Page 18 of Off Plan

Ever.

And I don’t just mean I didn’t fuck around with them, becauseduh.I mean, I didn’t pine for them. I didn’t fantasize about them. I didn’t even let myselflook atthemtoo closely, since the looking always led to the fantasizing and then to the pining.

I’d learned that lesson the hard way in Texas some five years back, with broken ribs that had landed me in the hospital and a broken career that had landed me in Whispering Key. It was maybe the one mistake in my life I hadn’t been doomed to repeat, and I wasn’t gonna start now.

But when Loafers started tapping his finger against the doorframe, passionately mouthing along to theit ain’t me’s in “Fortunate Son” like he actually hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, I felt a tiny bit of sweat break out on the back of my neck.

Thank God for probationary periods, huh?

“So, why are we going to, ah, Cooter Key—” Loafers choked.

“You’re gonna wanna learn to say that without laughing.” I sounded uptight, even to my own ears.

“I wasn’t laughing!”

He so was.

“So why are we going tothis placeinstead of Whispering Key, where the resort is? Is this a hidden entrance only locals know, or…?”

“Real hidden,” I agreed. “You have no idea.”

Loafers shut up again once we were over the bridge and heading south. Cooter Key, despite its weird name, was actually pretty, with lots of cute houses and water views. A tourist-trap shop displayed “I Heart Cooter” T-shirts, and Loafers tried to maintain his dignity by clapping a hand over his mouth to hold back his snicker, but I totally heard him anyway.

There was a happy, tropical vibe to the place that I guess I’d sorta stopped noticing, given that most of my time on Cooter Key was spent cursing the fact that I needed to drive through the island at all. Seeing Loafers getting all hyped over it made me look with fresh eyes. I wondered for a second if Whispering Key might have looked like this, too, if not for all the misfortune and mismanagement that had befallen it. In an alternate reality, it might actually be the place Loafers was expecting to find.

Which might have been the stupidest thought to ever cross my mind.

It was like thinking SpongeBob SquarePants might’ve been a male-model-turned-billionaire-philanthropist, if not for the way he’d been born and the shit he’d had done to him. We were shaped by those things the same way landmasses were shaped by volcanoes and erosion and idiot humans tromping all over them. You couldn’t undo it, and it was stupid to try.

I cleared my throat. “We’re in luck. Bridge is down.” I nodded at the dull green drawbridge in front of us spanning the thousand-foot inlet between Cooter and Whispering Keys, the one thread that kept us tethered to the rest of the world.

Loafers dragged his eyes from the sparkling water. “Is it not always?”

“Nope.” I pointed out his window. “See, that right there is the Gulf of Mexico. And this”—I hooked a thumb out my window—“is an intracoastal waterway. If you’re a richy-rich yacht owner living overhere, and you want to take your sixty-footer outthere, this bridge is in the way, so you call and have them lift it temporarily.”

“Ah.” He gave me those big, green eyes and nodded seriously. “I’ll keep that in mind for when I buy my yacht.”

I couldn’t tell if he was kidding. Probably not.

“So,” I said, as soon as the Charger’s tires touched the pavement on the other side of the bridge. “Here we are. Welcome to Whispering Key, land of dreams.”

We drove slowly down the winding street, past a collection of single-story homes. Most had yards that desperately needed mowing. One or two had boarded-up windows.

He frowned. “Hurricane damage?”

“Nope. Some of those have been empty for a long while. Big Rafe tries to get out and mow the yards once or twice a year.” Or have one of us mow them for him.

I watched the sunlight spilling through the open window play over his stubbled jaw and rumpled shirt, and waited for him to ask follow-up questions, to realize Rafe had played him so I didn’t have to spell it out. For him to resume being an asshole, since that would be really convenient for me.

He didn’t, though.

Because Beale’s Universe hated me.

So instead, I kept running my mouth.

“The road we’re on is Godfrey Pass. Spans all seven miles of the key from north to south. That, ah… street on the left there is Margot Lane, which curves up to the highest spot on the island, Godfrey Promontory. Views for days, which is why a few millionaires built mansions up there, once upon a time.”

“Yeah? Like, Bill Gates, or—”