Chapter 32 Sandcastles
SANDCASTLES
ASHLEY
“That’s enough sun for me. How about you ladies?
” Josie announces, already gathering up her arsenal of beach-day essentials: a straw basket crammed with travel-size sunscreens, half-crushed granola bars, and not only her phone, but also her tablet.
She sends me a wink. “I need to post the pictures of you kids doing that paraflying thingy.”
Denise stands to join her, brushing sand from her thighs. “I think I’ll head back too,” she announces, adjusting her visor. Then she pauses, tilting her head theatrically and pressing a hand to her ear.
“Wait… do you hear that?” She gasps. “Oh yes. That’s Lucky Lulu’s Double Diamond Deluxe calling my name.”
“Lucky Lulu’s Double what?” I ask.
“Her slot machine. She’s determined to hit the big one,” my mom explains.
“Mama’s coming, baby.” Denise sends me a wink.
“You’re talking about gambling, right?” Max asks, looking up from the boys’ elaborate, in-progress sandcastle kingdom.
Beckett’s down on the ground with them, helping Blakey carve out some fake windows for one of the towers.
“Tina says her dad likes to gamble. Except he doesn’t win very much, and now her mom says she won’t be able to go to college anymore. ”
Denise blinks at him, like she’s never seen a kid blithely airing someone else’s family’s dirty laundry before, and I can’t help but chuckle at the look on her face.
“I’m sure Denise is much more responsible about her gambling than Tina’s dad,” I offer.
Blakey sidles up to Denise’s side conspiratorially and whisper-talks up into her ear. “That’s code for ‘you better watch it’.”
Denise snorts. “Oh, I will, don’t you worry, big guy.” Then she resumes packing up her beach bag. “Besides, I’m plenty responsible with Lucky Lulu. I’ve even got a spreadsheet!”
Babs doesn’t budge. She’s reclining sleepily on her lounger, sunglasses on, floppy hat tilted just so, giving off retired Bond Girl energy.
“I’m good right here,” she mumbles.
“Enough sun for me,” Mom says, scooting to the edge of her chair with a sigh. “And I’d bet money these two little Avengers need naps.”
“Grandmaaaa…” Max groans, still focused on shaping a slightly crooked turret.
“Can we get ice cream first?” Blakey asks.
At that, Babs stirs. One eye peeks open behind her sunglasses. “Did someone say ice cream?”
The boys nod vigorously. Babs sits up, throws her legs to the side and begins searching around for her bejeweled flip flops. “Now that’s what I’m talking about. Sure hope they still have some butter pecan.”
Mom’s already rounding up everyone’s towels. “All right. Water bottles, shoes, hats—let’s move. Next shuttle to port leaves in… eight minutes.”
Then she glances back at me and tilts her head.
“You and Beckett should stay. Relax a little. The ship doesn’t leave until ten.”
“What happens if someone doesn’t get back to the boat in time?” Max asks.
“They get left behind,” Beckett answers, watching the boys stuff towels into their backpacks, pointing meaningfully to Blakey’s wayward baseball cap.
It reminds me of something else he’s always been good at—encouraging the boys to learn, but not stepping in until they need help.
And I’ve missed this.
This past year, sure—he made it to a few games. But most nights, he got home late. Too late for anything more than a quiet glance into their rooms and a kiss to sleeping foreheads.
Blakey interrupts my thoughts by giving me a stern reminder: “Don’t be late then, Mom,” he says.
“Mom is never late. I mean, never, ever, ever…” Max slides his little feet, smooth and white from the sand, into his flip flops (Hulk green and purple, of course).
I feel Beckett watching me, a quiet question in his eyes.
Since my parasailing adventure earlier, we’ve settled on an unspoken kind of truce.
More than a truce. It feels too much like how we used to be.
It’s scaring the hell out of me.
Because Beckett being here, like really here, body and mind, doesn’t erase a year of… hurt.
Still…
“What do you say, Ash? Dinner by the beach?” He isn’t just assuming. He isn’t taking it for granted that I’m going to fall into his plans.
“Sounds good.” My nod is stiff, but I deliberately soften as I turn to my boys. “We won’t miss the boat. I promise.”
I wave them on, watching as the twins take off skipping ahead of my mom and the rest of the ladies.
“Your mom’s been great,” Beckett says into the sudden quiet.
It isn’t quiet, exactly—there’s still the distant roar of boats and jet skis, a few gulls overhead, the occasional burst of laughter from the resort pool—but somehow, the silence is oddly loud.
Here we are, alone again.
And since Luna and Noah took a handful of the other guests off to some tequila tasting and a taco tour in the city, it’s unlikely we’ll be interrupted.
“Yeah,” I respond, a little belatedly, half-hearted.
Stretched out on a chaise in the shade of our cabana, I stare at my toes, pretending to appreciate my pedicure. Beckett is a few feet away, still crouched in the sand where the boys had been digging earlier.
“You should finish building it for them, then take a picture. They’d love that.”
“They would.” He slides me a sideways glance. “Come down here and help me.”
The boys’ half-finished sculpture isn’t just a castle—it’s a multi-level fortress with a moat, towers, and what looks like a drawbridge fashioned from driftwood and seashells.
“We need more water,” Beckett says, lifting the bucket. “Without it, the sand is too dry, and as Max informed me, it will lack structural integrity.” He gives me a look that’s way too proud for someone quoting a seven-year-old.
“Oh really?” I shouldn’t be entertaining this. I should pull out my list. Make a few phone calls…
Beckett doesn’t look up, just scoops another handful of sand like he does this every day. “Unless you want to risk catastrophic tower failure.” His voice is casual, but I see the slight curve at the corner of his mouth.
“We can’t have that,” I murmur.
I should reach for my cover-up if I’m going to be coming out from under the cabana, but I don’t.
I rise—slowly—feeling the sun on my bare skin, the stretch of yet another new swimsuit I wasn’t sure I had the nerve to wear. This one is hot pink, with flirty little ruffles and lace, and… I know he’s watching. I feel his eyes like a warm current trailing over every inch of me.
So I stretch—long and lazy—arms overhead, back arched just enough to tease. I pretend not to notice the way Beckett’s hands still, how his gaze lingers as I take the neon-blue bucket and sashay toward the waves.
I time it wrong, of course, and the first wave soaks my thighs, cool water splashing up my front. I laugh, breathless, digging the bucket into the retreating tide and filling it.
It sloshes as I carry it back, water spilling down my legs.
And oh, Lord, I feel… sexy.
Like, truly sexy.
Not put-together-for-the-PTA or trying-too-hard-for-date-night sexy.
But bad-decision, maybe-I-still-got-it sexy.
It feels good.
Beckett doesn’t stop watching me, and I feel a quiet heat, not on my skin, but inside.
All over.
I drop to my knees beside him and pretend to analyze my boys’ work of art. “Where do you want me?” My voice comes out a little breathless.
His jaw flexes. His eyes cut to mine.
“Wherever you want to be.”
I feel his eyes skim my shoulder, my wrist, my mouth—but pretend not to notice as I kneel in the sand and get comfortable.
And just like that, we’re working together, barefoot, sun-kissed, passing the bucket between us as we sculpt towers and moats with quiet concentration.
When Beckett complains about the sand burning his feet, I splash him with a grin.
He retaliates with a flick of water that hits my thigh, and I gasp like I’m shocked, but I don’t really mind.
For a little while, we don’t talk.
We just build.
And play.
For now, it’s just the two of us—pretending the tide won’t come in.
Even as I pat down the wall of our little fortress, watching it take shape under our joined effort, I can’t help but feel an ache beneath the laughter.
This moment—what feels like rebuilding—is most likely as temporary as the castle itself.
The ocean will take it.
Maybe that’s the point.
Still, I keep smoothing the towers. He keeps digging the moat. The sun makes its way a little further across the sky, glinting off the water.
“I was really proud of you today,” he says after another short stretch of silence, tipping his chin toward the sea. “I would’ve gone up with you, you know.”
“I know.”
I keep my eyes on the lopsided turret I’m shaping. Not because I don’t want to look at him, but because I need to hear my own thoughts.
He’s always been there for me.
Until he wasn’t.
And that’s the part that scares the hell out of me—the absence and the silence that came with it. The way I had to fill the gaps, for myself, for the boys, for the image of our life I didn’t want to admit was cracking.
But parasailing today—doing it alone—wasn’t about proving anything to him.
It was for me.
And oddly, the thought doesn’t cut the way it would’ve a week ago. It doesn’t feel bitter or spiteful.
I glance up at him. “It felt good. Doing it alone.”
Beckett doesn’t speak. He just sits there, running sand between his fingers, like he knows there’s more coming—and this time, he’s actually waiting for it.
“I’ve had to do a lot by myself this past year, you know?”
He knows. We’ve circled this conversation before. But in a chaotic way. Not… Not like this.
I exhale, staring down at our work. “At first, I told myself it was temporary. The long hours. You missing things.” My voice clogs up with emotion, so I clear my throat.
“But then it wasn’t temporary. It became normal.
Add in your secret phone calls”—I slide him an accusing stare— “and I had to adjust. I didn’t have a choice.
I had to show up. For Max and Blakey. For my mom and Luna.
For your parents. Not to mention my clients. ”