And Then What?

by D. R. Graham

  And Then What?

  Britannia Beach

  BY D.R. GRAHAM

  A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  HarperImpulse an imprint of

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2016

  Copyright © D.R. Graham 2016

  Cover images © Shutterstock.com

  Cover design © Books Covered

  D.R. Graham asserts the moral right to

  be identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International

  and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

  By payment of the required fees, you have been granted

  the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access

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  No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,

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  written permission of HarperCollins.

  Ebook Edition © October 2016 ISBN: 9780008145187

  Version 2016-09-19

  For anyone going through a rough time

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Acknowledgements

  Also by D.R. Graham

  About the Author

  About HarperImpulse

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER 1

  Every glass and mirrored surface in my mom’s high-rise condo was sparkling by the time I finished rushing around with a spray bottle. My boyfriend’s best friend, Murphy, was seated on the leather couch flicking between a football and a hockey game on TV. The party was about to start and I hadn’t even changed yet, so I handed him the broom. “Murph, a little help? Please and thank you.”

  Despite the fact that his focus didn’t leave the television, he heaved his giant frame off the couch and half-heartedly pushed the broom over the hardwood floors as I quickly fluffed the throw pillows and stashed one of my textbooks under the couch. The original plan was to celebrate Trevor’s twenty-first birthday party up in Britannia Beach on the actual date, but then I got the bright idea to push it two weeks earlier and host it in Vancouver so he would be surprised. Too bad I didn’t factor into account that I’d have two papers due, a group project, and an exam while I was trying to plan everything. Sleep is overrated anyway, right?

  “The place is already spotless, Deri.” Murphy said. “It’s not like Trevor cares what it looks like.”

  “The thirty other people who are about to show up will.” The doorbell rang right on cue.

  Trevor’s sister Kailyn, who was blowing up balloons at the dining table, sprung up and answered the door for me. It was her dad, so she gave him a hug around his waist.

  “Hi everyone.” Jim Maverty waved, removed his jacket and shoes, then crossed the room and sat down on the couch to watch the game Murphy had left on. He wasn’t an overly chatty guy and social gatherings weren’t really his thing. He only came down to Vancouver from Britannia Beach for special occasions.

  “Mom!” I hollered down the hall towards her bedroom as I turned the stereo system on for background music. “Jim’s here.”

  “Okay, I’ll be right out.”

  My best friend, Sophie, was helping my granddad prepare the hors d’oeuvres in the kitchen. She had moved back home from New York at the end of December after the off-Broadway play she’d been singing in ended its run. Her boyfriend, Doug asked her to move in with him in Los Angeles, but she hadn’t yet because he was on a world tour with his band and wouldn’t be back for another three months. In the meantime she was living at her parents’ house in Squamish and working as a waitress in Whistler, which she wasn’t crazy about. I tugged the loose braid she’d woven her long black hair into. “Mmm, that bruschetta smells amazing.” I popped a spinach, tomato, and feta-covered piece of bread into my mouth. “It tastes amazing too. Thanks for helping with the food. You’re a life-saver.”

  “I’ve been doing more eating than helping. Your grandpa did most of the work.” She dumped half a bottle of barbecue sauce over a dish of chicken wings.

  It had been over a month since I’d seen Granddad because I had been swamped with school work. Originally, when I had decided to stay in Vancouver and attend the same school as Trevor, I had hoped to go up to Britannia Beach on weekends to visit Granddad, Sophie, and Kailyn, but finding the time turned out to be harder than I thought it would be. Going from seeing him every day for my entire life to less than once a month made me sad. I hugged him and kissed his cheek. “Thanks, Granddad. I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you, too.” He opened the oven door and slid in a baking sheet of about fifty mini quiches. “But stop hovering. You can go get ready. We have everything under control in here.”

  “Okay, thanks.” I had been hovering and micro-managing too much. I wanted everything to be perfect, but I hadn’t scheduled enough time for perfection. All Trevor would care about was having his friends and family around to celebrate. It was me who wanted it to feel like a proper, sophisticated grown-up party. I leaned my palms on the granite countertop of the kitchen island, poked my head out towards the living room. “Can I get anyone a drink or a meatball or something?”

  The doorbell rang again and Kailyn got up to answer it.

  “We’re fine, Deri. Just go get ready,” Murphy said.

  I did need to get changed, so I left everything in their capable hands. On the way to my room, my mom passed me in the hall, putting her earring in and pressing her lips together to blend her lipstick. She looked nice.

  “Is Ron coming?” I asked her.

  “No, sweetheart. I know you don’t feel comfortable when he’s here.”

  True. He’d been her boyfriend for almost a year, but it still didn’t sit right with me. Feeling guilty for being childish about their relationship, I tucked my hair behind my ears and attempted to come across as more mature than I actually was. “You could have invited him to the party. I just feel weird when he’s hanging around here without you as if he lives here.”

  “Maybe with more time you’ll get used to him.”

  “Yeah, time,” I said under my breath. Although I really had no choice but to accept that she and Ron were a thing, I couldn’t imagine ever being comfortable with him lounging around on the couch and helping himself to food and trying to have p
arental-type talks with me. I wasn’t ready for that. Hard to host a grown-up party if I couldn’t even be adult enough to accept the fact that my mom had a boyfriend, though. “Call him and tell him he’s welcome.”

  “I think he made plans with his son, but I’ll let him know.” Mom touched my arm lightly, then carried on down the hall to join everyone in the living room. Ron’s son was seventeen and already cool with my mom, which she reminded me of frequently. His situation was different, though. His parents divorced when he was five years old. My parents adored each other and would have still been together if my dad hadn’t died in a car crash when I was fifteen. Change really wasn’t my thing. Admittedly, I needed to work on letting things go.

  Later.

  Voices filled the living room as more people arrived, so I ducked into my room. The black, fitted dress I’d borrowed from Sophie was hung on the back of my closet door. I really wanted the party to be a success because, despite going to the same school, Trevor and I had barely seen each other in weeks. I missed him. I brushed my hair, applied a little makeup, stepped into the dress I’d borrowed from Sophie, and slipped my feet into black pumps—all in record time. Ugh, I shouldn’t have looked in the mirror. Three nights in one week of pulling all-nighters to finish my assignments were not kind to me.

  The doorbell rang again as I crossed my room to get Trevor’s birthday gift out of the drawer of my bedside table. It had slid next to the box where I kept the necklace Mason gave me. Mason and I had dated right after I graduated from high school, and although it hadn’t lasted long and I hadn’t seen him since, I never forgot about him. I stared for a second at the two boxes sitting next to each other, then picked up the box that had Trevor’s gift in it. He was supposed to arrive in five minutes, so I hurried back out into the living room.

  Murphy whistled when he saw me. “You clean up good.”

  I rolled my eyes in a self-deprecating gesture as my cheeks heated. “Thanks. Can I get anyone a drink?” I asked to avoid being the centre of attention. Nobody took me up on my offer, so I stacked the gift on the kitchen island with the others and fidgeted with my dress to make it hang right. The condo was maybe not designed to be crammed with so many bodies. It was sweltering. It might have been just me. I waved my hands in front of my face to cool myself off.

  Sophie sat on a stool next to the island. “Derian, relax. Everything’s ready, the place looks great, and you look hot.”

  “Right, relax. I’m getting too worked up, aren’t I?”

  “Yes,” Sophie and my mom both said in unison.

  “This probably wasn’t the best week to plan a surprise party,” I admitted. “Exam worth fifty percent of my mark, three assignments, and I haven’t even thought about packing for our trip to Tofino yet. I may have been a little too ambitious when I decided to invite everyone we know over on such short notice.”

  “The hard part’s done. All you need to do now is enjoy yourself,” my mom reassured me.

  “You’re right. This will be good. Last term was busy for both Trevor and me, but my assignments are all handed in, my exam is over—although I’m not sure I did that well—and I can pack for Tofino tomorrow. It will be nice to just have fun. Okay, I’m calming down. I can do this.”

  Sophie looked at me as if she knew there was something more wrong with me than just the stress of the party, but she didn’t ask. Truthfully, she was right. My high-strung mood had more to do with a vision I’d had earlier, but exhaustion, unrealistic expectations, and an over-estimation of what I was capable of achieving weren’t helping either.

  “How’s Doug?” I asked to turn the focus away from me.

  Sophie shrugged and transferred some turkey meatballs into a serving dish. She stabbed a toothpick into each one with more force than was necessary. “Good, I guess. The band is playing in Moscow tonight.”

  “Cool. Where’s the next stop on the tour?”

  “Berlin.”

  “Did he get all his stuff moved into his new condo before they had to leave?”

  “No. His assistant is finishing everything while he’s gone.” She stabbed the last couple of toothpicks with increasing force.

  “Assistant? Wow. When did he get an assistant?”

  She shrugged and poured herself a glass of wine. I was going to ask more questions, but she walked away and took the bottle with her into the living room to top up other people’s glasses. Murphy’s girlfriend Rene had arrived. Although she normally drank wine, she politely declined and then smiled adoringly at Murphy. He stretched his massive arm across her shoulder to squeeze her into his side, looking all proud. Whoa. I made eye contact with him in an attempt to ask with my expression if that gesture meant what I thought it meant, and if it did mean that, did Trevor know? He shot me an amused but otherwise unrevealing look. The timer buzzed for the quiches. He was saved by the bell. Temporarily. I planned to get to the bottom of that exchange. I rushed into the kitchen and took the quiche out of the oven, then slid the tins of apple-cinnamon muffins in—an unconventional replacement for a birthday cake, but they were my specialty and Trevor’s favourite. The recipe was originally my grandmother’s, and ever since he moved to Britannia Beach when he was seven years old, Trevor would come over to the Inn each morning for a fresh, home-made, apple-cinnamon muffin.

  The condo was packed and getting hotter. I opened the sliding glass door that led to the patio and took a few deep breaths of the cool, rainy spring air. Murphy walked past me into the kitchen to load up a plate with chicken wings.

  I spun around and rested my butt on the counter, with my arms crossed. In some ways it was bizarre to think of someone the same age as Trevor already being a dad. But I’d known Murphy since he and Trevor became best friends as kids, and Murphy had always been both big and mature for his age. He’d moved out of his mom’s house when he was seventeen. Then, after he graduated high school, he went straight into training at the Justice Institute and already had a stable career as a paramedic. Rene was twenty-four and a nurse, who owned her own place. It made sense that they were in a position to start a family. If that’s what their knowing look was about. “So, anything new with you and Rene?”

  “Nope. Same old same old.” He tossed a cherry tomato up in the air and caught it in his mouth.

  “Are you sure? Nothing new? Nothing developing?”

  He smiled and shook his head to deny it. His smile is what gave him away.

  “Oh my God, Murphy. That is so exciting.”

  He held his hands up in defense. “What’s so exciting? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t say anything.”

  I lunged over and hugged him around the waist. “Have you told Trevor yet?”

  “Uh.” He glanced over his shoulder. “There’s nothing to tell. Are you having one of your Spidey senses or something?”

  “No. I had a vision this morning but it wasn’t about you and Rene. I just noticed that she’s not drinking and you look all happy and goofy. There’s something to tell, isn’t there?”

  He rolled his eyes and twisted the cap off a beer. “Zip it.”

  I bounced up and down on my toes, about to burst from the news. “When can I unzip it?”

  He shook his head in an attempt to discourage my enthusiasm as Rene joined us in the kitchen. He shot me a cautionary glare.

  She smiled and slid in next to him. “Sorry to interrupt, but I have to go to back to work soon. What time is Trevor supposed to arrive?”

  “Eight.” I looked at the clock on the stove, which showed eight forty-five. “What time do you have?” I asked Murphy.

  He took his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. “Eight forty-five.”

  “Are you sure?”

  We both knew it was out of character for Trevor to be late, but Murphy said, “He probably got caught up in traffic.”

  “For forty-five minutes? He would have called if he was going to be this late.” I texted him to ask if he was on his way.

  Murphy’s eyes darted aw
ay from mine. He knew I was right.

  “He’ll be here.” Murphy reached across the counter, grabbed a couple of pieces of sushi, and popped them both into his mouth, probably so he wouldn’t be able to say anything. He glanced at me one more time, then stretched his arm across Rene’s shoulder and walked away.

  Trevor still hadn’t responded to my text when Sophie stepped into the kitchen to get a new bottle of wine. She had on a black mini skirt and she’d put on one of my mom’s frilly white aprons so she looked like a French maid. The guys seemed to be enjoying it.

  “Rene’s not drinking,” she said with a curious eyebrow lift.

  Partly to avoid divulging anything Murphy wouldn’t want me to, and partly because I was actually starting to worry, I said, “Trevor’s almost an hour late.”

  She waved her hand to dismiss my concern. “Don’t worry about it. You know what he’s like. He probably came across an accident and helped some people who needed saving or something. What did you tell him you guys were going to be doing?”

  “Nothing specific. I didn’t want to sound suspicious, so I just said come over around eight.”

  “Maybe he didn’t realize it was a set plan. Just call him.”

  “Okay, yeah. Right. Just call him.” I pulled out my phone and locked myself in the bathroom so he wouldn’t hear the music or the people and ruin the surprise. It rang and rang and then his voicemail kicked in. “Hi, Trev. Just wondering if everything is all right? I thought we were supposed to meet at my place at eight. Call me.”

  All of his friends and the guys from Search and Rescue shot awkward glances at me when I returned to the living room. To avoid their stares I ducked back into the kitchen and updated Sophie. “He didn’t answer,” I mumbled.