Page 19

Caleb

“ Y ou excited about being home?” Theo asks from the passenger seat of the truck as we pass the halfway mark from Montgavin to my home where I grew up.

I have one hand on the wheel while my arm is lying on the door, the open window letting the breeze come through the cab. “It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve seen my parents. So I’m excited to see them and then hang with Mila and her crew. Make sure the kids remember their cool uncle Caleb.”

“It hasn’t been a couple of weeks since you’ve been home.” He scoffs at me. “It’s been over two months since you’ve been home.”

“Considering that my home is in Montgavin now”—I look at the road—“I’m just visiting.” He snickers, laughing, no doubt laughing about the state of play that Sierra and I are in, which is a stalemate at this point.

“The more important question of the day is.” My voice trails, waiting for him to ask me what, but when he doesn’t, I just continue, “Have you decided what you are going to do after we finish Sierra’s house?” I look back over at Theo, who shrugs.

“Not sure, really,” he replies. “I have nothing holding me here so…”

“What the hell are you talking about? You have your house, your work with my father. Plus you are like an hour closer to your mother and father.” I mention just a few things he has holding him here.

“Yeah, but they’re all doing their own thing.”

“You need to settle down,” I tell him and he literally groans out.

“I don’t need to settle down,” he says, his voice tight.

“Tried that. Well, almost tried that and she left.” He doesn’t continue his thought, nor does he say her name.

Not sure he wants to think about his fiancée leaving him two days before the wedding.

It broke his fucking heart and since then he’s been adamant that he will never, ever settle down.

He’s good with one-night stands and only one-night stands.

He doesn’t even give anyone his number, and the exchange is first name only if that.

“Maybe you need a change of scenery.” I tap my finger on the steering wheel.

“Is that what you did?” He tries to turn it around on me as if it would bother me.

“I guess so,” I admit. “I had my family, but other than that, I had nothing really holding me here. Besides, do you know how annoying it was when I would show up to job sites and people would be like, ‘wait, your father isn’t coming?’”

“You used to have Amber.” He reminds me of my first girlfriend, who I dated throughout high school and college.

When we both got back home, she wanted more.

I wasn’t ready to make that commitment to her, so we parted ways.

Now I heard she’s engaged to some banker, or maybe she’s even married.

I don’t ask about her and no one brings it up to me either.

“It was never going to work out with Amber.” I tap the steering wheel with my finger.

“She didn’t really even want me. She just wanted the ring and all that because a couple of her sorority sisters were getting married.

She wanted the Instagram life and not the real life.

She was more worried about what everyone else thought about us than what I thought about us.

” I don’t bring up the rest of it, keeping that to myself.

I share everything with Theo but that part about Amber and me is going to be my secret.

“Better to know before you marry her than after,” Theo declares as I turn onto his street and see his house, pulling up to it as he reaches for the door handle.

He pushes the door open with his shoulder.

“See you Sunday.” He gets out and opens the back door.

“Don’t call me before.” He grabs his duffel from the back seat before slamming the door.

I wait for him to be halfway down his walkway before I press the button to open the window and shout out, “That’s literally tomorrow!

” Walking up to his front door, he holds his hand up and flips me the bird.

It was probably stupid to drive five hours to be here for less than a day, but I needed to come home and check on things.

Plus, if I’m five hours away from her, there is no way I could slip over to her house and do something she obviously is not ready for.

I make my own way over to the house I took over from my parents when I came back from college.

It’s not far from the house they have. It is the house my father bought his first wife when they got married.

After she left him with a John Doe letter, he let it sit and wanted nothing to do with it.

It’s the house my mother rented when she came to town.

From the stories everyone tells, he hated her, she hated him, and now they are happily married.

I pull up to the house, seeing the porch swing on the side moving with the soft wind.

I get out, grabbing my bag from the back before walking into the house.

I open the door, the stillness of the air thick from being closed for two months.

I dump my bag at the door and go over to the window of the kitchen that faces the living room, opening it before walking over to the back door and opening it as well.

The screened storm door stays shut, and I can hear the ocean waves hitting the beach.

I open the fridge, seeing three bottles of beer in there with a couple of condiments.

Bending to grab a beer, I twist the top off and walk to the garbage bin, tossing it in there before taking a pull of it and walking outside to the back deck that faces the ocean.

I make my way down the path to the ocean, sitting on the sand and just staring out into the distance.

Watching the waves rise and then crash onto the sand is almost therapeutic and I know exactly why my mother loves sitting out and watching them.

As the sun tries to peek out of the clouds, I take a pull of the beer, and my mind immediately goes to her.

Sierra. We finished her kitchen late last night.

Even Theo and I were impressed with how fast it went.

We’ve never finished a kitchen in under three weeks, but it was all hands on deck for her.

I think we had six men working in the kitchen at one time.

But we could say that it’s done, she doesn’t have to have coffee in her room or eat at her desk.

I put the beer beside me as I lean back on my hands, watching the water, when I look over to see my niece, Mackenzie, running down the beach, wearing water boots with her dog running beside her.

“It’s Uncle Caleb!” she shrieks over her shoulder at my sister, who puts her hand to her forehead to see, and a smile fills her face.

I get on my feet and squat down for Mackenzie, opening my arms for her as she runs into them. “Momma, it’s really him.”

“Did you think I was a ghost?” I kiss her cheek as her dog barks around my feet. Mila makes it to me then, a smile on her face. “Hey, Squirt.” I look down at her, and she rolls her eyes at me.

“I’m older than you by six years.” She pokes me in the ribs before she reaches out and pinches the underside of my arm, knowing I fucking hate it.

“Where is your brother?” I ask Mackenzie as I lean in to kiss her neck again and then give her a long hug, squeezing her a little bit longer than before.

“Mathias is napping,” she tells me, “and Daddy is watching him because Mom is stuck with us all week long.” She emphasizes the last words and I know that she is repeating it the exact way that Mila said it.

“Mackenzie,” Mila scolds her, “what did I say to you?” she asks her and Mackenzie just looks at her not sure what she is talking about. “We do not repeat what grown-ups say.” The tiredness is written all over her face.

“You want to go back home and take a nap also?” I look at Mila. “I can take her and walk over to Gramps’s house.”

“Yes.” Mila doesn’t even hesitate. “See you later at Mom and Dad’s.” She leans over to kiss Mackenzie before turning and walking away to her house. The dog goes to her and then comes back to Mackenzie and me before going back to her.

“Take your dog!” I shout as I put Mackenzie down, and she yells for him to come with her.

“Okay, Squirt,” I call her the nickname I gave Mila, grabbing my bottle of beer. “Let’s go crash Grandma and Grandpop’s.” I hold out my hand, and she slips hers in mine as we walk over to their house.

“Don’t run in the water,” I instruct her when she lets go of my hand because a piece of wood washed up on the shore.

“I won’t, Uncle Caleb,” she assures me, running in said water I told her not to run in, but with her boots, she doesn’t get too wet.

When we get to my parents’ place, I walk up the pathway to their back gate.

I open the gate and she runs in before me.

“Grandma!” she yells as she runs past the tree house my father had made for her, past the play structure that took us four days to put up because my mother bought four of them and wanted them all put together, just like at a park.

The pool is covered with a tarp since it’s too cold to go swimming.

“Grandpop!” she hollers his name. The back door opens, and my father steps out with a smile on his face.

His eyes go from Mackenzie to me, and his eyes and his smile get even bigger. “Sweetheart,” he says to Mackenzie, who wraps her arms around his waist and he bends to kiss her head, “this is a nice surprise.”

“Daddy does nothing at home.” She changes the story from what she told me not long ago.

“I bet he doesn’t,” he mumbles. “Take off your boots. Grandma is making apple muffins.”

“My favorite!” she squeals, kicking off her boots and then placing them nicely on the mat outside the door. “Grandma!” she yells, opening the door and walking in before it closes behind her.

“Look at you,” my father says, coming and giving me a hug, “walking down the beach with a beer.”

“I was having one beer,” I tell him, putting it on the table, “when your daughter and granddaughter came walking down the beach.”

“She’s exhausted,” he mumbles. “Her husband needs to pitch in more.” I raise my eyebrows.

“You know he works, and when he gets home, he’s hands-on with the kids,” I remind him. “He worships her.”

“Not enough.” He glares at me when I try to defend him.

My mother comes to the back door. “She said you were here, and I didn’t believe her.” She wipes her hands on the apron around her waist. “Look at you.” She gives me a hug. “You look like you have a lot on your mind.” I roll my eyes and shake my head. “Is it a woman?”

“No,” I refute, and my father’s eyebrows go up.

“That was a fast no, so it must be a yes.” He laughs. “Who is she?”

“No one.” I shake my head, not ready to talk about Sierra yet.

What can I say, really? I like this woman, like really fucking like her, and she’s avoiding me like I’m the plague.

This whole week, she’s avoided me altogether, except when she got a huge-ass whiteboard that she tried to carry up to her bedroom by herself, but stopped every seven seconds huffing and puffing.

I leaned against the doorjamb, watching her trying to pull up the big box.

She knew I was watching, knew all she had to do was ask me for help.

But, of course, why would she? She was going to do it all by herself.

Until she got to the fifth stair and thought it was going to be smooth sailing, when the box slipped out of her hand and fell right down all the stairs.

“Motherfucker,” she hissed, stomping down the steps to the box, and I finally pushed away from the doorjamb and went to her.

“Need help, baby?” I asked. The glare was enough to make me go back to the kitchen and mind my business, but all I could think of was what her lips would taste like if I kissed her.

I went to the box and held the side as she came down, her feet stomping on the steps as she grabbed the box, and we carried it up to her bedroom. “Where do you want it?”

“In the other room, but it’s not finished.” She tilted her head to the side, and I shook my head and laughed.

“You need a kitchen before you need a spare bedroom or an office,” I reminded her as she went over to the box and flipped open the side. “Do you need help unpacking the box, or are you going to pretend you have this?”

“I wasn’t pretending.” She went over to her office, getting a box cutter. “I had it covered.”

“It looked like it.” I put my hands on my hips as I watched her cut the box on top and then at the side so it fell open to the side.

“See?” She pointed at the box. “Got it covered.”

“Perfect,” I said to her and turned to walk out of the room. I waited for her to say something to me, but she said nothing.

“You need to settle down,” my mother interrupts my memories, “and give me grandbabies.”

“Have you spoken to my other sister?” I mention Meadow. “She also can help in this project to fill your house with grandchildren.”

“She’s busy,” my father says, “and she doesn’t need”—he glares at me—“any of that.”

I laugh at them protecting my sister, as Mackenzie comes out to grab my mother. The day is spent with the two of us just lounging on the couch while they bake apple muffins. We end up watching some movie that I don’t even concentrate on because all I can do is think about what Sierra is doing.

We eat dinner, and I walk back to the house, showering and sliding into bed, wishing she was here with me.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way about a woman before.

The need to constantly be around her is foreign to me.

I drift off to sleep while the television watches me, waking when my phone buzzes from the bedside table.

I reach out for it and open one eye, seeing it’s Sierra calling.

I can’t help the way the smile fills my face, bringing the phone to my ear.

“Hey, baby,” I mumble, “did you miss me?”