Chapter 2 #2
As for Zander’s childhood, his mom was a perpetual mess, his dad a lifelong mystery, and Zander himself often nothing but trouble, too much to handle, or some combination thereof.
He was fifteen the first time his mom sent him to Sullivan’s Glen for the summer, starting off an annual tradition that consisted of Zander arriving at the nearest bus station with his worn duffel in June, disappointing his grumpy Greek grandfather until August, then boarding the bus back to Detroit for the school year.
“You also came here to spend time with Winter,” Quinn said. “So pull yourself together and make it happen.”
He pressed his forehead to the wobbly glass of the window. “I hate it when you’re right.”
“Then you must be miserable most of the time,” she quipped. “What’s the plan?”
Zander returned to the bed to sit on the drooping mattress, taking in the peeling paint and sagging windowsills.
“I need to survey the house and make a list of the most desperate problems.”
“Okay. Have you started looking through any of his stuff?”
Zander’d planned to approach the house like one of his restaurant projects: he’d take control of it, step by step, room by room. Look for problems that needed solving, and solve them.
Then he’d walked inside two nights ago to find an old bill on the kitchen counter, a small spiral pad with Papou’s indecipherable scrawl slashed across the pages, and an old coat hanging on a hook next to the front door.
“I gathered all evidence of him, stashed it in his room, and shut the door.”
“Zander.”
“I know! I’ll get to it. But it’s not the priority, okay? I’m going to figure out what needs fixing and clean the whole place up so Winter can spend time here.”
There was a weighted pause on the end of the line. “Okay. What then?”
“Go for a walk, touch some grass, then go to the store and hope no one recognizes me so I can get some food.”
Quinn laughed gleefully. “You will be recognized. I’m new in town and I can already tell you’re a living legend around here. Mal said everyone is on tenterhooks to see you again.”
He ran a hand across his face. “Jesus.”
“We drove downtown for coffee today—they actually have a decent place, by the way, made a killer Americano—and Mallory was reminiscing with some old-timer about that time you got an old tractor working in your grandfather’s barn and got pulled over trying to drive it out of town.”
He should pack up and leave. Now.
“You’re not packing up,” Quinn warned.
“I didn’t even—”
“You didn’t need to. I know your sighs. I know you.” She paused. “And I love you, Zander. I’m proud of you for coming, and I know you can do this. Now go touch some fucking grass, and that’s an order.”
Twenty minutes and a cup of coffee later, Zander was following Quinn’s orders, pulling the golden blades between his fingers as he crouched outside the kitchen’s side door.
Knee-high grass swayed in golds and yellow and even shimmers of blue across the field around the house.
On two sides, the grass gave way to the rise of hills and dense forest. Close to the house, the field stopped at a thick group of trees that signaled the border of the Bouras property with the place next door.
He’d walked that way only once. It was his third day in Sullivan’s Glen, the summer after his first year of high school.
By then he’d had one failed runaway attempt, two failed calls to his mom, and a thorough understanding that his grandfather—a hulking man with Zander’s dark features—wasn’t like the grandpas in the movies who spoil their grandkids with hard candies.
Nikolai Bouras made clear from the start that his job was to put Zander back on the straight and narrow so he wouldn’t turn out like his mother.
And on that day, after trying again to get his mom on the phone and being told by Papou that he didn’t know the right way to wash dishes—and why wouldn’t a boy his age know how to do it right—Zander walked into the trees.
It was a day just like this one—the easy warmth between spring and summer, bright green leaves obscuring every view.
He’d been winding his way between the trunks, no clue where he was headed, when he heard laughter.
Stopping behind a tree, he’d watched the scene.
There was a girl, maybe his age, smiling next to a strange white wooden box that sat in a small clearing.
She had corn-colored braids and a face full of freckles.
Two women were close by, one of them telling some sort of story, talking enthusiastically with her hands.
It was clear they were related—all three had the same curved cheeks and strong frames, and even the older of the two women still had hints of golden corn in her hair.
A daughter, her mother, and her grandmother. All laughing in the sunshine.
He fled back to his room at the top of the stairs, where he’d spent the next day cursing that freckled girl and her perfect life. The family who wanted her, who made her laugh in the forest like it was so damn easy.
He never went into those trees again, but the freckle-faced girl was everywhere each summer. Beaming at the farmer’s market beside her grandmother, nodding kindly as she helped someone across the street, always so perfect. The kind of kid everyone wanted around.
And it wasn’t just his imagination. His papou had said it aloud, more than once.
“That Penny Becker, she’s a good one.” The shadows of his Greek accent rolled the words around. “You could stand to be a little more like her.”
Now, Zander plunked his coffee mug on the back stoop and stood, flexing and unflexing his hands as he stared into the trees.
Before he knew it, his feet were taking him there, crushing grass as he weaved past trunks.
It was embarrassing, and juvenile, and far below him, but Zander walked with purpose, hoping to find an empty clearing, an old pile of white wood, some evidence that beautiful things around here couldn’t last.
But when he came around the last tree, he saw it: the wooden box, just where it had been those years before.
But now there were more. Groups of them, scattered across the clearing.
A person in all white stood in the center of it all. Zander’s first thoughts were of government agents shrouded in hazmat suits, villains in the movies he’d watched as a kid waiting for his mom to return home.
The figure turned, movements smooth even in the bulky suit, white netting over the face. Gloved hands rose up, grabbing at something along the loose neck of the suit. In one long movement, the top of the suit detached and came off.
First, all Zander saw was the glint of gold in the sun. Then with a shake of the head, the gold furled out, falling over the still-suited shoulders. A gloved hand swept the waterfall of hair away to reveal round, freckled cheeks and sharp blue eyes.
And Zander knew the world wasn’t fair. Because little miss perfect Penny Becker was still right here. And worse, she was fucking beautiful.