SIXTY
JORDIE
The beach is all blue-gray water, salt wind, and damp sand that clings to everything. Nothing postcard-perfect about it. Just wide sky, the steady hush of waves, and enough open space to make a person feel slightly overexposed.
Beside me, Leith walks in with expensive sunglasses and a T-shirt that probably costs more than my weekly grocery bill, having apparently carved time out of running his empire and waging cold war on his father to enforce these mandatory beach walks in the name of fresh air, mental health, and not letting me quietly decompose in the corner of the bookshop.
“You know,” he says, adjusting the iced coffee in his hand like it’s beneath him, “for someone fresh out of therapy, you seem remarkably committed to silence.”
“I’m processing.”
“You’ve been processing for twenty minutes.”
“That’s because, if I’m condensing an hour of paid emotional excavation into one sentence, the problem is me and the proposed solution is—prepare yourself for this—even more me.
” I squint out at the water. “I’m paying my psychologist what could reasonably qualify as one kidney per session.
You’d think for that price she’d simply tell me what to do and save us both the administrative burden of personal growth. ”
Leith snorts. “Feels like the beginning of a twelve-step program.”
“Try a hundred,” I say. “Apparently the lowest-hanging fruit is my catastrophic inability to enforce boundaries, so we’re starting there.”
“Speaking of boundaries,” he says casually, like he’s not winding up a landmine with a teaspoon. “Has your mother dearest resurfaced?”
I huff out a breath.
“No,” I say. “And thank God for international waters. Last I heard, her tycoon boyfriend whisked her off to some island near Greece.”
Leith hums.
I dig my toes further into the sand, watching a child further down the shore lose a battle with a kite.
“She hasn’t contacted me since breakfast with Callum,” I add. “Which, honestly, might be the healthiest contribution she’s ever made to my life.”
Leith’s mouth twitches.
I look down at the lid of my coffee cup and peel at the edge.
“I used to think I was fighting her over the house,” I say, dragging the toe of my sandal through the sand. “But I wasn’t. Not really.” I let out a breath. “I was fighting for something much stupider.”
Leith glances sideways at me but doesn’t interrupt.
“I think part of me kept hoping that if I held my ground long enough, she’d change.
Like Dad dying might finally crack her open in the right place,” I say, staring at the little trench my foot has carved through the sand.
“Like maybe she’d look at me differently.
Or want me. Or just notice me, I suppose.
Or that . . .” I shrug, hating how pathetic it sounds out loud. “I don’t know. Love me properly.”
The wind catches my hair and shoves it straight into my lip gloss. Very moving. Very cinematic.
I peel it away with a grimace. “Turns out grief did not, in fact, perform a personality transplant.”
Leith snorts.
“Look at you,” he says. “One therapy session and you’ve finally tired of her bullshit.”
I hip-check him.
He does not budge. Hulking mass of ego and expensive activewear.
I glare. “You are deeply unpleasant to walk with.”
We walk a few more steps, the tide hissing softly at the shore.
Then the question slips out before I can stop it.
“How about you?”
Leith glances at me. “How about me, what?”
“Do you ever . . .” My voice trails, then I force it out. “Do you ever get tired of me? Of taking care of me?”
Leith stops dead.
Then he turns to look at me as if I’d just asked whether fire is hot.
“I take it back,” he mutters. “Therapy is terrible for you.”
Despite myself, I laugh.
But the ache is still there.
“I know you promised Dad you’d look after me,” I say quietly. “But you were eleven when you said that. You don’t have to feel . . . obliged.”
Something in his face changes.
He exhales. Steps closer. Slings an arm around my shoulders, tugging me tightly into his side.
The contact hits me somewhere embarrassingly deep.
He’s warm. Solid. Familiar. All sharp corners and expensive cologne and the kind of steadiness that makes me feel I belong somewhere.
I remember when he hugged me underneath the stairs, except now we’re surrounded by sky and ocean instead of cobwebs and wood.
“Jords,” he says, quieter now, almost drowned out by the waves. “Me staying and looking after you goes well beyond obligation.”
Leith makes a low noise in the back of his throat, like he’s annoyed I’ve managed to make this emotional.
“You’re my family,” he continues. “My only real family, if we’re being honest, and you’ve met the alternatives.”
I snort wetly.
“You and Melissa were . . . it for me.” His voice roughens slightly on her name, but he doesn’t stop. “The two of you were the only people who ever made me feel like I was more than a surname and a net worth and some future merger in a suit.”
My eyes sting.
“My person made me a person. So enough with this absolute bullshit, Jordie.” He tips his head down, presses a quick kiss to the top of my hair. “I’m not going anywhere.”
That does it.
Not crying exactly. More like my face develops a sudden and violent allergy to dignity.
I make an offended noise into his shoulder. “You cannot say devastating things and then kiss my head like a Victorian widower.”
“Then stop spouting stupid nonsense about me tiring of you.”
I feel his pocket vibrate.
He pulls his phone out one-handed, still half-holding me, and glances at the screen.
I try not to look.
“Try” being the operative word.
Callum?
“Why is Callum emailing you?” I ask craning my neck. “And what’s with the PDF?”
He lifts the phone higher because he is a giant and I am, in this moment, emotionally compromised and vertically disadvantaged.
“Leith!” I snap.
That smug bastard smirks.
I narrow my eyes. “What is this about?”
Leith tucks the phone back into his pocket, ruffles my hair with his free hand, and walks ahead of me.
“Business,” he says.