sibling… Oh, Jesus, she doesn’t have one. “How old were you when she died?”
“Six.”
“It’s been you and your dad since then?”
“Growing up there was a revolving door of women in my house. I guess Callum Monaghan isn’t quite forever material.”
Everything about Rowan Monaghan makes perfect sense now, like looking at a Seurat painting from far away: Sure, you can tell that it’s beautiful up close—the colors, the brush strokes—but its depth is unclear until you take a step back and get the whole picture. No one ever showed her that the most fundamental aspect of love is staying, so she always runs. Even at his worst, my mom stayed with my dad because she always saw good in him. And there are pieces of him that are good. Very few people are all bad, although Callum might be one of the few. My father talks a big game and has all this swagger. He’s beaten a few guys to within an inch of their life when “they deserved it,” but I don’t think he’s ever killed anyone. I know Callum Monaghan has. It’s common knowledge, and it’s why he owns Boston. The city fears him. “I’m sorry. That must have been hard.”
“It is what it is.”
I can tell she’s done discussing it. I glide my hand into hers again. “I like jet skiing. It’s exhilarating.”
“You’ve got a bikini on under that dress, don’t you?”
“I do.”
She’s wearing black board shorts, a black swim tank, a sheer-white button-down shirt, and—my favorite part of the outfit—a white Red Sox cap, backward. She looks more relaxed than I know she actually is, and prepared to be in the ocean. “Here’s what we’re gonna do, jet skiing, followed by some chill beach time, lounging and tanning, an early dinner at a very fancy lobster restaurant in town, because we cannot come to Maine and not eat lobster, and then we’ll come back here for sunset, a fire and some s’mores.”
“I’m sorry, s’mores? You said the magic word.”
Her eyes go wide with excitement. She points to a shopping bag resting atop a towel on the far side of the tent. “I got all the stuff; you wanna make ’em right now?”
Because I have functioning eyeballs, I’ve always known Rowan was sexy. Cute is a new discovery. It makes me smile. “No, we can save them for dessert.”
“Alright. Let’s move, we’re burning daylight, and I wanna get my ass on a water motorcycle.”
“A water motorcycle,” I chuckle.
“What? That’s what they are.”
“You’re right.”
“There’s something I have to do real quick. I haven’t gotten around to it with all the preparations.” She makes a sweeping motion around us. “But it’s a need, not a want.”
“Alright.”
She kneels over her black duffle, back turned to me. When she stands again, I see she’s holding her gun by its barrel. I loathe guns with all my being, and cringe at the sight of it, despite knowing that it’s innocuous in her hand. She glances at it, at me. “I’m done with these fucking things. I don’t ever want to own, hold, or even see one again in my life.” She marches out of the tent like she’s on a mission. I follow her down the sand, to the ocean’s edge, and beyond, into the water, up to our calves.
She releases an empty magazine from the bottom of the gun’s grip, then with her best impersonation of a big-league pitcher, winds up and throws it into the sea. She does it a second time with the body of the gun. The monstrous instrument of annihilation is swallowed by the waves. Rowan becomes instantly lighter, more like my Rowan. I think she’ll be okay eventually. And I will, too.
“Now, water sports,” she says.
“Water sports.”
“Do you want your own water motorcycle, or do you want to share one?” Rowan wonders as she’s looking over the jet ski rental board with pricing and time options.
“Mmm.”
The young guy manning the rental kiosk overhears her. He gives me a once-over and flashes a smile. “You definitely want your own. You look like a girl who likes speed and being in control.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me.
Gross. What a lame line. I was contemplating getting my own, but now I want to share one with Rowan. Besides, I like the idea of holding onto her, and of shriveling this bold bro’s ego by making him watch me hold her.
Rowan slides her arm around my waist and presses her lips to my temple, then glowers at the guy. “Don’t hit on my girlfriend. She’s so far out of your league.”
“Sorry,” he mumbles, and walks away embarrassed under the guise of helping other customers.
I’m not taken aback by her possessiveness, or put off by it, either; it’s kind of hot, and it means she’s proud to be with me. But that word. So official. I wasn’t expecting it. “I’m your girlfriend, huh?”
“Uh, yes? My bad, should we have processed that together first, like total lesbians?”
“What about Elisa Rossi? You’re still seeing her.”
“I was never seeing her. We’ve never been physical. We’ve been in each other’s lives since we were kids, that’s all. I told you, my dad had designs, but they weren’t mine. And if you haven’t figured out that I prefer blondes yet, what the hell’s taking you so long?”
I kiss her. It’s reactive. There are a hundred people on this beach, but I pay them no mind and couldn’t care less if they pay us any, either. “Get one jet ski. You’re going to let me drive it, though, right?”
She lifts her sunglasses and squinches at me. “I’ve seen how you drive on land. You’ll be worse on the water. But fuck it, I’m prepared to go out with a splash.”