Chapter 50
O ur bodies naturally start to sway together. God, I love this girl. I don’t care what I have to do. She’s not going anywhere near that manor again.
“It doesn’t bother you?” Ever asks.
“What?”
“That I don’t have…what I used to.”
My body comes to a stop and I spin her around. She tries to hide her face from me but I catch the blotchiness. Was she crying again?
Even from afar, Arthur Munreaux continues to hurt his daughter.
“Does it bother me that you’re not rich anymore?”
With a peek up at me, she nods.
“Fuck no. I never gave a shit about your money, Ever.” I grab that mottled face and press my forehead to hers. “With or without money, I love you .”
I hear the front door open behind me, then my mom and dad’s voices. The moment they notice us, they cut off almost instantly.
If only their thoughts could be silenced, too.
“Mom. Dad.” I turn around, smile already in place to set the tone for this new, and hopefully not too awkward, encounter. “I’d like you to meet Ever, my girlfriend.”
Fucking surprise.
Ever pivots my way, looking at me quizzically.
“Girlfriend? I’m your girlfriend?”
It’s a surprise to her, too?
“You are until I put a ring on your finger.”
Her azure eyes widen.
How did she not know that? No, we never had “the talk,” but I didn’t think we needed to. Not after everything we’ve been through. She helped me ingest charcoal via allofeeding to counteract poison, and I saved her from throwing herself off a cliff. We’re each other’s lifelines.
Since lifeline isn’t a widely accepted term, girlfriend will have to do.
Until I propose and make her my fiancée.
That only sounds mildly better though. Better to make her my wife as soon as possible.
“Well…” my mom says. “That’s different.”
I double-blink at her.
So much for this not being awkward.
“Different…but good,” she tries to reassure. “It’s nice to meet you, Ever. I’m Phoebe. And this is Reid.”
They both take turns shaking Ever’s hand, but my dad doesn’t release hers right away, holding on to it as he questions, “Ever? As in…”
“Munreaux.”
I step forward and pull Ever’s wrist back, ending the handshake.
Both my parents alternate their gazes between me, my girlfriend, and the hand I just took out of my own father’s grasp.
I don’t explain myself or apologize. Blood relation or not, he shouldn’t have held on to my girl’s hand for so long.
Finally, my dad clears his throat, and says, “Beautiful, uh, motorcycles…I hear.”
I almost fucking groan. Jesus.
“Yeah. Um, thanks. Although, I don’t have anything to do with that.” She laughs.
Imagining Ever designing motorcycles is pretty funny. In all the drawings I’ve seen of hers, not one of them was a motorcycle. She’s a nature girl. Not an engine, cogs, and motor oil girl. What the hell was Arthur thinking trying to make her head of Munreaux Motorcycles?
Maybe he’s dying and doesn’t have any other choice.
One can hope.
“You would’ve if your dad had his way,” I mutter to her before announcing, “Ever’s staying with us for a while.”
“No?” she says in that way of hers that sounds more like a question than it should. “I’m not.”
I swing a frown her way. “Where else are you gonna go?”
She side-eyes my parents and lowers her voice for no real reason other than shame, obviously, because she says, “I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.”
“I’ll save you the trouble. You’re staying here.”
“But—”
I cut her off with our usual, “You’re welcome,” before she can get another word out. Over my dead body is she staying somewhere else.
Her foot stomp makes me chuckle, mainly because her foot is so small it doesn’t make any noise whatsoever.
I press a kiss to the top of her head. Such a cute little creep.
“You’re welcome to stay as long as you want, Ever,” my mom says with a soft smile before squeezing past us to go to the kitchen. “We were planning on having a beach day. Would you two care to join us?”
“A day at the beach sounds nice.” The job search can wait. I’ve never had difficulty finding myself a new job. And Ever…could use some fun right now. A little sun wouldn’t hurt either. We’ve been spending way too much time indoors. The tan she got from Florida last month is long gone, replaced with an almost sickly pallor to her skin.
“The beach? We can go there?” Ever asks me.
“Yeah. It’s right down the road,” I say, a little confused. “It’s not private or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“It’s not that. I just…” She shakes her head. “I’ve never been to the beach here.”
I turn to follow my dad, and Ever shadows me.
“You have a beachfront house.”
“We have a bay view house. We live too high up to go to the beach.”
“But…Sea Haven is a coastal town. There are beaches everywhere.”
“None that I’ve been to. My father said the beaches here were—” She glances toward my parents. “Uh…you know.”
Oh. Right. Arthur’s belief that it reeks down here.
He’s not exactly wrong.
“Yeah, the beaches here can stink sometimes.” It’s not all the time. Most of the time though.
You get used to it.
We have.
We’ve tried. Some days are easier to ignore it than others. It depends on a lot of factors, like the heat and wind. Today’s breezy, so it shouldn’t be too bad.
“That’s the Sound for you,” my mom says. “A lot of sewage gets discharged into it unfortunately.”
“The salt marshes and decaying seaweed don’t help either,” my dad adds.
“Just don’t dig at all and you should be fine. That’s where a lot of it settles,” I tell her.
“So, no burying you in the sand?”
Ever finally smiles, and even though my first reaction is to give her whatever she wants, I’m not being buried in that fucking sand.
“No, sorry.”
She tilts her head to show her dislike for the word, but I can’t fold on this one. I haven’t been buried in the sand since I was a kid. I’m an adult now. An adult who knows better. That sand is not only gross but full of—
“Ooh, you should let her bury you. After the crabs latch on, we’ll pull you up and collect them so we can have a feast tonight.”
—crabs. We have so many crabs here, you can’t even walk barefoot on the sand without getting pinched. We usually catch them using raw chicken on string, but apparently my mother thinks I’d make better bait. I’d definitely be bigger bait. I’m just not convinced I’d be better.
And I’m not willing to find out.
“Not happening,” I tell everybody, earning boos from both parents…and eventually Ever after they prompt her to join in.
Keeping the smile from my face so they can’t see how much I’m enjoying this, I fold my arms over my chest and watch the three of them gang up on me.
That didn’t take long for her to fit in. Not long at all.
“Did you bring your swimsuit, Ever?” my mom asks her after they finish their heckling routine.
“Um, no. I didn’t bring…” She eyes me. “Anything.”
Relocating condiments from the fridge to the counter, my mom nods. “It was one of those nights, huh?”
“Unfortunately.”
“That’s okay. It’s still early in the season that it might not be hot enough to swim. And you don’t need one to kayak.”
All the ingredients for grinders in front of her, my mom grabs a plate and utensils.
“Oh…good.”
“You’ve never kayaked, have you?” I ask Ever, going over to start opening everything.
“No. But I did stand-up paddleboard in the Maldives once.”
My mom raises her eyebrows at me.
I shrug. My girlfriend’s not like us.
Suddenly, Ever appears on my other side, completing the assembly line.
I can’t keep the doubt from my voice when I ask her, “You know how to make a grinder?”
“I will in a minute.”
She’s not like us…yet. Soon she’ll be a Brantley in every way, including legally.
“Here. I got it, Dad.”
I rush over to take the kayaks from my dad’s hold.
He puts both hands up. “All right, all right. You want to show off for your girlfriend. I get it. I used to be young and strong, too.”
When he tries to lift the cooler, he winces.
“Dad—”
“Oh, I can take that,” Ever says. Before my dad can even argue, she’s strutting away with it in her possession.
Jesus, I love her.
The four of us, each weighed down with provisions, venture down the street, toward the water. The tide’s already going out, so there’s a ton of beach for us to set up camp on for the next several hours. We pass by canopies, blankets, chairs, coolers, playpens, a half-buried basketball hoop… Okay, that’s a first.
Beside me, Ever’s taking everything in with round eyes. She’s wearing an old tee of mine, along with a pair of my basketball shorts that despite the waist being rolled down at least three times, are still too big on her. With a pair of my mom’s size-eight sandals on her size-six-and-a-half feet, she’s making loud thwacks with every step she takes, kicking up sand all over both of us.
If her clones saw her right now, they’d choke on their overpriced seaweed water.
“What do you think?” I ask her.
“It smells like you.”
“So…it stinks?”
We both chuckle.
“No, the saltwater smells like you.”
“Yeah, I figured that’s where it was coming from.” I’ve never lived anywhere else, so the saltwater’s probably in my pores at this point.
“It’s beautiful from down here. Less intimidating.”
I nod and face forward. From this angle, you can see the sun reflecting off the water’s surface, making it glitter. At the manor, I noticed there was no real glitter. Too high up, I guess.
“I don’t know how to explain it. It’s fresh. Renewing. I feel…new.”
“You look it,” I sorta joke. She looks happier like this than when she’s in her usual attire.
Ever groans. “I can’t imagine what I look like.”
“Nothing like a Munreaux.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.”
“It’s a very good thing.” At least to me. “So your team never had any team-bonding exercises or anything on the beach?”
“Not while I’ve been on it.”
“And you never went to any bonfires down here?” Connecticut residents, or Nutmeggers as most prefer, call almost all parties bonfires, whether there’s a bonfire or not.
“Nope. None.”
It’s hard to believe that in nineteen years of living here, she’s never been to a Sea Haven beach. Even if our house wasn’t steps from the shore, my family would’ve taken advantage of living this close to the Sound.
The people that live up on the cliffs have multimillion-dollar views of a bay they won’t go near. It’s just like art. They only want it for the bragging rights.
Well, not Ever. She genuinely likes art.
“Phoebe!” someone calls out, causing all four Brantley heads to snap to the right. Technically, three plus a Munreaux’s, but I’m trying out Ever’s manifesting shit by thinking of her as my wife already.
“Oh, hey, Carol! Long time no see,” my mom greets a woman who looks vaguely familiar. I think she lives a couple streets over from us, but I haven’t seen her for a few years. The moment her eyes land on me, it becomes obvious why that is.
While her lips continue moving, her voice doesn’t make it to us. It’s not hard to guess why considering the person sitting next to her almost breaks their neck to gawk at us. At me.
Before I can tear my eyes away, I make out the words “be in jail.”
Dropping the cooler, Ever stops in her tracks, which means I’m not the only one.
“Excuse me? What was that? We couldn’t quite hear you.”
Spinning around, I tell her, “Come on. It’s not worth it.” It never is.
“Yes, you are,” she argues before returning her attention to Carol. “Say it again?”
“It wasn’t for you, dear.”
“That nose clearly wasn’t for you either, but you’re still trying to make it work, aren’t you?” Ever quips.
Carol gasps and cups the nose in question.
Several passersby tune into the altercation. Some of their stares linger on me a bit too long to pass as curious. Fuck.
That familiar urge to hide returning in an instant, I yank my hat lower. I got too fucking comfortable the last couple weeks.
“Ever,” I grit. “Let’s go.”
She surveys our audience.
I know she thinks she’s helping by standing up for me. But she’s only making it worse by drawing more attention. Carol isn’t the only one with that opinion. At least she had the decency to voice it low enough to where I couldn’t hear it. Most people don’t.
“You shouldn’t judge people you don’t know anything about,” she tells…everybody.
Picking up the cooler again, she comes to stand by my side, one hand on her hip.
“You deal with that all the time?”
I resume walking before muttering, “Not if we go out far enough.”
Ever grows quiet after that. In fact, everybody does. Nobody speaks until we find a spot away from everybody to drop our stuff.
“Why don’t you and Ever take the kayaks out first?” my mom suggests after we get everything set up.
I agree without hesitation. Any opportunity to get farther away from those people, I’m taking.
While I’m putting the kayaks in the water, I hear Ever yelp behind me.
“Ow!”
Up to her knees in the water, she’s hopping around on one foot.
I’m next to her in an instant.
“What happened?”
“I think something bit me.”
Oh, fuck. My mind starts racing, thinking about all the creatures that could’ve bit her. It could’ve even been a jellyfish sting.
I lift her up, one hand behind her back, one under her knees. Her feet out of the water, I see they’re bare. There aren’t any sandals floating around us, so…
“You took your shoes off?”
She nods miserably, tears barely held back, before snuggling me closer. “I thought I had to for kayaking.”
“Aw, sorry, butterfly. That’s on me. I should’ve warned you.” I was so focused on getting away from here, I forgot Ever’s new to…here. “There’re crabs all over, under the water, under the sand, and if you step on one, or even just near one, they’ll pinch you.”
“That was a pinch ?”
The pinch itself probably wasn’t as awful as the shock of it. I’ve seen grown men brought to tears over an unexpected crab pinch.
I carry her to get her sandals, then we paddle out. As a fast learner, she has no problem keeping up with me, staying relatively close on my flank. Aside from my first few instructions on how to hold the paddle, the ride is silent. We pass house after house with only a few feet between them, giving them a condominium-like appearance. Nothing like Ever’s neighborhood with multiple acres between each mansion.
“Do you like the water?” she asks randomly.
I glance around at it, then shrug. “I guess.”
“You could work with it.”
I nod before it turns into a shake. “I have no idea what that means.”
“You could get a job working with water.”
“Like a marine biologist?”
“There are a lot of roles in conservation work, not just biologists.”
“You want me to be a conservationist like you?”
“You already are. All of your jobs have been protecting something, right? Buildings, people… You could protect sea life.”
I hadn’t thought of it like that before. What I was technically doing—conservation of sorts—never really registered. I was choosing jobs based on the ability to disappear from everyone’s radar. Night guard of office buildings and storage facilities, the ones with entire shifts where I didn’t encounter a single soul, were my favorites. I didn’t like taking bouncer-type jobs, mostly because of the amount of people I was forced to interact with, but I still did it when needed. At least at Hide and Keep I could somewhat conceal my identity.
“I don’t know the first thing about getting into that kind of work,” I confess.
“I’m sure you could figure it out. You’re good at finding answers to things you don’t know.”
That is what the internet’s for. Or what it started out as. Now it’s… I don’t even know. It seems like people go out of their way to stay ignorant these days.
“It probably requires a degree—”
“You don’t need a college education to make a difference in the world.”
I consider that for a moment.
“What about you? Will you continue your conservation work?”
Ever doesn’t answer for so long I have to check on her over my shoulder. The paddle across her lap, she’s just staring at me.
I stop paddling, too.
“Too soon?” I know how hard it must’ve been for her to leave all those butterflies behind.
“No, it’s okay.” Nothing about her says it’s okay.
“You did all you can.”
“Did I?”
“You gave them a way out. It’s up to them to use it.”
“Would you?”
“Would I what?”
“If you were given a way out, would you use it?”
“A way out of…” She’s not talking about…this, right? Us?
“Sea Haven.”
Thank God.
I try to imagine what a way out of Sea Haven might look like. A job offer with a relocation package. A sudden windfall of cash.
One’s much more realistic than the other…if I were looking for jobs elsewhere, which I’m not right now and probably won’t until things have settled.
“Eventually,” I say.
“Like when? After your father’s surgery?”
I wobble my head from side to side, not committing to any one answer, and resume paddling.
Not a moment later, Ever appears beside me. “You’re lying.”
“I didn’t even say anything.”
“You wouldn’t use it.”
“I said eventually. Just not right this minute while we’ve got a lot going on.”
“We?”
I hook my paddle onto Ever’s kayak and pull us to a stop.
“Yeah, we. I know you heard me earlier but I’ll repeat it as many times as it takes for it to sink in. You’re my girlfriend. You live with me now. We live together, meaning we’re in this…” I gesture all around us. “Everything, together. And since fairy godmothers don’t exist, we have to find our own way out of Sea Haven. With both of us working, we should be able to pool our resources together, and in a few years, we’ll look at making it happen.”
“Years? But…you’re miserable here.”
“You know when I’m not miserable? When I’m with you.”
“That’s not always true. I was with you earlier when that woman—”
“I don’t know then. Maybe you’re my security blanket, too, because you make everything more bearable. That woman?” I scoff. “I already forgot her.” I did the second I heard Ever in distress. It doesn’t matter that she’s no longer my protectee. Her safety will always take precedence in my mind.
Ever doesn’t look convinced, so I cup the back of her head and bring her face as close to mine without tipping either of our kayaks.
Looking between those azure eyes, I say, “How can I think about anything else when all I’m ever thinking about is you?”
I expect a chuckle, or a kiss, or some kind of reciprocation. What I get is an entire-face frown, from her hairline to her dimpled chin.
“It’s your fault. You ruined me.”
It takes a few seconds, but finally, the muscles in her face relax. “What kind of conservationist does that make me?”
I laugh, then press a quick kiss to her lips. “I’m not in need of saving, little bat.”
Taking the hat off my head, I expect her to launch it away from us. Instead, she puts it on hers before paddling ahead of me. While I’m full-on grinning, I swear she’s got another frown. I just don’t know why.