“You haven’t eaten anything,” Gabi said, turning away from her conversation with Ira.
“Yes, I have. The honey wheat bread was fantastic.” She leaned around Gabi and smiled at Ira. “Tell Micah I said so.”
Ira blinked at her and then looked at Gabi. “Was that a smile or a grimace?”
“Definitely a grimace.” Gabi patted Lexie’s hand like she was a toddler. “I think she was trying to smile….”
“She is sitting right here.” Lexie had never been one to sit around and mope. She didn’t have time for such things, and her parents had never allowed it anyway. With her father always at work or drunk, her mother had taken care of everything around the house. Every bill. Every chore. Every child. Everything.
Lexie hadn’t known it when she was a child, but as she became a teenager and then realized she’d be taking over the firm, she saw how exhausted her mother really was. And she didn’t want that life. She didn’t want her father’s life either.
She wanted someone she could share her burdens with. Who would support her, and who she could comfort too.
She sighed, and Ira shook his head. “That doesn’t sound good. Who does that sigh belong to?”
“Who says it belongs to a person?”
“Come on.” He cocked his head and gave her an incredulous look. “I’ve been in love before.”
Gabi swung her head back to him. “You have?”
“Oh, boy,” Lexie said. “Now you’ve done it, Ira.” She laughed as the color drained from his face. Thankfully, three waiters entered the dining room with platters of cakes. One of them better be made completely of chocolate or Lexie was never coming back to this club.
Twelve days had passed since she’d seen Jason in the flesh. The man was suspiciously absent from social media, or she could’ve at least gotten a fix that way. She hadn’t looked up the accident, not sure she needed to know all the details.
But she knew better than most that just because something got printed in the paper or on the Internet didn’t mean it was true, or even remotely close to accurate. But he’d asked her to read them.
She felt like someone had taken a red-hot poker and slid it across her skin. Over and over, and just as the wounds started to heal, new ones would form.
“You have to do something,” she told herself as she fed her stray cats one early morning. It would be June soon, and the beaches would be full. Stacey had a private beach at Aloha Hideaway, and the women had taken to meeting there instead of on the edge of Sweet Breeze’s property.
She’d told them all about Jason days ago—nothing too terrible, just that things were complicated and she was working through some difficult truths—and no one had brought him up again. The fact that they didn’t want to sit and gossip about her love life, or anyone really, made Lexie really like them.
She knew if she brought up Jason, they’d give her advice. So when the group text came with Morning Club. Ten o’clock, from Esther, Lexie decided to put herself on the agenda.
Not that they had an agenda. Everyone didn’t even come every time, as evidenced by Gina’s response that said, Running with Owen. Catch you next time.
Running with Owen.
Lexie had known the general manager at Sweet Breeze for years, and he’d never expressed any interest in a woman—or running, for that matter—until Gina. She wondered how old he was—the gray along his temples and down into his beard certainly said he was older than Gina. Probably by a lot.
Who cares? Lexie thought. Maybe she did because she really wanted to find her own happiness, and it seemed impossible without Jason.
Lexie ran her fingertips along the top of the photo albums she’d moved into her bedroom. She hadn’t looked at them again, but when she wasn’t looking at the pictures, when she just thought about her childhood and teen years, she’d realized there were some good memories in her mind too.
She showered, which was ridiculous to do before going to the beach, but allowed her the proper mental space to prepare to talk about Jason. Once dressed in her bright blue one-piece and a new pair of flip flops she’d bought at a pop-up shop along the beach, she tapped out a message in the group text.
I want to talk about Jason. Okay?
The messages that came back seemed to appear one on top of the other.
Yes! Sasha.
About time. Stacey.
Absolutely. Esther.
Woot! Tawny.
Lexie smiled at the names of her friends—real friends—and pressed her phone against her heartbeat. It accelerated as her phone buzzed again, foolishly hoping it would somehow be Jason, though he hadn’t messaged her once. She thought he might come by The Straw, but he’d stayed stubbornly away. He was very good at disappearing when he wanted to, and she wondered if he was still on the island at all.
Now I want to come! Gina had texted. Another message popped up while Lexie smiled at the first one. Cutting my run short. Don’t start without me.
Lexie threw her portable charger in her beach bag and collected two bottles of water from the fridge before loading up in her black convertible for a trip down to the beach. She was the second to arrive, finding Esther already set up—and for a while by the looks of the empty potato chip bag.
“Hey,” Lexie said, setting her bag down and unfolding her chair. “How long have you been here?”
“An hour?” Esther buried her bright purple toes in the sand. “Can’t sleep these days.”
“No?” Lexie peered at her friend, but the blonde woman had never really opened up to Lexie. She was Stacey’s best friend, and she and Tawny seemed to have a special bond too. Lexie got it. She couldn’t be besties with everyone.
Esther shook her head and pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head. “I have news too, but it’s the good kind, and I want you to have as much time as you need to talk about Jason.” She wore pure sympathy and compassion in her eyes, and Lexie leaned over and hugged her.
“Thanks, Esther.”
“The other girls should be here soon.” She settled her sunglasses back in place and slipped lower into her chair. “Want to give me a sneak peek of what you want to talk about?”
The situation couldn’t have been more perfect if Lexie had imagined it. “Actually, yes. Can you search for an event? And read about it and be ready to summarize it for the group?”
A line appeared between Esther’s eyes. “I guess so.”
“It’s about Jason, and I haven’t been brave enough to read it.” Lexie shrugged, her cowardice sounding stupid when she said it out loud.
Esther picked up her phone from where she’d laid it face-down on the arm of her chair. “What am I looking for?”
“There was a car accident,” Lexie said, her voice already slipping into a hollow monotone. She cleared her throat and pulled herself out of that empty place. She wanted to feel. It was the only way she’d be able to make a decision.
“March nineteenth. Boston area. Drunk driver. Jason Burnes.”
Esther stopped typing as if someone had frozen her thumbs. Her head moved as she looked at Lexie, but Lexie couldn’t see her eyes. Thankfully. She nodded, her jaw set. “See why I haven’t been able to read it?”
Esther said nothing, only went back to tapping and swiping. She’d obviously found something, because her movements slowed, and she only scrolled on the screen. Lexie looked away from her, her heart pounding in her chest the same way the waves continually drove against the shore.
Stacey arrived, chattering about something at her bed and breakfast. When she realized that neither Lexie or Esther were responding to her, she asked, “What did I miss?”
“Esther has news too,” Lexie said.
“You’re first,” Esther said, looking over at Stacey. “This is going to be intense.”
That wasn’t what Lexie wanted to hear, and she almost got up and left. But Tawny and Sasha arrived together, right as the clock clicked over to ten.
“Winnie never answered,” Sasha said as she got her stuff la
id out. “So are we really waiting for Gina?”
“You’d want us to wait for you.” Stacey sprayed sunscreen on her arms and shoulders and passed the bottle to Sasha. “In fact, we have waited for you in the past.”
Esther handed her phone to Stacey with a single nod, and Stacey, who wasn’t wearing sunglasses yet, looked at it. When she looked up, surprise and alarm colored her expression. Glancing from Esther to Lexie, she said, “What is—?”
“Read it,” Esther said. “I need help with the summary.”
“Summary?” Tawny pulled her streaked hair into a ponytail, her arm muscles prominent. “I have to teach at eleven, so Gina better hurry up.”
“Let’s give her five more minutes,” Esther said. “She needs to be here.”
Lexie wondered why Gina needed to be there, but she didn’t ask. She just wanted this meeting to be over. Then she’d know what to do.
Gina arrived seven minutes later, sweaty and with only a towel slung over her shoulder. “You didn’t start without me, did you?”
Stacey lowered Esther’s phone, her eyes somewhat glazed over. “No, we didn’t.” She glanced around at the other women. “But if Tawny has to leave at eleven, we better get started.”
Chapter Eighteen
Jason deplaned in Los Angeles, the sun just as wonderful here as it had been in Hawaii. But the air wasn’t as crisp, and there were simply too many people.
He’d loved the big city when he’d moved to it from his small town in Virginia. He’d fallen in love with Boston first, where he’d gone to college for a few years. Then Baltimore. Then New York. Then Miami. But nothing compared to Getaway Bay, even though it was quaint and somewhat of a tourist trap. It had a classic American charm he simply hadn’t felt anywhere else before.
But he couldn’t stay on the island for one more day, walking halfway to The Straw before chickening out and returning home. He’d given Steve to Tyler and said he’d be back when he came back.
He had no idea when that would be. He’d paid the rent on his beach hut for six months, and that didn’t run out until the end of August. He had time. Time for what, he didn’t know. But he could live cheap—he had before, and California had some great camping.
Maybe he’d simply find himself as he drifted from place to place. He’d enjoyed working with Owen and for Fisher at the hotel. He was good at security, and while it didn’t take the brains of a rocket scientist to be a valet, he’d enjoyed that too.
But they weren’t careers. They weren’t what the type of man Lexie deserved did for a living.
Lexie.
There she was. Always in his thoughts, always influencing his decisions. He liked it as much as it annoyed him.
He bought a notebook on the way out of the airport, intending to write down his thoughts about the interesting people and places he was going to see. He’d always enjoyed writing, even the technical papers in college, where he was trying to make himself fit into the world of finance. A world where, now, he knew he didn’t belong.
But he’d been good at newspaper articles and magazine submissions.
“Maybe you could write a book,” he told himself as he left the airport, nothing in front of him but the entire continent of North America. And nothing on his back except a pack.
First stop: the beach.
He browsed the postcards and magnets along the boardwalk, selecting something for Sadie Brown. As if summoned by his thoughts of the girl, her mother texted.
How are you? How’s Hawaii?
Jason smiled at Lyndsey’s message. He didn’t keep in touch with the Browns all that much, but the new article that had just come out had opened the lines of communication again. Jason knew it would die off, same as it had over the years since he’d changed their lives—and his—by getting behind the wheel of that car.
Hawaii’s great. Getting some postcards for Sadie.
The Browns had never left Boston, and while their son, Alfie, was older than Jason was at the time of the accident, Sadie was just graduating from high school. Jason had been sending her postcards from his adventures around the world since the accident, and Lyndsey claimed that Sadie had kept them all and looked at them from time to time.
Oh, great doesn’t sound good.
Jason frowned at the text, not sure how Lyndsey knew which great was really great and which one wasn’t, especially in a text, from across the country.
Great is great, he said, placing the postcards next to the cash register and pulling a couple of dollars out of his wallet. The surf rolled into the beach below, and nothing about being here felt great. The water was different. The atmosphere was different. And he had absolutely no chance of running into Lexie down on that stretch of sand.
His heart twisted. So maybe his great wasn’t all that great.
How’s Peter? The father of the Brown family was getting ready to retire, and they’d been having a hard time finding a physician to take over the practice he’d built in Boston. Or so Lyndsey kept saying.
Now I know something’s wrong. I’m going to call you.
I won’t answer, he thumbed out quickly.
Siiiigh. What’s going on?
Jason thanked the man and took his postcards, his idea of sitting on the beach and people-watching completely unappealing now. He didn’t want to be in California at all. Problem was, he couldn’t think of anywhere that would bring him relief.
Jason walked down the sidewalk, not really dressed for the sandy conditions. He contemplated telling Lyndsey about Lexie. She’d always been more of a mother figure to him than his own mother, and he could use some advice.
I met a woman, he typed out. One I’ve dated before.
He’d often wondered if Lydnsey had taken notes of his life, because she came back with It’s not Lexie, is it?
How did you know that?
Jason, I’ve only ever heard you talk about one woman, and it was Lexie.
That couldn’t be true, but the longer Jason thought about it, the more he realized it was. Plus, Lyndsey would know from his silence that the woman in question was indeed Lexie.
Is it about the article? Lyndsey asked next.
What? No. Jason shook his head, frustrated that Lyndsey would even think that.
Well, then what’s going on?
Truthfully, Jason wasn’t sure. He’d known Lexie wouldn’t handle his past well, but he hadn’t imagined it would take her quite this long to come to terms with something that had happened so long ago. That had turned out so well.
In the end, he could sum it up pretty easily. Her father was an alcoholic. He stared at the words in the text, wondering if this was his information to share. Her father’s behavior did affect him though, it always had.
So he sent the message, expecting Lyndsey to call immediately, despite his declaration that he wouldn’t answer.
Surprisingly, she didn’t.
Jason, you’re not an alcoholic.
Her message was exactly what Jason needed to see, and read, and hear.
Thank you, Lyndsey. Several minutes passed, and Jason started to make his way toward the camping section of the beach. He’d stay one night, and in the morning, see how he felt. Maybe he could bum around the Golden State and be content for a few weeks.
Okay, so shall I talk to this Lexie?
Jason read Lyndsey’s message and burst out laughing. No, I’m good, he texted.
Because I can. A little heart-to-heart. Set her straight on what kind of man you are.
Warmth filled Jason’s soul, and he gazed over the water, wishing he could tell Lexie about this surrogate family that he’d come to find in the strangest way.
It’ll work out, Lyndsey said next.
Jason read those words again and again, hoping with everything inside him that she was right. But the ocean between him and Lexie felt as metaphorical as it was currently physical.
Chapter Nineteen
“Okay, so I’m going to start at the beginning,” Lexie said. “It’ll be fast, I promise.�
�� She exchanged a glance with Stacey, who wore the worry right on her face. Lexie didn’t like that, but she couldn’t stop now.
“I grew up with an alcoholic father. Jason and I dated in New York for about a year, seven years ago. When the market crashed, my company almost went under. My brother sold Jason to the press, and he lost his life in the city.” She had too, but that wasn’t an important detail for them.
“Fast forward to now, and we started about where we left off seven years ago, what?” She looked at Sasha. “A few weeks ago. Stuff happened, and we broke up.”
“What stuff?” Gina asked.
Lexie nodded at Esther, who glanced at her phone though the screen was blank. “When he was twenty-one-years-old, Jason got in a car accident with a family of four. He was drunk.”
Every eye pinged back to Lexie. “That happened, but I didn’t know about it until recently. He didn’t tell me that when we dated in New York, and from the time I was fourteen, I’d vowed I would never drink and neither would anyone I dated.”
“Jason pled guilty,” Stacey said. “The family didn’t want his life ruined. No one was killed. I think that article said the worst injury was a broken leg. The dad.”
“The mother pleaded for the judge to send Jason to rehab and community service and a treatment program instead of jail.” Esther surveyed the group of women, who all seemed like this was the best story they’d heard in a long time. Lexie had heard part of it already, but she still found it fascinating. “The judge complied.”
“Jason went into a six-month treatment program which included complete sobriety. Counseling. Community service.” Stacey looked right at Lexie and added, “He’s been sober since. He meets with an Alcoholics Anonymous counselor every year, on March nineteenth to declare it.”
Lexie had not known that and her wounded heart started whispering about how Jason could fit into her life. That he was a good guy. Kind. Hard-working. He wasn’t a drunk.
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