Chapter Twelve #2
“We really need to get started on that shenanigans list,” Lucy announced while they were eating, and he glanced at the note on the fridge.
Sunrise on Cadillac Mountain.
Go out on a boat.
Visit Dinghy Doodads.
Play football on the beach.
“When did we decide we want to play football on the beach? And I use we lightly because that’s definitely not a shenanigan I’ve wanted to get up to. It’s a good way to mess up an ankle. Or a knee.”
“I want to see you throw a football.”
“I wasn’t a quarterback.”
She rolled her eyes. “Even I know you still spent a lot of time throwing footballs, especially when you were growing up.”
“And you were just overcome by a need to play catch on the beach?”
“The list looked sad with only three things on it, so I came up with a fourth thing.”
He sighed, shaking his head. “See, to me, it would make more sense to check off at least one of the preexisting items before adding to it.”
“Okay. Which one are we doing first?”
He’d walked right into that one. “Unfortunately, neither one is easy. For one thing, I don’t own a boat.”
“I bet you know people who have a boat.”
“Of course I do, but borrowing a boat isn’t a small ask.”
“Okay, so Cadillac Mountain. Let’s do that one.”
An image of the two of them—sitting with his arm around her, wrapped in a blanket—watching the sun come up flashed through his mind, filling Nick with a want he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
“Well, we’re in season now, so we’d have to get a reservation.
And we’d have to hope the weather was good.
And, also, we’d have to leave here at like two in the morning. ”
“Okay.” When he gave her a skeptical look, she held up her hands.
“I may not have been here very long, but I’ve learned that it’s best to do things midweek, when tourists are at a minimum.
So, like a Wednesday. You take the day off and we’ll go to bed early, or at least try to nap until two in the morning. And we’ll go do it.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“It’s not going to get easier, so we’ll just figure it out.”
“I can’t take a day off like that.”
“Nick.” She so rarely used a sharp tone like that, he almost dropped his water glass. “You can just take a day off because your brothers are fully capable of working for one day without your presence.”
She was right, of course, but he couldn’t make himself admit it out loud.
Keeping Slater & Sons going and making sure his brothers would have that steady work and steady income had been his driving force since their father passed away.
He’d relaxed once and his mother had gotten sick.
It had been even harder to get them back on track and keep them there when she passed.
Nick wasn’t sure what he had left if he set that baggage down.
“I’ll look into it,” he muttered.
“I will nag you incessantly about it until you make a reservation,” she said, and the way he believed her made him laugh. “And I will keep adding to that list.”
He pushed back from the table so fast, his chair almost fell over. Lucy’s eyes widened, but then they narrowed when he picked up the Sharpie from the counter and added an item to their shenanigans list.
Lucy: try a bologna and tomato sandwich.
He put the lid back on the Sharpie with a snap and sat back down while she laughed, shaking her head. “Don’t forget I can add to the list, too.”
* * *
The next morning, he pulled up at the jobsite and was thrilled to see his brothers weren’t loitering around their trucks, waiting for him.
They were in the final push now, dealing with a lot of fine details, and the sooner they could schedule the final walk-through with the homeowner, the sooner the company could deposit a really fat check.
Gray was the first brother he ran into. He was in the family room, marking a spot on a window with a small piece of blue painter’s tape.
Since Gray had the most critical eye, he was always the one who went through rooms they’d finished with, looking for flaws.
The more things they could address before the walk-through, the fewer things the homeowner could add to the punch list. And until the punch list was addressed, the money would be withheld.
“There’s some adhesive left on this pane of glass,” Gray explained when Beck walked in.
“And you wonder why you always get picked for this job. You’re the only one who’ll nitpick the hell out of us.”
Gray snorted. “When you pay this much for a view of the water, you don’t want to look through gunk leftover from a factory sticker.”
“Trust me, I know you’re a big reason why we have so many stars on our online reviews.”
“Kind of surprised you haven’t moved back in yet,” Gray said casually, but Nick knew he was fishing by the extra nonchalant way he said it.
Luckily, he’d realized during the drive over this subject would come up, so he was prepared. “I thought about it, but I’m still finishing up that deck, and there’s no reason to add driving back and forth to an already long day.”
It was a logical—and actually true—explanation, but Gray didn’t look convinced. “Got nothing to do with Lucy, huh?”
“What part of it being easier to work on a place in my spare time if my spare time is spent at that place is hard to get?”
Gray only nodded, but Nick could see by the quirk of his lips he wasn’t totally buying it. Beck or Theo might have pushed back, but Gray seemed content to let the subject drop for now.
Nick knew they’d talk about him the first time they were together without him, though. And if he cracked at all—gave them even a glimpse of the turmoil that was growing inside of him with every day that passed—he’d never hear the end of it.
So he’d do what he always did. He’d keep his emotions to himself and do his job. And when Helen Griffin came home and he left the cottage, and then Lucy moved on to Miami, nobody would ever guess he’d had his heart broken.