Page 33 of Something Real with the Sea Monster (Kraken Cove #3)
THIRTY THREE
Tegan
“Babe, do you know what day it is today?” I call to Jack as soon as I open my eyes.
“Wednesday?” he calls back from the kitchen.
I can’t tell if he’s deliberately being obtuse or if he really doesn’t know that I’m one year sober today. “Yeah, that and—”
Jack pokes his head around the doorframe. “Sorry, gorgeous. I’m running late. I’ll be back soon, OK?”
“OK?”
He’s gone before I can even ask what he’s up to. Whatever it is, he’s acting very suspicious, which is so unlike him it leaves me all off center. I was kinda expecting the big romantic proposal this morning. The one I told him to put off until today.
It’s my morning in reception, so I roll out of bed and brush my teeth and hair and throw on some light makeup. Just concealer and mascara really. Some tinted moisturizer and bronzer and I’m good to go. I slip on a long dress and my Ugg boots underneath because why the fuck not?
Normally Jack drops in after running errands with a coffee for me and sometimes breakfast. This morning I’m all alone until ten when reception closes. I do a quick check-in with the cleaning staff, and then I text him.
Tegan: Hey babe, busy morning?
He texts back straight away like normal: Yeah. Just finishing something.
Tegan: u wanna get brunch?
Jack: sorry I’m under the pump today. Don’t forget we’re playing bowls with Luke and Mia this afternoon.
I’d almost forgotten. I never thought I’d be the kind of girl who plays lawn bowls as my idea of a fun afternoon, but it is, even without drinking.
Tegan: oh thnx for reminding me. I’ll be there. Anything I can do to help today?
Jack: Nope, just relax. I’ve got it.
Hmm. I wonder what it is. I check the calendar, but there’s nothing there about any meetings or renewals. We just hired a new cleaner who has been fantastic, so he’s not interviewing.
In fact, these days the Inlet Views is like a well-oiled machine. So much so that it’s a quiet afternoon without Jack around.
I have a long lunch, do some online shopping, and debate replacing the brown backsplash tiles in the downstairs units for the fifth time.
There’s nothing wrong with them, just brown is so outdated.
Not that we ever get any complaints, mind you.
And the last two months our rooms have been booked out every night.
In the end, I text Mia to see if I can get a hint about what Jack might be up to.
Tegan: have you seen my Mr. Wilson today?
Mia: no why? Is he missing?
Tegan: not exactly, just acting strange
Mia: I’m sure it’s nothing
I read her message again. I never said I was worried. Tegan: Mia, what are you not telling me?
Mia: nothing!
I can almost see the too innocent look on her face. They’re definitely up to something, but I can’t work out what.
I still can’t work it out by the time I put on my sneakers and walk up to the bowling club. Not even when I walk in through the front doors and reception is empty.
I’m still puzzling over it when Mia rushes over to greet me. “Teegs. You’re here. Come with me. Don’t ask questions.”
“What?”
She grabs my hand and starts towing me toward the bar. “No questions.”
Laughing, I let her pull me out a side door and toward a ladder and then stop in disbelief when she reaches up and yanks the bottom of the pull-down metal structure to ground level. “Are you kidding me?”
“Teegs! Seriously.”
“OK. OK, but really?” I wave my hands in front of my face when she makes a pleading expression at me, and I grip the ladder. “Fine. I’m climbing onto the roof. Not asking any questions. Especially not asking why the fuck are we doing something so ridiculous. I thought we were here to play bowls.”
Mia’s voice travels up from below me on the ladder. “That’s just a cover. Jack said this is the biggest, flattest piece of grass—oops. OK, please don’t ask me anymore questions.”
By that point I’ve climbed up the last rung to the roof of the club where the solar panels are lined up row on row, and I get my first glimpse of the greens.
I blink.
Instead of neat squares of green grass, the lawns are full of people dressed in bright colors.
Someone dressed in red spots me and lets out a shout.
The crowd erupts in a chorus of cheers, lifting pom poms and streamers which flutter madly in the breeze, and then a speaker blares to life and all of a sudden, a cheesy ’90s ballad I haven’t heard since I was in primary school blasts across the green and the crowd dissolves and reforms into seven wonky columns I somehow recognize as the word Will .
“OK, what—?”
Mia has made it to the top, and she clutches my arm. “Shhh. Wait.”
We both start to giggle as a lone figure strides into the center of the green and lifts a microphone to his mouth.
“I’ll be your fate, I’ll be your mate, I’ll be your fantasy,” Jack sings.
I’m pretty sure those are not the Savage Garden lyrics I remember, but I’m distracted when the crowd dissolves again and reforms into You .
I’ve got to admit, he’s not half bad. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.
He powers on through the made-up lyrics, only stumbling at the end of the bridge.
The crowd almost loses it on the next transition, but since I’ve already worked out what is going on, I can make out the word Marry, and I’m grinning from ear to ear.
“I want to stand with you behind the counter. I want to bathe with you in the sea.”
There’s a loud whistle and someone—I’m pretty sure it’s Noah—makes a rude comment that’s quickly drowned out.
“I want to dance with you forever. Until the music goes out on—”
The music cuts. The crowd parts and reforms one final time into the word Me .
I can’t leave him in suspense any longer. Cupping my hands around my mouth, I shout, “Yes!”
Cheers become wild applause, and Mia is hugging me, and then we’re both clutching the railing around the stairs in case we fall off the roof.
The music starts again, and it takes me a moment to realize the song has changed.
This one I’m less familiar with. But all of a sudden, I’m back in the Cove Inn wrapped in Jack’s arms, slow dancing our first dance together while everyone else watches, and I’m dizzy and humming with emotion at the knowledge that I get to keep this beautiful monster. And he wants to keep me.
“Get down here, Tegan,” he says into the mic. “This is our song.”
I’ve never scaled a ladder so fast in my life. I rush through the club and out the doors onto the green and into Jack’s arms. He tosses the mic aside with a squeal of feedback and twirls me. “So it’s a yes?”
“Of course it’s a yes! I can’t believe you thought you had to go to all this effort.”
He steadies me, and we start to dance. “You’re worth it.”
Everyone cheers again, and soon people are dancing beside us.
Luke is waltzing with baby Jessie in his arms. Mia is dancing with Rob, and Noah and Olivia are here and so is everyone who’s anyone in Kraken Cove.
Mr. and Mrs. Nguyen from the Bellevue Bed and Breakfast, Mrs. Wang from the Rotary Club, and old Nancy Drakeford, the town’s resident traffic hazard.
It’s perfect. It’s the most utterly perfect party with no alcohol and no pictures.
With no dressing up to impress anyone and hardly any makeup on.
It’s nothing like the life I used to imagine for myself. It’s far, far better. Because I’m surrounded by friends and family who love and care for me. With the hope of a future that’s even brighter and more full of love.
I squeeze Jack tight and shut my eyes for a moment, half worried when I open them it will all have vanished.
And then Mia bursts out laughing, and I look to see Luke holding out a wailing Jessie with a bewildered expression on his face, pale baby vomit all over his blue shirt, and tentacles emerging from the bottom of his dress pants and tiny matching ones from Jessie’s diaper.
“Ah! Sorry, Teegs. Can’t take her anywhere. ”
I reach out and take Jessie from him, not caring that she’s still a bit messy and some of it gets on my shirt. It’s a five-minute walk down the hill to my place if I want to get changed, and you know what? Life isn’t meant to be perfect.
Little Jessie blinks up at me and her wails dissolve into a big, bright smile.
“Well how can anyone be mad at that face?” I kiss her soft round cheek. “Don’t you worry, boo. It happens to the best of us. You’ll grow out of it. Even I did eventually.”