10. Mark
10
MARK
“ A watched pot never boils.”
I turned from my post by the living room window and saw Gigi standing in the hall, her arms on her hips and a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth.
“What?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. My mind had been…otherwise engaged, to put it mildly. “Did you say something about a pot?”
“Nevermind, sweetheart.” Gigi shook her head. “I was just thinking that you looked nervous. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I answered, not entirely paying attention. I’d already turned to look back out the window. “Everything’s fine.”
Jesse was supposed to be picking me up for our weekend road trip and he was a few minutes late. No normal person would think anything of that. But then, I wasn’t particularly normal. So of course, I’d started thinking about everything that might be about to go wrong.
Jesse might have changed his mind. Might have decided the trip would be awkward with just the two of us. And I couldn’t say I blamed him.
Part of me, a small part that I was trying not to listen to, almost hoped that was what had happened. Because if I never went on the trip, then I would avoid all the other potential fuck-ups just lying in wait for me during the rest of the weekend.
It had seemed like such a good idea at the time, telling Jesse I would go with him. It sounded fun, getting to spend a whole weekend with him and getting to be out of town and away for a while. I’d always liked the freedom that traveling brought, even if it was only a couple of hours away by car.
But then I’d had to explain to Jesse that I wanted him to drive, without trying to make a big deal out of it. I’d told him that I just wasn’t used to highway driving and that I hadn’t been getting very good sleep recently. I’d said I was afraid I might drowse off and get into an accident.
That was at least partly true. I had been sleeping even worse, ever since agreeing to this damn trip. I couldn’t stop worrying about what would happen if I had a panic attack while we were out there. There’d be no way to hide it from him. And what if the bed and breakfast put us in rooms right next to each other, and I woke up screaming?
“Mark, honey, it’s okay to be nervous.”
I jumped when I realized Gigi had crossed the space between us and was now standing at my elbow, looking up at me.
“What? What are you—huh?”
“You didn’t really answer my question,” she said.
“I did too.”
“You answered it with words, but not your heart.”
“What does that mean? You sound like a fortune cookie,” I grumbled.
She smiled placidly. “I’m just saying that it’s okay to be nervous. And, if you want my opinion, I think you should just tell him.”
“What? What do you mean I should—I’m confused.”
How could Gigi know what I was thinking about? Unless I’d said something about nightmares and panic attacks out loud. Jesus, was I going so crazy that I was talking without even being aware of it?
“I mean that you should tell him you like him.”
I looked at her in shock. That wasn’t what I’d expected her to say.
“We’re just friends,” I said, shaking my head. “Really. We’re not, I mean, he’s not—well, he is, but I’m not—”
“Mark, honey, you know I love you no matter what. And no matter who you love.”
“Love?” My voice was strangled, coming out of my throat in what could only be called a squeak. “Gigi, I don’t love him. I’ve only known Jesse for a few months. We’re just—there’s nothing more—”
Gigi just looked at me levelly and waited for me to finish. I sputtered to a stop and realized how ridiculous I sounded, and she smiled.
“Is it that obvious that I like him?” I asked quietly.
“Only to me,” she said warmly. “Only to someone who knows you well. And remember, I’ve lived a long time. Some things, you just learn to recognize when you see them.”
I sighed. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, I can’t make that decision for you,” Gigi said. “That’s something only you can do. But I think you’ll feel better if you tell him how you feel. And from everything I’ve seen, from the way he looks at you, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
Once Gigi had found out that Jesse and I were training for the marathon together, she’d insisted on having him over and cooking dinner for us. Filling us with carbohydrates, she'd said, before our long weekend runs.
Each time Jesse had come, he’d brought dessert, and raided a cabinet in the basement that I’d never noticed before. It was filled with liqueurs from the days when Gigi and my grandfather had travelled the world. Jesse had made up cocktail recipes on the fly and somehow everything always tasted delicious.
At first, I’d worried that he would rather spend those Friday nights out on the town or hanging out with big groups of friends. That’s what I’d been doing in Chicago, when I got out of the Army. It was how I’d met all of Gabe’s friends, actually. I’d tried to ignore everything swirling around inside me, pushing it down with alcohol and crowds. Of course, that had also backfired spectacularly, but Jesse was a different person.
For me, staying in and getting tipsy playing cards with my grandmother sounded like an ideal Friday night. But amazingly, Jesse seemed to enjoy it too. I’d been having so much fun with him recently, it was almost enough to counterbalance the nightmares and the pervasive sense of panic that dogged my heels. I wasn’t sleeping much, but around him, I could shake off the irritability. Around Jesse, anything seemed possible.
“I’ll think about it,” I told Gigi as Jesse’s car pulled up. “I promise.”
And I did think about it. I thought about it the whole car ride. Jesse was so cute, insisting on singing along to whatever song came on the radio, even if it meant changing the station every time we drove out of range. I was a terrible singer, but I joined in, just to make him laugh.
The drive from Savannah to Brunswick was only about an hour and a half, but then we had to take a car ferry across the water to Summersea, and drive another half hour to get to the far side of the island. Summersea was gorgeous, lit up in the afternoon sun like an emerald in a sapphire sea. Fields of wildflowers and grasses came right up to the edge of the road, which swept and swirled across the island like a rollercoaster
We talked about everything and nothing as Jesse drove, and I started to relax for what felt like the first time in a long while. Getting out of town had been a good idea, and Jesse was the perfect companion. I found myself opening up a little bit more about my deployments, and some of the friends I’d made who’d turned out to be real characters.
There were still parts of that time in my life that I didn’t like to talk about—or even think about, if I was being honest—but it was nice to be around someone who I knew wouldn’t judge me, someone I could just be open with. And Jesse was a natural storyteller, entertaining me with tales about growing up gawky and gay in Miami, and the trouble he and his sister Jenna got into. I could hear in his voice how much he loved her and his mom. It made me wish I had that kind of a relationship with my parents.
As we neared Tolliver, the little town where the Sea Glass Inn was located, Jesse began to talk excitedly about the bed and breakfast. He made me swear not to judge it too soon or too harshly, promising me that if I gave it enough time, I’d fall in love with it, too. I promised, but there was no need. The Sea Glass could have been a one-room hut, and Jesse’s enthusiasm still would have converted me.
“It’s just gorgeous,” he said, waving his right hand around to punctuate his sentences while he kept the left on the wheel. “It’s so unique, architecturally. You kinda have to look past the fact that it’s falling apart. But, I swear, if I could just get it fixed up, it would be amazing.”
“It will be amazing,” I said, smiling at him. “It will.”
Summersea was hillier than Savannah, and the road we were on dipped low to wind along a stunning stretch of beach before climbing back up to the top of a sandy bluff. I glanced out the window and looked back towards the ocean as we drove away from it. It glinted and glittered like something alive.
The town of Tolliver, I realized, hardly deserved the designation. It had approximately three streets, lined by a handful of old, weatherbeaten cottages with herbs and flowers in their front yards. It was beyond rustic. It felt like an old Western ghost town, if Western ghost towns had houses painted pastel pink and seafoam green, with rambling beach rose bushes that knocked their shutters askew.
And then Jesse turned a corner and the Sea Glass Inn came into view. It looked like no house I’d ever seen before. It looked impossible. A cross between a fairy tale castle and a first-year architecture student’s portfolio. Half of the elements didn’t make sense together, and it gave the impression that generations of owners had added to it at whim, giving no thought to whether anything matched.
It was covered in wooden shingles, gray and weathered, but appropriate for the location. A porch wrapped around one side of the house and gingerbread detailing ornamented half of the windows—but only half. Balconies stuck out all over the place, and there were more chimneys than I could count. At the top, there was a widow’s walk and an actual tower.
Jesse pulled the car to a stop on the street out front—I couldn’t imagine there was any traffic here to worry about blocking. When we got out, I could hear the ocean crashing onto the shore nearby. I’d gotten a little turned around as we’d driven up through town, but Tolliver was small enough that you’d probably end up at the beach no matter which direction you walked.
I turned and caught a look of pure delight on Jesse’s face as his eyes roamed around the property. That sold me on it. Seeing how happy it made him transformed the Sea Glass from a pile of insanity into something I could completely see him taking over and loving into the perfect bed and breakfast. There was no doubt in my mind he’d make his dream a reality.
He caught my eye and smiled. “What do you think?”
“I love it,” I told him. And I meant it. I really did.
We walked through the scrubby front yard, lavender and wildflowers billowing across the slate path to the door. Jesse used a knocker shaped like an anchor to announce our presence. After a moment, the door opened, revealing a large man, a little older than I was, with fair hair, broad shoulders, and a rumpled button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His fingers were stained with ink, I noticed, as he pushed a pair of wire-framed glasses up his nose.
“Jesse!” he said, smiling with what looked like genuine pleasure. “I’m so glad you could come.”
Jesse pulled him into a hug, and the guy froze, looking a bit like the world’s most uncomfortable golden retriever. He was a head taller than Jesse, and bigger besides, but his arms hung uselessly at his sides, and his cheeks flushed until Jesse released him.
“Cam,” Jesse said, stepping back, “I want you to meet Mark. Mark, this is Cam, owner and proprietor of the most wonderful bed and breakfast in the world.”
“The most wonderful, non-operational bed and breakfast in the world,” Cam corrected him, pushing his glasses up again, though they hadn’t really fallen. “So I’m not sure proprietor is exactly the right word. But, um, yes. It’s nice to meet you.”
He seemed relieved when I didn’t offer to hug him, and waved us into the foyer. The door closed behind us, and it was like a curtain fell, ushering us into another world. I hadn’t realized just how dim it was inside the house, or how loud the sound of the ocean was until I couldn’t hear it anymore. The foyer was all dark wood and heavy brass fixtures, with a chandelier that hung so low it grazed the top of my head. Cam stepped around it with practiced ease.
When you hear the words ‘ bed and breakfast by the beach ,’ you probably picture something, well, beachy. Light wood and pale blue walls, maybe a jar of shells in front of a sofa with a starfish print. A pile of red-and-white striped towels in a rattan basket, and a ‘ live laugh love ’ sign on the wall written in bouncy, brushy script.
The Sea Glass was...not that.
The vibe wasn’t beachy so much as foreboding. Creepy, in an Addams Family kind of way. Less ‘ live laugh love ’ and more ‘ run screaming from the ghost of a Victorian child who’s just emerged from an ancient, gold-plated mirror in a nightgown drenched with blood . ’ I would not have been at all surprised to find out that someone’s body was buried inside the walls of the basement.
Cam ushered us into what I could only call a library, judging from the dark green wallpaper and built-in cherry bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes I was sure no one had touched in decades. Even though the heavy brocade curtains were pulled back, it felt gloomy, like the sunshine outside was reluctant to penetrate the room.
Come to think of it, did beach houses even have basements? I wasn’t so sure, which meant that if there were a body buried in the walls, they could very well be the walls surrounding me right now. I shivered and reminded myself that Jesse loved this place. If he could see its potential, so could I. It had looked normal enough from the outside, hadn’t it?
Well, maybe not normal, but distinctly less like the kind of place where you might get beheaded. I needed to concentrate on that.
Cam sat down in an overstuffed leather armchair and motioned to us to sit opposite him on the couch. There was a stack of books on the coffee table in between us, and a notebook.
“So,” Cam said once we were settled, glancing briefly down at the notebook, “the reason I wanted you to come out here was because…”
He trailed off without finishing, his eyes going back to the notebook. Something on the page seemed to catch his attention, and he bent over, peering at it thoughtfully. Then he frowned, cocked his head to the side, and flipped open the book on the top of the stack, rifling through the pages like he was hunting for something. We sat there and watched in silence for at least two minutes before Jesse finally cleared his throat.
“Um, Cam?” he said gently. Cam didn’t respond. “Cam!” Jesse repeated, raising his voice, and I got that golden retriever vibe again when Cam’s head snapped up, looking at Jesse in confusion and surprise.
“Hmm?” he said, pushing his glasses up again—this time they had fallen down to the tip of his nose. He seemed surprised to find us there.
“You were saying,” Jesse said, his voice going gentle again. “About why you wanted me to come out?”
“Oh. Right. Yes, of course.” Cam blinked, then slid a pencil in to mark the page he’d been studying, closing the book around it. “Sorry, I just—got distracted there for a minute. When you arrived, I was just in the middle of researching—well, you don’t care about that. I’m sorry, I don’t know where my brain is these days.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jesse said with a warm smile. The grin he flashed me seemed to imply that whatever cloud Cam’s brain was currently residing on, that was more or less its permanent home.
“Honestly, if I weren’t so busy with my research,” Cam said, “I might have noticed it sooner. I guess the news has been all over the island for a while. But you know how it is—you get stuck on a problem, and it sucks up all your attention, and the next thing you know, you’re about to sell your soul to the devil. Thankfully, a friend pointed it out before it was too late. They were never going to play fair with me. And it was never about the profit to begin with, but that made me realize, if it’s not about the profit, then why on earth was I getting in bed with them? I’d much rather get in bed with the two of you. Metaphorically speaking, of course.”
He smiled brightly at us. I looked at Jesse, wondering if he had any idea what Cam was talking about. It was all gibberish to me. Too many pronouns, not nearly enough specifics. But Jesse looked just as confused as I was.
“I’m sorry,” Jesse said slowly. “I think my brain might be taking a vacation as well. Are you saying…”
“I’m saying I want to sell the Sea Glass to you,” Cam said.
“But I—” Jesse shook his head. “Cam, you don’t know how much that means to me, but I can’t offer you any more now than I could the last time we talked.”
“But that’s just it,” Cam said. “I realized I didn’t care about that. I mean, what’s the use of money, really? It just gets in the way, muddies the waters. I thought maybe I could use the profits to finance my next project, but I’ll be fine without it. It’s not good for you, having too much money. It narrows the way you think.”
Spoken like someone who’d never had too little money, if you asked me, but I didn’t think it would help anything for me to point that out right now.
“And Lyles & Blackstone wasn’t even going to pay that much, in the end,” Cam continued. “So why would I sell to them, instead of you?”
“Lyles & Blackstone?” Jesse said.
“The developers,” Cam said, like Jesse was being deliberately slow. “The people who wanted to buy the Sea Glass. They’ve been buying up properties all over the island, but they’re forcing people to sell for way less than places are worth. They use these contracts and lock you in. Plus, they’re apparently implicated in some kind of environmental scandal. Bribing elected officials or something. It’s complicated, and I’ll be honest, I don’t understand all the details, but lots of people have gotten screwed over, and I don’t want to be a part of that.”
His smile was so earnest, I couldn’t help but return it. I could see that Jesse felt the same way. Cam might have been built like a linebacker, but there was something about him that was so unworldly, so innocent, that I wondered how he functioned without getting constantly taken advantage of. I still wasn’t exactly clear on what had happened with the developers who’d wanted to buy the Sea Glass—how could I be, when Cam wasn’t clear himself? But I supposed it was a good thing he had friends looking out for him.
“Cam, that’s—that’s amazing,” Jesse said. “I promise, if you sell to me, I will give this place so much love and care. I’ll restore it to its former glory. I’ll make it—”
“Oh God no, I don’t care about that.” Cam shook his head. “Do what you want with it. It’s just a building.”
Jesse looked torn between being outraged by that sentiment and thanking Cam again for his kindness. His jaw dropped, and his eyes bulged slightly.
“But when you said you didn’t want to sell to the developers, I thought you meant—”
“I don’t want to sell to them because I don’t want to encourage that kind of behavior. Not because I’m attached to this place. Rip it all down for all I care.” Cam ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll be happy just to finally stop thinking about it. You’re doing me a favor, honestly, buying it. It’s taken far too much time away from my research as it is.”
“Well, I still want to give you the best offer I can,” Jesse said. “Fair is fair.”
“I trust you,” Cam said, giving him a startlingly direct look. “You put your offer together, and I’ll sign it.”
“I feel like I should be telling you to drive a harder bargain,” Jesse said, “but I guess I’m not going to look a gift bed and breakfast in the mouth.”
“Don’t be so sure it’s a gift,” Cam said. “We had a big storm last week, and there’s a lot of water damage up on the second and third floors. There’s actually only one bedroom that escaped it, down here on the main floor. Obviously, you two will be sleeping there this weekend, but you might want to check out the extent of the damage before you put your offer together.”
“I, uh, actually—” Jesse began, at the same time as I said, “Oh, we’re not—” before we both cut off, looking at each other awkwardly.
Shit. Cam had assumed we were together. And come to think of it, why shouldn’t he? How many people brought a casual, platonic friend with them to check out real estate they might purchase? It made sense that we would be a couple. We just…weren’t.
“Should I not have said that?” Cam asked. “Sorry, I just thought I should be honest about the condition of the building. But hey, at least the bedroom down here has a full-sized bed, and not just a twin. That would be asking a lot, even for the closest of couples.”
“No, it’s not that,” Jesse said, clearing his throat. “It’s just, well…”
Cam’s earnest smile faltered as Jesse spoke, and I felt, absurdly, like we would be letting him down if we admitted that we weren’t together.
“It’s just that we’re so surprised, is all,” I said, jumping in. “By your offer. But really, thank you so much.” I took Jesse’s hand and squeezed it. “And we’ll be fine with that bedroom. As long as this guy doesn’t try to steal all the covers like he sometimes does. Right, babe?”
A thrill shot through me. I couldn’t believe what I’d just said. It was crazy and reckless and honestly pretty stupid, given that everything I’d been worried about earlier today was still a potential problem. And yet, I was glad I’d said it.
Jesse looked at me in shock, and I held my breath, waiting for him to respond. I heaved a sigh of relief when he finally turned back to Cam and smiled.
“I only steal the covers because he snores like a jet engine, and I need something to bury my head in. I don’t suppose you have any earplugs, do you?”
Cam laughed. “I’ll see if I can rustle any up. They might be from the 1980s though, fair warning. But if I can’t find any, you could always ask down at the general store. They’ll be open late tonight for the festival.”
“The festival?” I asked. I usually avoided crowds, but for some reason, the thought of a festival with Jesse sent a flutter through my stomach—the good kind of flutter.
“A Taste of Tolliver,” Cam said with a shrug. “It’s happening this weekend, down on the beach just south of the harbor. I don’t usually go—don’t love the crowds—but you’d probably enjoy it. Heck, as the Sea Glass’s new owners, you might want to go and get the lay of the land.”
“Sounds like fun,” I said, turning back to Jesse. “Don’t you think? Perfect for a romantic weekend.”
“Yeah,” he said, giving me an unreadable look in return. “Sounds just perfect.”