Chapter 2
Zander Bouras, thirty-five years old and the father of a preteen, felt like a kid again.
Just not in a good way.
He’d dwarfed this bed at fifteen. But now, with his full height over six feet and plenty of meat on his bones, it was a miracle he hadn’t rolled off during the night.
He groaned into a stretch and groped for the phone vibrating its way to the edge of the cheap nightstand.
If this was some eager chef calling after getting Zander’s number from a friend of a friend, he’d do the kid a favor and tell them to fuck off and take their dreams elsewhere. Because Zander was taking a break.
He’d overseen the opening of a family-run Italian joint before leaving Boston, sublet his small apartment to a couple of line cooks, and put the word out that he’d be back in action in late August.
The only project until then was the old house creaking around him.
Zander blinked at the name on the screen and bolted upright. “Mal? Everything all right?”
“Good morning!”
Zander stared at the phone. His ex sounded suspiciously cheerful. She was not a morning person. It had been years since they’d woken up side by side, but some things never changed. “Everything is totally fine,” Mal soothed. “Winter is still sleeping, actually.”
Zander took two long breaths to steady his heartbeat. Six years living apart from his kid part-time, and he still panicked when Mallory called instead of texting. “That must be nice for him.”
“Was that mattress as miserable on night two?”
“Worse.” He tucked the phone into his shoulder as he leaned forward in an aching stretch. “I can’t believe I used to sleep on this piece of shit.”
“It wasn’t always so bad,” Mal quipped.
Zander chuckled through his groggy throat. The few times he’d managed to sneak Mal upstairs that last summer, they had given the mattress a run for its money. Two horny eighteen-year-olds didn’t give a shit about a poky spring.
“And I told you,” she said more seriously. “You’re welcome to stay here. My parents said it’s fine.”
Zander’s eyes adjusted to the light diffusing through the room. Shit, it was midmorning.
His bare feet hit the wooden floor with a creak. “Right, because staying with my former in-laws, my ex-wife, and her girlfriend sounds like a barrel of laughs.”
“You know you’re way more than my ex-husband to them, Zander. And to me. And Quinn would love having you here.”
This at least drew a laugh. “Yeah, to be a buffer between her and your parents? No thanks. She agreed to come along, she can handle that scene on her own.”
“That doesn’t mean you should be ignoring her.”
“I’m not—” he started, but then looked to the notifications on his phone, showing five missed calls from Quinn.
They’d all come in the night before as Zander sat in the dark kitchen, daring the ghost of his grandfather to make an appearance.
By the time he’d finally gone upstairs and thrown his sleeping bag on the bed, he was too exhausted to call her back.
And his best friend did not like being ignored.
He made his way to the window, toying with the frayed beige curtain. “She put you up to calling me?”
“You ignored all her calls, Z. She’s worried about you. I’m worried about you.”
“And she knew I had to answer if it was you, since you’re my coparent.”
“I mean…” Zander sensed Mallory’s shrug from across Sullivan’s Glen. “It worked, right?”
“Christ.” He rubbed at his sleepy face. Two days’ growth was rapidly turning into a short beard, a sign he needed to pull himself together. Which Quinn probably knew, hence the five calls. “I should never have given you her number that day. Just put her on, would you?”
“She’s about to snatch the phone out of my hand anyway. Love you!”
“Love you, too.”
It was a funny thing to say to your ex-wife, but their relationship was a little funny.
They’d gone from young loves to newlyweds to parents, all in just a few years.
Then came divorce, the awkward years, and eventually a slide into a comfortable coparenting friendship.
Mal was a bigger thread in the fabric of Zander’s life than anyone else.
Anyone but their eleven-year-old son, Winter.
“Hey, loser.” Quinn’s wry voice took over the line. “Look who remembers how to answer his fucking phone.”
“You know”—Zander pushed back the curtain, filling the room with light—“when you look up ‘pain in the ass’ in the dictionary, I’m pretty sure it’s a picture of your face.”
“But such a pretty face, isn’t it?”
Zander’s gaze traveled over the hillside behind his grandfather’s property. No, his property. Fucking hell. “If I call you pretty, your girlfriend might want to have words with me.”
“You know I love it when you two fight over me. Makes me feel special.”
“Believe me, I know. But I knew you first, and that’s got to count for something.”
He’d met Quinn years ago when she was pitching some too-modern-for-Zander tech solution to reservation booking.
She’d clearly hated the job, and something about that pissed-off gleam in her eye told Zander he’d found a kindred spirit.
They went out for a beer and Quinn had been a staple in his life ever since.
Last year she was hanging with Zander and Winter when Mallory arrived for the biweekly kid transfer.
His ex had taken one look at Quinn—tall and toned, with black hair that hung over her pale, angular face and enough rings in her eyebrow to set off a metal detector—and Zander knew he was in trouble.
So now his best friend was his ex-wife’s live-in girlfriend, and his kid spent his time between all of them. Not quite a Hallmark movie, but it worked.
And their big, happy, kind of strange family was back in the three-road town his mom had shipped him off to each summer, the place he’d avoided ever since he’d whisked Mallory out of here seventeen years ago.
He fiddled with the window latch, pushing it hard until it finally unlocked. “How’s Candace doing?”
“How’s Candace doing?” Quinn mocked. “You’re going to send me to voicemail all night and then ask how Candace is doing?”
“Sorry, isn’t she the one who was just in the hospital?”
Mal’s mom’s surgery had prompted the return to Sullivan’s Glen. After spending the past few years repairing her relationship with her parents, Mallory wanted to help out as Candace recovered from a hip replacement.
Quinn groaned, surely noticing Zander’s deflection from talking about how he was feeling.
“She’s fine. It’s obviously hard for her to accept help.
And she’s kind of uptight, but not nearly as much as you made her sound.
I see her trying. With Mal and Winter, and with me, too.
You know I had a million nightmare scenarios about how they’d react to the trans girl showing up with their daughter, but they’ve been surprisingly normal. ”
Zander knew there was no way Mallory would have asked Quinn along if she’d anticipated anything other than open arms, but it was still good to hear. “I’m glad it’s going well over there.”
He tugged at the window, managing to wrench it open a few inches. “How’s the kid doing?”
“Oh, you know.”
“Ah.” Zander chuckled as fresh air swirled in through the window, smelling of pine. “That good, huh?”
Winter was, as Mallory liked to say, going through a phase. The kid who used to be all goofy smiles and knock-knock jokes was now withdrawn and sullen, swinging into moods without warning.
Zander had been ready for the teen years.
Hell, he’d written the book on the teen years.
But he wasn’t ready for his son icing him out before he was even twelve.
It felt like any minute the universe might yank Winter away and laugh at Zander, wondering how he thought he’d earned such a precious gift.
Which was why being separated from his kid for the entire summer was a nonstarter.
Because Mallory hadn’t just wanted to come to Sullivan’s Glen to help her mom—she’d wanted to bring Winter with her.
When Zander had objected to being separated from his son for so long, it had been Quinn who’d suggested he come along, too.
You can’t go that long without your kid? Then come with us. Deal with that old house he left you, face your demons, all that.
A real softie, his best friend.
On the phone, Quinn cleared her throat pointedly. “Should I take your silent treatment yesterday to mean everything at the house is just fine and dandy?”
“Ah, yes.” He scanned the old beige walls of the room, the closed door he’d tried to stare a hole through the first night he spent here, twenty years ago. “Fine and dandy indeed. Remind me why I’m here again?”
“Because your grandfather left you his house and all the land around it, and even if that pisses you off, you can’t ignore it forever.”
“Couldn’t I, though?”
He hadn’t talked to his grandfather since walking out of this house the final time when he was barely an adult. What reason could the old man possibly have had for leaving Zander this place? It was nothing more than some power play from beyond the grave.
Outside, the tree-covered hillside fanned out in an array of greens as grass and flowers waved in the breeze.
He’d spent three and a half long-ass summers staring out this window, thinking it was the worst place he’d ever seen, like the wildflowers had bloomed just to spite him with their easy beauty.
“Zander, you’ve got to get off your ass and stop brooding. I know this is a lot.” Quinn’s tone softened, just barely. “I don’t know what the fuck I’d do if I was back at home right now.”
Estrangement from their parents was an early bonding theme for Zander and Quinn. Her parents were in Missouri, prepping for the apocalypse and feeding on a steady diet of barbecue and bigotry.