Page 18 of Sea La Vie (The Outer Banks #1)

Tate

I run a comb through my hair and check my teeth for any stray green globs. Lainey’s truck beeps below, and I try to calm my racing heart.

It’s just Lainey.

I walk down the stairs and find Lucille sitting behind the counter. “You’re making her drive?”

“Well, yeah. I don’t have my car back,” I explain.

“Kids these days. Chivalry is dead,” she mutters.

“What? It’s not even a date,” I protest.

“Better not be.” She takes a thumb and drags it along her neck, then closes her eyes and lolls her tongue out the side of her mouth, looking ridiculous as she threatens me.

I wait for her to open her eyes back up, but she doesn’t, and I’m momentarily concerned until I hear Lainey beep again. I back out of the house quickly, then jog the few yards to Lainey’s truck.

“Lucille gets weirder every day,” I say as I buckle myself in. I catch a whiff of the chicken Lainey has made for dinner, and my stomach rumbles. “Thanks again for cooking. I owe you one.”

Lainey chuckles, then pulls out onto the sandy road. Her window is down, and the warm summer wind blows her tangly waves around her face. If it wasn’t for the crease between her brows, she’d look carefree and relaxed with one hand on the wheel and the other out the window.

“You okay?” I ask.

She glances toward me. “Yeah,” she says. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” I ask. “Because your forehead says otherwise.”

“My forehead?” Lainey turns down an old country song, then scrunches her eyebrows together, making the crease deepen.

“When you’re stressed, the crease between your eyebrows shows up. It’s been that way since we were kids,” I explain.

Lainey rubs her forehead with her finger then sighs. “I’ve got to do something about the fishing business,” she says. “We’re running on fumes.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” I offer.

Lainey shakes her head. “No, the weather has just been so weird this season. I haven’t been able to get out much at all, and on top of that, we lost a motor. But we’ll make it through. We always do.”

“How’s your dad doing?” I ask.

“He gets a little stronger everyday. The doctors at Duke want him to come do physical therapy once a week, and he’s made sure to tell me more than once how ridiculous that is.

But honestly, I think he’s excited to get out of the house and spend some time with Henry.

He offered to take him before I had a chance to. ”

“You’ve got a lot going on already. I think it’s great that Henry offered to help,” I say.

“It should be me,” Lainey grumbles.

“Why are you afraid to ask for help or say no every now and then?” I ask.

Lainey huffs. “I’m not.”

“You are,” I challenge.

Lainey chews the inside of her cheeks and flips on her blinker. The click click click fills the uncomfortable silence.

“The morning my mom died, she asked me to help her fold the laundry, and I said no,” she says quietly.

“I know that’s stupid. It was laundry. But I said no because I wanted to watch TV instead.

And because of that, I missed out on twenty more minutes I could’ve had with my mom.

All for a TV show I can’t even remember the name of.

And who knows? It may have even delayed them from going out on the water for a few minutes.

If she hadn't been standing on the back of the boat at that exact time, she may have never died.”

She chews on the inside of her cheek again and focuses on the road. “I shouldn’t have told you that,” she mumbles.

“Lainey, what happened to your mom is not your fault. You were a kid. You had no way of knowing what was going to happen,” I say softly.

“Even still, I missed out on that time with her. That was one more chance I could’ve had to tell her I loved her, hear her laugh, see her smile.

And I said no.” She flips on her blinker again, and pulls into the nursing home’s parking lot.

She turns the engine off, and the quiet is suddenly deafening.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. I reach a hand over and lay it gently on her knee. “I know that twenty minutes would’ve done so much for you in terms of healing.”

Finally, she turns to look at me, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. “Thank you,” she says. “For not trying to make it better. Sometimes, I want someone to listen.”

“I’ll listen to you all day long, Lainey Adams.”

A warm smile crosses her lips. “Are you ready to head in?”

I pat my pocket with the letter and nod. She grabs the bag of food, and I lead her into the nursing home, the fluorescent lighting and smell of antiseptic anything but a warm greeting. We turn down a few hallways before coming to his door, and I rap on it with my knuckles.

“Come in,” I hear my Grandpa say.

I push open the door and find him sitting in his bed, dressed in a matching set of red, faded pajamas. “Hey Grandpa.”

He stares at me for a few uncomfortable seconds before recognition finally crosses his face. “Tate, it’s good to see you. It’s been a while.”

I frown. It’s only been a few days. “Grandpa, this is my friend, Lainey. Do you remember her?”

Lainey steps forward and lays a hand on the paper skin thin of his hand. “Hi Mr. Matthews.”

“How could I ever forget a girl like Lainey?” Grandpa smiles and lays his free hand on top of hers. “You two would run around all summer, wreaking havoc on anything and everything. She stops by and sees me almost every week.”

“It’s good to see you,” Lainey says, avoiding my gaze. “I hope you haven’t eaten yet. We brought you some dinner.” Grandpa’s face lights up when he sees the bags of food.

“I thought something smelled good,” he says. He sits up a little straighter in the bed, and Lainey rolls a table over and begins filling a plate with food for him before she fills one for each of us.

“This is great. I’ve missed good, old-fashioned table salt,” Grandpa says.

Lainey chuckles, and I remember the note in my pocket.

“Hey Grandpa, remember me telling you I’m fixing up the cottage? I found a letter recently, and I wanted to see if you remembered anything about it.”

I fish the note out of my pocket and hand it to Grandpa. His milky blue eyes scan the paper back and forth. I catch myself holding my breath, and for a split second he looks like he wants to say something. Instead though, he slowly shakes his head.

“I’m…I’m not sure. Where’d you find this?” he asks. He’s frustrated he can’t tell us more. I can tell by the way he’s chewing the inside of his lip.

“In the bedroom,” I tell him, carefully so I don’t upset him more. “It was under a loose floorboard.”

“I wish I could help you,” Grandpa says, his brows furrowed. Across the room, Lainey’s shoulders drop for a moment before we start to fill the silence with general chatting about the cottage remodel and life in Widow’s Wharf.

A while later, a soft knock on the door has us all turning our heads. “I’m sorry to say this, but visiting hours are over,” a nurse says. She sets a paper cup of Grandpa’s nightly meds on the table beside his bed with a cup of water.

“I’ll come back in a few days, I promise,” I tell Grandpa.

“It was good to see you,” Lainey says.

He nods, grabbing my hand as I bend down for a hug.

He gives it a gentle squeeze with his bony hand.

His skin is paper thin and so cold that, for a moment, it hits me that my grandpa—someone who biked the streets of Widow’s Wharf with me and shot basketball in the driveway—is now unable to care for himself.

“And it was nice to meet you, young lady,” Grandpa says. I frown, remembering Grandpa saying he could never forget a girl like her earlier. Lainey gives my shoulder a nudge, and I follow her to the door.

“Goodnight,” we both say and head back to the parking lot.