Chapter 2
LEVI
CHAPTER TWO
The motors on my fully restored trawler hummed as I eased up to Chase’s parents’ dock. After tying off and shutting down the engines, I stepped onto the weathered planks and made my way up the hill toward the place that had been my second home since childhood.
The Lockharts’ beachside house had been theirs for decades, but Chase had recently talked his parents into finally allowing him to pay for renovations. Like he always said, what good was all that pro-hockey-player money if he couldn’t use it on the people he loved?
I knocked twice on the slider before opening the door and stepping inside, just like I’d done a hundred times before. Voices boomed from the back of the house, so I headed in that direction.
“Chase,” Marianne said, exasperation heavy in her tone. “You have to be gentle with my babies. They aren’t one of your hockey pucks that you can slam around wherever you want.”
“I don’t slam them wherever I want, Mom. I artfully and skillfully slap them into the net.”
“Well, I don’t want you to slap these anywhere, either. This is an African violet, and Bonnie?—”
“Who the hell is Bonnie?” Chase grumbled.
“—doesn’t do well with your giant man hands. Where’s Levi? He knows exactly how the plants—Bonnie included—need to be handled.”
“Oh, because Levi has such delicate hands? We’re the same size, Mom.”
“All I know is not a single one of my babies fell ill?—”
“Fell ill?” Chase snorted.
“—when Levi helped me set up your old room as my plant nursery. And I just think—oh!” She spotted me in the doorway and shot a warm smile in my direction. She was petite, dwarfed even more standing next to Chase’s 6’3” stature, her gray-streaked blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. “There you are, honey. Just the man I wanted to see.”
Chase glanced over his shoulder at me. “Oh good, there’s delicate Levi with his tiny man hands, ready to save the day.”
I shoved the bottle of wine I’d brought into his stomach, causing him to let out an oomph. “I can’t help that your mom loves my hands and all they can do.”
Chase gripped the neck of the wine bottle and pointed it in my direction like a weapon. “Don’t you ever fucking say that again.”
I shrugged. “You’re banging my sister.”
“I married your sister, you ass clown.”
“Doesn’t matter. I still get a permanent free pass to say whatever I want to your mom.”
Marianne clapped her hands once, the sound as sharp as a coach’s whistle. “Boys! I swear, you’re worse now than you were when you were twelve. At least back then, we had Harper to temper things a bit.”
A brick to the face would’ve been less jarring than that mere mention of her name. Just hearing it was a sledgehammer to my chest, same as it’d been for more than a decade. Memories of what we’d once been tried to surface before I shoved them down, locking them up tight where they belonged.
“Now, if you want to eat at a reasonable time, we need to get choppin’.” Marianne pinned both of us with her patented Mom Stare. Then, to me, she asked, “You remember what I told you last time?”
I dipped my chin in a nod, grateful for the distraction. “Gentle hands make for happy plants.”
“That’s right.” With her brows raised, Marianne gestured to me while shooting a pointed glance at her son. “You see? Levi understands.”
“Did you want me to contact my lawyer about drawing up some adoption papers?” Chase asked. “You’re already making his favorite meal instead of mine, so we might as well make this official.”
Marianne swatted her hand through the air before settling it on my back, her touch warm and gentle as she rubbed soft circles against me. “We don’t need a piece of paper to tell us what we already know. Levi’s been like another son since day one.”
That was true. Chase’s parents had treated me like a part of their family my entire life. Even when I’d tried to push them away—something I’d done a whole fucking lot, with everyone in my life, some more successfully than others. And even when I didn’t deserve it.
“Why are we moving all these out of here anyway?” Chase asked, carefully cradling the plants Marianne handed to him. “Didn’t you just set this up because your kids weren’t giving you grandchildren fast enough?”
“Yes, well.” She sniffed. “Since my eldest child and only son decided to go off and elope without me, his father, or any of his sisters in attendance—or even word that it was happening—I thought maybe things were progressing quickly. And I want to be ready for those grandbabies! The least you could do after shutting us out of the most important day of your life is to give me my dying wish—to have grandkids to spoil before I leave this earth.”
My heart stopped…just froze in my fucking chest. I snapped my gaze to Marianne, eyeing her from head to toe and looking for any obvious signs of illness or distress. Panic gripped me by the throat at the thought of losing her after everyone else. A million thoughts raced through my mind, all focused on what was wrong, what I could do to help, how I could stop it. Actually stop it this time.
But when I slid my gaze to Chase, I realized he wasn’t concerned at all.
With a scoff, he rolled his eyes. “You’re not dying, Mom. Don’t say shit like that. Jesus Christ, I swear you’re as dramatic as my wife.”
As subtly as I could, I released the pent-up breath I’d been holding and willed my heart to settle back into a steady rhythm. All while keeping up the facade that everything was fine. That my heart hadn’t plummeted to my feet, that I hadn’t gone straight to worst-case scenarios.
It’d been ten years—eleven in just a few weeks—since my mom had died, and shit like this still had me in a choke hold.
Marianne grinned at her son. “Is it any wonder you love us both beyond measure?”
“Never been a wonder for me,” he said.
“Oh, you.” Marianne walked up to Chase and pinched his cheek before patting it lightly. “Always my sweet boy. But I still don’t forgive you for making me find out you got married on one of Mabel’s Lives.”
“I knew I should’ve slipped that woman more money,” Chase grumbled.
“I’m not sure what you expected when you asked the town gossip to officiate. She even mentioned the gift basket she was sending your way—full of a variety of toys designed to give a woman plea?—”
“All right, Mom,” Chase cut in, loud enough to drown out the rest of Marianne’s words. “Jesus. I never want to hear you utter toys and give a woman pleasure in the same sentence again.”
Without missing a beat, Marianne turned to me, settling an oversized hanging basket in my arms. “And what about you, Levi? It’s about time for you to settle down, isn’t it? You’re not getting any younger, you know. Thirty-one is knocking on your door, and you’re the last single one left of your whole family.”
And it was going to stay that way. I hadn’t allowed myself to be interested in anyone in a very long time, and I had no plans to change that anytime soon.
“Perhaps you’ll find a special someone at the carnival this weekend or next,” she said. “You never know who you might run into.”
“But that means he’d have to go to the carnival,” Chase said. “And that ain’t happening.”
Marianne shot me a frown. “Not going? But you used to love them when you were little! You three would beg to spend whole days there, you remember?”
Remembering was all I seemed to do anymore. Remembering and regretting and wishing it all could’ve been different.
“When was the last time you went to one?” she asked.
Twelve years, but who was counting?
I shrugged. “Can’t remember, but it’s not really my scene anymore.”
She tsked and shook her head, eyeing me with a scrutinizing expression. “Funnel cakes and Ferris wheels are everyone’s scene, Levi.”
Fortunately, she let the subject drop without another word as Chase and I did her bidding. After we’d successfully relocated all seven thousand plants from his room-turned-literal-nursery-turned-prospective-baby-nursery to be scattered all over the house, the three of us sat down for dinner.
Marianne dished heaping portions of pot roast and mashed potatoes onto each of our plates before settling into her chair. “Since we can’t turn a corner without hearing the exciting things Chase has coming up this week with the new hockey camp, why don’t you tell me how things are going with you, Levi? Work is going well? I worry about you, you know. In that apartment all by yourself. Away from your family. And running your own business on top of it all.” She tutted and shook her head. “I imagine that’s stressful, making sure you can stay afloat.”
I didn’t exactly advertise my two-year wait list so it wasn’t a surprise she had no idea, but I hated the thought of her concerning herself with me. “You don’t have to worry about me or the business,” I said, tucking into my meal. “Things are going good.”
She hummed skeptically as if she didn’t believe me, and I had half a mind to pull up my bank account just to show her how good things were. It was the one part of my life where I wasn’t a complete and total fuckup. “Maybe you can do some more boat tours for the resort. Branch out, perhaps expand your offerings a bit, just to bring in some more income.”
I made an incremental fraction running boat tours for my family’s beachside resort compared to what I did designing, building, customizing, and repairing boats. But I didn’t do the tours for the money. I did them for my family. For our mom’s legacy. And to keep alive the few memories I had left of her.
I hummed noncommittally. “Maybe. I’m sure your daughter-in-law is already on it.”
“Speaking of… Where is my little angel?” Marianne asked, and neither Chase nor I could hold in our snorts.
Addison was a lot of things, but an angel wasn’t one of them. I loved the little shit more than almost anyone and would do anything for her. But she grated on my nerves on a good day and drove me out of my mind the rest of the time.
“She’s at the inn, bossing the contractors around,” Chase said around a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “Between the hockey complex and the main inn renovations, she’s been in heaven, ordering all those people around.”
“You make sure to tell her to stop by this week. I’ve been missing my daughter-in-law.”
While it had taken a while to come to terms with the fact that my best friend had been hooking up with my baby sister in secret—for ten fucking years, no less—I’d done so. Reluctantly. But I couldn’t deny how good he was for her. Other than my brothers, Chase was the best man I knew, and I couldn’t think of a better fit for Addison.
Though it’d been comforting to watch all my siblings move on, move forward, and overcome the demons of our past, I couldn’t help but drown in them. Chained to a history I didn’t deserve to escape.
After more coercing from Marianne where she encouraged me to attend the carnival because you just never know, she wrapped up the remaining leftovers for me, and I said my goodbyes. I made my way down the steps toward the dock, glancing down at the beach. The sun was beginning to set, casting an orange glow across the water, and the warm breeze carried the salty tang of the ocean.
While the sea itself reminded me of my mom and all I’d lost—all we’d lost—the gleaming letters on the hull of my trawler reminded me of someone else entirely. Reminded me that despite years of fuckups, I’d done one good thing in my life.
But it was also a steadfast reminder of exactly why I was here.
Alone.