Then I remembered something and stopped. After digging around in my backpack, I pulled out the flyer I'd found at The Pig about their new online ordering and home delivery service. I held it out to him.

Jack glanced at it, enough to read it, and didn't move. He just stared at me, his face expressionless, a muscle ticking in his cheek.

I set it down on the small gla.s.s coffee table and headed out the front door, stepping over the mound of boxes that had arrived.

E I G H T E E N.

"What the h.e.l.l was that about?" Jazz hissed at me as we reached the bottom of the stairs.

I did the thing where I just look at her and hope to heck she gets it. She had seen a look of emotional pain on my face enough times to recognize the signs. I'm sure I probably resembled a kicked dog, but hey, I needed to lick my wounds.

"Oh," she said. Thank G.o.d, she was giving me a temporary pa.s.s on an explanation. "Hop in my car. I'll borrow your bike to come back and get your truck ... because I freaking love exercising in eighty-five degree weather."

I stomped around to the pa.s.senger side of her yellow car and sank inside. Flinging the door closed, I dropped my head between my knees.

"Thanks," I mumbled toward the floor before I flopped my head back against the seat and buckled in.

As we made our way the whole long three minutes to my house, Jazz glanced at me repeatedly.

"Soooo ... awkward," she sang. "You wanna tell me what just went down, coz for the love of roast fish and corn bread, I swear you just broke up with Jack-freakin-Eversea back there." She paused, and then when I didn't answer, slapped my knee. Hard.

"Ow! Jeez! What was that for?"

"Well, you weren't talking so I was just checking. Oh, and also ... for ruining my first ever celebrity meeting. With Jack Eversea!" she yelled and then grinned. "I'm just kidding. Kind of. No, seriously I am," she added at my raised eyebrows.

I smiled in spite of myself. "Yeah, right."

"I know, I know. I still can't believe he's here in Butler Cove, first of all. And then that you met him, had an almost thing with him, and then dumped him before I even got a chance to ask him what he had tattooed on his glute." She huffed. I knew she was trying to calm me down and cheer me up while still staying on the topic of Jack.

"How do you know he has a tattoo on his glute?" I asked. I thought of the ink I had seen peeking out of his shorts when we were carrying the paddleboard down to the beach. Well, I wouldn't be finding out either. I felt sick and a little bit empty, like I'd just lost my mother's wedding band. And I knew that feeling because I did misplace it once. Now I wore it most days on a chain around my neck.

"Apparently, he had it done during the filming of the first Erath movie, someone got a pic of him at the inkshop. But no one's talking about what it is, not even the guy who did it. It's a mystery. Although, obviously, Audrey Lane knows what it is. Shoot, sorry," she added, at my slight wince.

"It's fine, I'm just annoyed you know so d.a.m.ned much about him. Ugh."

We were at the stop light by the Snapper Grill. There was no way I could sit around at home tonight. I needed to stay busy. I craned my neck to see down the side of the grill through the bushes to where the courtyard was and saw Brenda outside bussing a table.

"Nuh uh!" said Jazz. "You are not working. We're putting the lime in the coconut tonight and watching sappy movies."

Making margaritas and watching movies sounded like heaven and totally what I needed. Nothing with Jack Eversea in it, obviously.

"Nothing with Jack Eversea in it. I know," Jazz muttered like an echo. I turned to her and slapped her hard on the knee.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"For knowing me too d.a.m.ned well, too." I grinned at her to show her I was okay. At least until we broke out the margaritas.

She huffed dramatically and pulled onto the gravel of my driveway behind a van with a big flooring sign on it.

That was odd, I thought I was doing roofs today. I looked over to Mrs. Weaton's and saw a brand spanking new roof. Man, those guys worked fast. Not a moment too soon either, I thought, seeing the ominous clouds gathering overhead. I guess it was time for some tropical rain. I climbed out and went to investigate why there was a flooring company here.

With the day I'd just had, nothing would surprise me. Or so I believed until I saw two men hauling a large piece of equipment out of my front door.

"Um ... hi ... who are you?" I asked the big one closest to me.

"I'm Chuck, this is Andy," he responded with a jerk of a fat thumb behind him, as he informed me they had just finished sanding my floors.

"Excuse me," I managed. "I live here, and I didn't hire anyone to sand the floors."

"Oh," said the smaller one, I a.s.sumed this was Andy or whatever his name was. "Well, we got a prepaid order to do it, and that nice lady who lives in the cottage was expecting us. Anyway, we're almost done, and we'll be back to finish up and start the staining tomorrow. You just have to approve the color. Do you have somewhere you can stay during that time? You won't be able to walk on the floors for about three days."

"What?" I was totally confused.

Jazz came up and stood next to me. Apparently, she was the only one thinking clearly because she asked to see the invoice.

They maneuvered the machinery down the stairs to their van, with Andy trying valiantly to ignore my sheer outfit. I imagined they weren't greeted by a girl in a bikini everyday, but I was way past caring. The one named Chuck rummaged around in the front seat and emerged with a clipboard.

"It wasn't Mrs. Weaton surely? She's on social security," Jazz wondered aloud.

Me? I had a sneaking and sinking suspicion about what was going on, and I didn't like it one bit. It was confirmed when Chuck handed me the pink billing slip with a California address on it under the name of Katherine Lyons. I didn't need to be a genius to figure that one out. Then my eyes glanced down at the totals.

"Holy s.h.i.t!"

Jazz grabbed it from me. "Holy s.h.i.t, is right. Are you coating the floor with diamonds?" She aimed at Chuck. "And who the h.e.l.l is Katherine Lyons?"

"Jack's a.s.sistant, I a.s.sume," I informed her. "Her name is Katie." I was absolutely fuming and stunned all at the same time. Why would Jack do this? He knew I wouldn't be able to pay him back. But I would, of course, if I spent my whole life doing it. So much for erasing him from my memory. Even if that had been possible, it was certain to be delayed by a few decades now. I looked back at the invoice and saw a huge chunk of the cost had gone to the fancy dustless sanding process and floor repair. Presumably already done. Great.

Chuck just stood there, a little confused, scratching his head.

"You can't continue. You'll have to issue a refund for the parts you haven't done yet," I told him.

"No can do. It was a package deal. Ain't no way to divvy that up without you paying more for the part we already done." He rocked on his heels.

My stomach sank.

"You can take it up with my manager," he offered at my crestfallen expression. Pulling a pencil from behind his ear, he scrawled a number down on the bottom of the invoice.

"I will. Please don't come again until this is sorted out."

He walked away shaking his head.

I stomped up the porch stairs with Jazz on my tail. For once, she was at a loss for words as well. We walked into the house. Neither of us said anything as we moved silently from empty room to empty room, taking in the sight of the smooth bare floors.

All the furniture had been moved out of the way, some out onto the back porch. Even the stairs had been sanded. It was beautiful. It was going to be beautiful. My eyes were teary. It made me madder. When we got to Nana's room, it too was stuffed with some furniture from downstairs. I turned to Jazz.

"I kissed him. We kissed. We talked. We had the most ... amazing day. When I heard your voice, I picked up his phone to bring it inside and accidentally saw a message from her. It said: Thank you for calling me last night, I love you too, thank you for letting me fix this. I'm so sorry."

"Oh, honey." Jazz pulled me into a huge hug.

I swallowed hard over the lump in my throat. If she said one more thing to comfort me, I knew I was going to lose it. But she always knew the right thing to do.

She stepped away. We weren't done discussing it, but for now she knew I needed a moment.

"I'm going to get your truck and stop by the package store. We're going to start on those margaritas a little sooner than antic.i.p.ated," she announced and swept down the stairs and out of the house.

I heard her hauling my bike out from the small woodshed as I made my way over to the window in Nana's room. If you stood on tiptoes you could almost see the ocean. The view from this side of the attic, a floor above this one, was better. On a whim, I headed that way.

As a small child visiting my grandmother, whenever I felt I needed to be alone, I went up to that spot in the attic below the dormer window to hide or read. Nana had allowed me to take a few items up there; seat cushions from a discarded couch, a small rickety wooden plant stand I used as a table, and a reading lamp. Nana had her craft and sewing supplies in the attic as well and after my parents and I moved in with her, we both worked up there on various projects alone or together. Or sometimes I lay in my reading nook for hours engrossed in a book with the sound of her working away on some sewing project behind me.

I climbed the last few stairs and stepped into the crowded s.p.a.ce. I walked the length of it, past the two worktables with my unfinished projects, and boxes of tools and books and things from my parents' move that had never been unpacked. My nook at the end was hidden behind two old gnarly eight-foot doors propped up against the rafters, and behind that I had tacked up old curtains. You might miss it, unless you really looked. That's how I liked it.

I hadn't been up here for over a year. I guess I had finally grown out of needing to get away. That was what happened when you were the only one still in a big house with no one left to get away from.

If only I had known then I had such a short amount of time with those I loved, I would never have hidden away.

It was an unrealistic and pointless notion, I knew.

N I N E T E E N.

Everything in my little reading nook was just as I had left it. I sank down onto the old brown cushion that was tossed on the dusty wooden floor beneath the window and looked out at the view. There were two or three rays of sun still making it through the thick clouds. They sparkled on the water in the distance. It would be sunset soon.

I pressed my fingers to my lips as I relived Jack's kisses. My belly fluttered in remembrance. I wondered if any kiss in my life would ever be able to compare to the first feeling of Jack's mouth against mine.

"Oh, Nana," I breathed. I missed her terribly. She had always seemed so wise and always knew how to make me feel better. I couldn't imagine her being okay with me throwing myself at a boy like I had done with Jack, but I knew she was a romantic at heart.

She'd met my grandfather right before he went off to Germany to fight in the Second World War. She once showed me the amazing letters they wrote to each other over the course of four years. You could feel the love pouring off the pages and his worry he wouldn't make it back to her. With all my grandfather was enduring, he'd worried about her being alone. Never once had he thought she wouldn't wait for him. They had such loyalty and unshakeable faith in each other. Did people love like that anymore? I'd asked her the same thing at the time. But no matter how hard I thought about it and wracked my brain to remember what she'd told me, as if it would be the one thing that would make me feel better, I couldn't.

I thought of my mother and father. The truth was I didn't even know if they'd had a good marriage. I never asked Nana, I wasn't sure why. Maybe because I knew they hadn't. I did know my parents met when my mom was very young and she got pregnant with Joey and married right away. I couldn't help the regret I felt wishing I'd paid more attention to my parents, spent more time with them, asked them as much as I could before they were gone.

Had my mother been happy? Did she feel she had never fulfilled her destiny? The facts were she was a wife and mother who'd moved in with her husband's mother. I knew Nana loved her, but whether or not my mom was happy with her life choices was a question I would never get an answer to. Joey and I were loved by them all though-we never wanted for love in our house. And how many people could say that?

I thought of Jack's mother taking her young son to another country and changing his name with no support system or other family to speak of. How lonely it must have been. I knew I only had Joey left, but I'd grown up surrounded by so much love.

The rain started spitting against the window. I hoped Jazz had made it to my truck my now. I looked around at the small s.p.a.ce and at the jars I had placed on a narrow shelf. They were each filled with a different shade of sea gla.s.s found on beaches up and down the Atlantic coast. Nana had been collecting it for years, and then I joined her in the pa.s.sion. It was hard to find now. I grabbed a greenish one and held it up to the fading light at the window. I quickly put it back and grabbed another darker one. I marveled at the green shades as they glowed. I put it down and went out to my worktable.

It had literally been over a year since I had worked on these projects. I fingered some of the old weathered wood, palmetto boots, wire, and line I had pulled up out of the waterways and marshes while I kayaked. The chandelier I had been working on was almost complete and I'd left it abandoned.

I had a startling realization right then that I really wasn't as okay as I'd thought I'd been. I'd happily agreed to stay here while Joey finished school, he had already started after all, and one of us needed to stay with the house. It was his turn, and then it would be mine, we'd always had that deal. But, somewhere along the way, I'd become ... not okay with it. I'd started feeling lonely and trapped. I was going through the motions here in Butler Cove, but I'd lost something. When did I stop being creative? I'd loved creating things my whole life, and I just let it fade away.

It wasn't that I didn't love this place. I grew up here, I had the best memories of my life and my family here. In this house. I was suddenly mad at myself, and at my weakness, and in my ridiculous strategy of avoiding life so it wouldn't hurt me anymore. It had made everything fade. I'd become paralyzed.

I thought of how Nana always used to say 'you only live once, so do everything twice' right before she tried something new. Well, I had done everything exciting in my life exactly zero times. And what happened? 'Life' had arrived on my doorstep and taken matters into it's own hands.

Or Nana had.

I smiled at that thought.

It would be just like her to send me my dream man to get me out of my comfort zone. She knew who he was after all. I used to sit right here in my reading nook reading the first Erath book while she worked at this very table asking me about what made Max so amazing. I wondered if she knew Jack had another girlfriend before she meddled with fate.

Also, Jack was not Max. That much was clear. Max was strong, honorable, and ruthless in his persistence to be with Claudia and keep her safe, despite being stuck in a parallel dream dimension most of the time. Jack couldn't even tell me the truth. Or Audrey for that matter. She thought they were getting back together, and he was in a swimming pool kissing me.

I actually felt sorry for her for a moment before I remembered she had publicly humiliated him by making out with an older man all over California.

Well, they were both messed up, and I didn't want any part of it. I couldn't do anything about them, but I could do something about myself.

I grabbed the jars and hot glue gun and my tools and pulled a stool up to the workbench. Thirty minutes later when I heard Jazz downstairs I yelled for her to bring the drinks and the iPod speakers to the attic.

Three margaritas apiece, a finished chandelier, and much giggling later, we were both maneuvering down the stairs with a little less grace. I was balancing the speakers and my gla.s.s. Jazz had her gla.s.s and the pitcher and we were both singing All These Things That I've Done by The Killers at the top of our lungs. Considering our recipe for margaritas was tequila, Cointreau, and fresh lime juice-no sweet and sour filler mix for us-three was ambitious.

I groaned when we got to the stairs leading to the second floor and saw all the bare wood waiting for me. Jack. What was I going to do about Jack?

"My heart hurts." I plopped onto my backside halfway down the stairs. "And maaaan, that boy can kiss," I added.

"I know," Jazz concurred sliding down to sit beside me and setting the pitcher down. "I've seen it in the movies..." She giggled, slurring slightly. "Why can't we have the boys we want?" she whined. "We're pretty. We're nice. We're fun, right?"

"Joey?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.

She groaned and dropped her head back to the stairs behind us.

I followed her down, and we both lay propped awkwardly side by side, risers digging into our spines as we stared up at the ceiling. A deep rumble of thunder pressed in on the house, causing the windows to rattle. Apparently, the storm had hit. It was raging outside.

"There's a cute boy in my econ one cla.s.s. Brandon. He is sooooo nice." She giggled again. "He's so hot, too. He has these deep puppy dog brown eyes ... like chocolate. Mmm. I looove chocolate. He's asked me out about four times, and I always say no. Why, oh why, can't I say yes?"

"You should," I slurred, nudging her arm. "Joey's an a.s.s. Why on earth would you want to date him?"

She sighed dramatically. "Cause maaaaan, that boy can kiiisssss!"

"Ew!" I nudged her again. "TMFI!"

She cackled loudly. I thumped her. And we lay there for a bit longer, the music playing loudly, both of us lost in our thoughts.

"So did you see him?" I asked her eventually, feeling sober at the turn of my thoughts. I'd studiously avoided asking about my truck or whether she saw Jack when she went back to get it.

Jazz turned and looked at me. "The clothes you left are in the kitchen," she said, indirectly answering my question, and then went on, "he said ... he said to say thank you and good luck with the house." She winced at the last words.

My breath whooshed out of me. It was crushing. I stretched my feet down the last few steps to the floor and let my body slide, b.u.mping down to meet them. When I got to the bottom, I curled over, hugging my knees to my chest and buried my face. Oh G.o.d, it hurt.

"I really should have let you drag me out and about these last few years," I mumbled. "At the very least so I could get used to some rejection. This pain ..." I took deep breath. "This s.h.i.t is real."

Jazz thumped down to meet me at the bottom and rubbed a soothing hand up and down my spine.

"I know. G.o.d, do I know."

"I'm crazy about him. Like, totally. Ugh. Isn't that the dumbest thing you've ever heard?"

"No, hon. It makes pretty good sense to me. How could you not be? We're all in love with Max. Then the real guy comes along, and he's nice. He's attracted to you. He makes you laugh. It's not like it's your fault he turned out to be a shallow d.i.c.kwad."