by Lyla Payne
“But—”
He holds up a hand. “I know you need to finish school. I know we rushed things last time, and we’re not going to do that again. I’m just saying why not make it official. Again.”
Happiness surges through me and underneath it is the fiercest surety I’ve ever felt about anything in my life.
I am going to marry Sebastian.
I’m only twenty years old and I can say that without a single doubt in my mind. We’re going to fight and he’s going to be an asshole. He’ll push me to succeed in law school and maybe more, stand by my side when things get stressful or I need to be reminded to wash the dishes. He’s going to get involved in shite he probably shouldn’t and run schemes for people in Washington, but he’s going to come home and crawl in bed beside me. Love me.
We’re also going to have some crazy imaginative, mind-blowing sex, but that’s just a bonus.
A big bonus.
“Okay.” I screw up my lips. “But I mean, I don’t know how I like the idea of you not down on one knee and a ring like, four states away.”
“How about if I take you back to Whitman myself and put the damn thing on your finger before I fly back here by seven a.m. tomorrow.”
“That would be perfect.”
“You didn’t say yes.” Happiness shines in his dark eyes, and although he still has his secrets, I don’t mind. We have plenty of time to explore.
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, I’ll marry you, you ass.”
We smile at each other, no need for any more words. He grabs my hand and lifts me to my feet. “We’d better get cracking.”
“I mean, if you’re going with me then we don’t need any big send-off,” I tease, ready to tackle him as soon as we get back inside.
He grabs me, surprising a squeal right out of me, and kisses me hard on the mouth. “Audra, this is no longer a send-off. We have to celebrate the realization that we’ve each found our person. That we’re content and where we’re supposed to be—living the fucking dream—no matter what other shit blows up in our faces. And we’re going to do it in bed.”
“Or on the couch?”
“Maybe the kitchen counter.”
We suggest places to seal our latest arrangement all the way to the elevator and end up doing it there, instead, my back pushed up against the cold metal wall.
Sometimes plans don’t work out the way you think, but as long as they work out in the end?
No harm, no foul.
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Also by LYLA PAYNE
Broken at Love
By Referral Only
Be My Downfall
Staying On Top
Going for Broke (published in Fifty First Times: A New Adult Anthology)
Not Quite Dead
Not Quite Cold
Mistletoe & Mr. Right
If you’re sad this is the final installment in the Whitman University series, please consider getting to know Gracie Harper and her friends in Heron Creek—they hate to think of themselves as replacements, but hey, they’re willing to give it the old college try!
Turn the page to read the first chapter of Gracie’s story in Not Quite Dead.
Chapter One
In retrospect, perhaps drinking myself to sleep in my grandparents’ driveway hadn’t been the best idea.
The epiphany arrives with a blast of sunlight and a knock on the driver’s-side window that explodes my brain into pain soup. I manage to make out a shadowy form through the tightest eye squint in history, its elderly, feminine hand shading a gaze that’s directed more or less toward the two empty wine bottles on the passenger-side floorboard.
Annoyance mingles with nostalgia, because the hand can belong to no one but Mrs. Walters. She’s made a career out of being the neighborhood busybody, and spent half my childhood chasing me back toward this very house with a garden hose turned on to full blast.
After driving for almost a full day with no sleep, last night’s alcohol spectacular only amounts to one of this morning’s problems, and my face and breath would be more at home on a hooker who just came off a double shift. Not the fancy kind of hooker, either.
There’s nothing to do but crank down the window, which ushers a refreshing wash of cool morning air into my oven of a car. Late May in South Carolina isn’t exactly temperate. Regardless of the thin, disapproving line of her mouth, no amount of childhood memories can summon a smile.
“Good morning, Graciela.”
“What time is it?” I ask without acknowledging her greeting.
The grooves beside her lips deepen. “A little after seven.”
“Christ. It had to be sunny.” I shove the door harder than necessary but she steps back, avoiding a good smash to the knees. I press my toes to the concrete, taking a few gulps of fresh coastal air before grabbing the doorframe and wobbling to my feet.
“Are you ill?”
“What? No, not exactly.”
“Is Martin well?” She crosses her arms over her chest, her faded brown gaze flicking toward the house.
“I just got here. You’re the one who called me, remember?” Maybe Mrs. Walters had gone batshit crazy since I’d last spent any real time in Heron Creek. Maybe I should have considered that option before packing my entire crappy life into my crappy car and hauling it from Iowa to South Carolina.
“He’s no worse off than when I called. I just wondered why you arrived in this…harried state.”
“Oh.” I put my back to the rising sun, refusing to follow her eyes as they take in the giant pile of clothes and shoes and hangers and toiletries crammed in my backseat. The distaste curling her lips toward her chin says she might be wondering how many Iowa City rats hitchhiked with the rest of the mess. “I was in a hurry.”
I straighten my shoulders and run fingers through my limp hair, wishing I’d taken the time to put it in a braid or a ponytail, anything that would have lessened the tangled brown waves that fall past my shoulders. Maybe Glinda still cuts hair in town. If I ever get around to making a to-do list, that’s going on the top.
The path that leads to the front door is uneven, the red bricks dipping and jutting, fighting with green grass and mud for the right to send me falling on my face. They all manage to fail, my passage to the front stoop ending in safety. Up close, the old two-story house sags, more tired and run-down than it appears in my mind. White paint flakes off the shutters and columns, and even the porch swing, making the house seem as bone-weary at the prospect of standing upright another day as I feel.
My keys are somewhere in the mess of my purse but the door swings open, hinges creaking, before I gather the energy to go dig for them. The sight of Gramps, half bent over his walker, brings tears to my eyes. He must have been watching, because he can hardly hear a thing anymore, and the thought shames me in the light of my behavior.
I throw open the screen door, ignoring the fact that nosy Mrs. Walters hovers behind me, and sling my arms around his neck. Right here, enfolded in his embrace, is the closest thing to home. He smells like Gramps, a combination of sunshine and earth and sea that’s as elusive as it is comforting, and my limbs droop with relief.
Home.
“Hey, Gramps.” My words are muffled against his shirt, and he leans his head close to mine until his hearing aids squeal in protest and we both laugh.
Even though my throat throbs, for Gramps I wrestle loose a smile and he gives me a lopsided one in return. His pale blue eyes twinkle like always but like the house, they seem dimmer than they do in my vision of the past. Far away.
Grams passed almost six months ago. I’ve stayed away too long.
“Gracie-baby, don’t you go frowning. I might look like a fish dryin’ out in the
bottom of a hot tin boat, but get a load of your own mug and you won’t find me so offensive.” He wrinkles his nose. “Not to mention the stink about you.”
The laugh his comments knock loose hurts. Rusty flakes shudder off my lungs and throat as the hurt cackles its way past my lips, and it finishes with a grimace. “I drove straight through and slept in the driveway. Didn’t want to wake you.”
He raises an eyebrow to acknowledge my lie, but doesn’t turn his disapproval into words. We both know he wouldn’t have heard me if I drove a dump truck through the front of the house with a full marching band as a lead-in, then finished off with a fireworks display.
He peeks around me as I wander into the foyer. “Mornin’, Stella.”
“Good day, Martin.”
The kitchen is far enough away to relieve me of listening to Mrs. Walters rant about my inappropriate return to Heron Creek. There’s grape soda, water, milk, and a pitcher of sweet tea in the fridge, along with an assortment of fruits, vegetables, lunchmeats, and condiments that there’s no way he prepares for himself. Gramps has a housekeeper in twice a week, and my Aunt Karen hired her to do the grocery shopping now, too.
The grape soda tastes like being ten years old, like Grams and Gramps and summers spent splashing in the intracoastal, and barely squeezes past the lump in my throat. Tears, which have never been quick to come for me before, have become my constant companion since the public, humiliating demise of my engagement.
They’re under control by the time the bump of metal on ceramic tile announces Gramps’ return from his banal chat with Mrs. Walters. “You hungry, Gramps?”
“Eh?”
“Did you eat breakfast?” I ask, a little louder.
He shakes his head, which means he hasn’t eaten, or he doesn’t want to eat, or that he didn’t hear me. I’m worn too thin to ferret out the correct interpretation, even though the primary motivation for my return to Heron Creek is taking care of Gramps. Mrs. Walters had called my Aunt Karen, threatening to contact the authorities about putting him in a home if we didn’t do it ourselves.
My aunt has no intention of leaving Charleston, ever. When I got wind of Mrs. Walters’ threat during a weekly phone call with Gramps, it happened to be the exact same day I caught my fiancé fucking his teaching assistant. On the desk in his office. During school hours.
The decision to move back here to take care of Gramps and get the hell away from anyone and everyone who knows both David and me—people who knew about his affairs, plural, for years and never said a word—made itself.
Maybe I’m technically running away, but since Gramps needs me, or someone, I’m running toward something, too. A new life, my old pre-David one, it doesn’t matter. I can hide here.
We wander into the living room, and Gramps eases down into his worn, comfy recliner, one that’s tan and shiny in the bald spots, before pinning me with his perceptive blue gaze. “You come to put me in a home, Gracie-baby?”
“Don’t be silly, Gramps. You’ll probably have to put me in one first.”
He nods, his expression serious except for the sparkle in his eyes. “I can see that by the looks of you. Gonna be a crazy home, or one for booze hounds, though, not a place for old folks.”
I’m ready to collapse, spent from the night of driving and the bottles of wine, not to mention the sunrise wake-up call. Or the contents of the past two weeks of my life. Either way, I can’t find the energy to argue with him, especially because he’s not wrong, the way things are going.
“No need to answer. You should never defend yourself, girl. Those people who would believe you already know better and those who won’t aren’t listening anyway. Best to keep your mouth shut.” He huffs. “At least something your Grams and I taught you lodged between your ears.”
“Oh, come on. I learned more than that around here. How to make applesauce, how to make every person in a twenty-mile radius love you unconditionally, that it’s okay to shoot things that annoy you.”
“That last one is all your grandmother.” The wistful sigh in his voice tears at my heart. He’s lonely, and no wonder. We are all terrible people for having left him alone.
I need a few minutes, an hour, a week, to try to find the chunks and strips of myself that have ripped off, floated away. Hopefully they’re still tied to me, like balloons, and can be tugged back. “I’m going to take a shower and get some things from the car. I’ll make lunch in a few hours, okay?”
He waves a hand my direction and nods, his eyes glued to the Creek Sun he picks up from the end table. I take my cue and head for the foyer, but a rustle of newspaper and the sound of my name turns me back around.
“Yeah?”
“Karen called yesterday. Amelia’s pregnant again. Three months along this time, so they’re hoping it’s going to stick.”
The mention of my cousin’s name seizes every muscle in my body. We grew up here together, more sisters than cousins, but it’s been five years since we’ve spoken. Since the night of her bridal shower.
Through my pain, layered thick with the loss of Amelia close to the bottom, comes a geyser of joy. Amelia never wanted anything more than to be a mother, and there have been four miscarriages. That I know about. It had killed me to not be there for her when they happened, but our rift had been Millie’s choice, not mine.
There have been an inordinate number of miscarriages and stillbirths, going back to at least our great-grandmother. Odd, but it had never occurred to me to worry. Amelia was the one who always wanted kids.
“That’s great news,” I manage, the words a little strangled but sincere.
Gramps huffs, his gaze wandering back to what passes for news in a town of less than two thousand. “I’m disappointed you two still haven’t put aside whatever came between you, Gracie-baby.”
My heart sinks, his words carrying the same impact as they have for all of my twenty-five years. “It’s hard to talk with only one person in the room, Gramps.”
He doesn’t answer, and this time I’m pretty sure he’s pretending not to hear me. He has a point. “She won’t talk to me” isn’t much of an excuse, but like everything else in the shambles of my life, thinking about actually taking steps to fix it makes me so tired I almost curl up on the carpeted steps climbing upward from the foyer.
Fat pants, clean underwear, maybe a toothbrush, then no more requirements until lunch.
My old Ford waits in the driveway, as patient and loyal as ever. Better than any dog, I used to tell David when he wanted to bring home a puppy. Not that I have a problem with dogs, but he would’ve gotten bored within a week and all of the cleaning and walking and playing would have fallen to me. One day, I’d promised myself, he’d be more reliable, I’d be done with grad school, and things would be different.
Well, I’d finished grad school. Maybe one out of three isn’t bad.
I rummage through the backseat in search of my necessities, coming up with my toiletry case and yoga pants before finally discovering clean underwear stuffed inside a ratty pair of running shoes. My skull cracks on the car’s frame on my way out, making me rethink the loyalty of my hunk of junk. I pause to rub at the pain and catch myself staring into the woods toward the creek.
Heron Creek is situated around an intracoastal waterway about twenty miles from Charleston. There’s a dock at the back of my grandparent’s five-plus acres, and the town itself has three public access piers.
Even now, I can see Amelia and I streaking into the morning, our bellies full of Grams’ banana-and-honey pancakes. A warm, muggy mist curling around our tiny bodies, lifting us to Mel’s porch down the street, and then sweeping up Will from the big house along the water. We laughed away entire days, lazing in the sun, splashing in the salty river, making up a variety of adventurers that most often ended up in the old graveyard.
I would never have believed when I left my childhood behind that not a single one of their friendships would follow me into the future. My heart split in two at the memory of Will, even though
I had been the one to let go.
Mel and Amelia…the miles that separate us are more complicated.
Closing my eyes does nothing to erase the years of memories twirling through the early morning fog. Turning my back helps a bit more, and once the front door clicks shut behind me, I almost believe I’ll be able to shut out the painful days of my past as easily as the piercing sunlight. That I’ll be able to live in Heron Creek and cherry-pick the pieces of the past that comfort, not the ones that remind me that the person I’d dreamed I’d be is not the person the mirror says I’ve become.
*
I don’t remember falling asleep, but the smell of my hair on the pillow insists I didn’t make it into the shower, or out to unload my car, before stretching out in my old room. The scent of fresh linen—the same laundry detergent and fabric softener Grams used—permeates the crisp, light blue sheets and handmade quilt. The sight of the blues and creams, the gauzy curtains blowing in the salty late-spring breeze, had stolen the last bit of my will to act like a grownup.
My stench, a faint trace of salt and fish, forces me to shift, at least enough to remove my nose from my armpit. Something black shudders in the corner of the room and I shriek, sitting up and scrambling backward, pulling a fluffy sham to my chest. My heart pounds and the stink in the room increases, morphs into an unfamiliar odor that’s impossible to place.
No matter how hard I stare into the shadowed recesses of my familiar room, they remain empty.
I shake my head, snorting at my panic. It’s like I’m ten years old again, clutching at sheets and straining to make out invisible faces after a night of Amelia’s impressive retellings of local legends. Like every small Southern town, Heron Creek’s chock full of ghosts. Supposedly. As hard as we’d tried, as many hours as we’d spent in cemeteries, none of us had ever seen one.
The sound of Gramps shuffling around downstairs propels me out of bed and into the bathroom, my legs hot and tingly from the unexpected nap. I’d slept the better part of the past twelve hours, which, while not uncommon for me in the past week, was pretty much unheard of during the six years before that. Not that sleeping drunk in the front seat of a car is particularly restful. Or good on my twenty-five-year-old lower back.
