Page 49 of Haunted Ever After

He didn’t look at Cassie while he talked; he sipped at his beer and kept his eyes on the sunset. “We knew each other all our lives—most kids do when you grow up here—but I don’t think we really noticed each other till we were in high school. Then she became everything. You know how it is.”

Cassie made a murmur of agreement. “First love is powerful.” She got that. They imprinted on you, shaped your DNA, made you part of the adult you are today.

“We stayed together through college, at least I thought we did.” Bitterness crept into his voice then, and Cassie glanced over, trying to read his face in the growing dark.

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It wasn’t.” Nick sighed. “I thought the plan was college, then back here to Boneyard Key. My family’s lived here as long as I can remember. So has hers.”

“Founding Fifteen, both of you?”

Nick nodded. “There’s a responsibility that comes with that. This whole ghost thing…before it was a way to sell T-shirts, it was…it’s always been something real. And kind of sacred. My roots, you know? This town is special, and that means a lot to me.” He paused for so long that Cassie wondered if she was supposed to say something. He studied his hands, ignoring the blazing sunset in front of them.

“Madison didn’t think the same way,” he finally said. “She felt trapped here. She went off to college and for her it was a way out. She couldn’t wait to get out of this town and start her life. Leaving Boneyard Key was when her life began—those were her exact words.”

“A life without you,” Cassie said quietly. She didn’t feel jealous.

“Yep. That’s what she wanted. A life without this town. Which meant a life without me. But she didn’t want to tell me. She was putting it off. Putting me off. First it was both of us going to college. Then she wanted her master’s degree. Then a doctorate…” A muscle jumped in his cheek as his face clouded over with memory. Suddenly his rant about women and careers, as misogynistic as it was, made a little bit of sense. It was no excuse, but she could see now that his words were coming from a place of deep hurt.

Nick continued. “That was fine, you know. I get wanting an education, and ambition is good. But all this time I thought we were moving forward together. I waited for her, while she was off getting these advanced degrees. But it turned out she’d left me years ago. Left me behind. She just never bothered to actually tell me. It was…” His voice trailed off as he stared unseeing at the sunset, his eyes unfocused, lost for the moment in memory. Then he blinked and met Cassie’s eyes with a small, sad smile. “Well, it sucked, obviously.”

Cassie was startled into a snort. “Obviously.”

“So I was back home, living with my parents, still trying to figure out what I was going to do. And then they dropped the bomb—they were moving. Dad’s a tax accountant, and they were getting more and more clients in The Villages, so it just made sense for them to move there. They were about that age anyway.”

“Sure.” But she got where that was going. Nick, as a young man in his twenties, would have no desire to move to a retirement community. To spend his days driving around the place in a golf cart and playing bingo.

“Right before they moved, Elmer’s place shut down again…It had gone through a bunch of owners since he died, and the place just couldn’t stay open. The last guy was some entrepreneur from out of town, selling the business for a song. I thought, making coffee’s pretty easy…” This time his smile reached his eyes, in response to Cassie’s laugh. “Elmer texted me the first day I got the keys, and then it all made sense. Why all these out-of-towners couldn’t make the business work. They didn’t know how to deal with Elmer. Or the Beach Bum. Or any of it. But I did. It was like…confirmation that I belong here. That Boneyard Key is my home, and I did the right thing by staying here.”

He gave a long sigh, and all trace of a smile was wiped from his face. “That’s the only reason I can think of for why I acted the way I did at your house. Why I lost my shit. It was like you couldn’t wait to leave here too. But the things I said, that’s not me.”

“I know.” She laid a hand on his arm. The cotton of his shirt was crisp and his skin was warm underneath. His biceps tensed under her hand, then relaxed.

“I appreciate that.” He turned his head to look at her, and even in the almost-dark, his eyes were so easy to get lost in. She didn’t know what it was about this guy, but being with him felt like coming home after a long day. How could this Madison chick want to give this up? Give him up?

So she let herself thread her arm through his, hugging him to her side. She let herself lay her head on his shoulder, looking out toward the water and the last remnants of sunset. She let herself forgive him. Because it really seemed like he could use a break.

Nick tilted his head, laying his cheek on top of her head. She felt more than heard his sigh. “The sunsets look so much better with you.” The words were little more than breath, stirring her hair.

“I couldn’t agree more.” Her voice was an answering murmur. She could live the rest of her life in this one moment and be perfectly content.

But Nick’s mind was still on that one terrible afternoon. “The worst part,” he said, “was your face. I can close my eyes and still see how you looked at me. I never want to put that look on your face again.”

Cassie remembered that moment too; it was like all the blood had drained from her face, her chest. She’d been frozen, unable to move but so cold at the same time. He’d been talking about a woman giving her husband children as though it were the only thing they were good for.

As long as they were sharing their core wounds…“I can’t have kids.” The words fell out of her mouth and seemed to hang in the air between them. “It’s a whole medical thing that I usually don’t bring up on dates.”

His brow furrowed and he turned his head away from the sunset and toward her, his expression darkening with concern. “Are you okay? Like…healthy?”

“Oh. Yeah, I’m totally fine,” she rushed to reassure him. “There’s just…certain parts that don’t work properly.” She gestured around her abdomen in a wide arc. “Not accommodating to growing babies.” Now she knew why she didn’t bring this up on dates. Ovarian cysts and endometriosis weren’t sexy under the best of circumstances. But Nick had just told her some hard truths of his own, she may as well share hers.

Cassie took a deep breath. “It was fine in my twenties,” she said. “I was working on my career, getting established and all that. The last thing on my mind was starting a family. But the thing about being a woman in your thirties is that being a mom becomes the default to the rest of the world. All your friends are doing it, and before you know it, babies are the main topic of conversation, and you can’t relate. More and more you get these targeted ads geared toward ‘busy moms’—like you can’t be busy if you aren’t one.” Her sinuses started to tingle, and she blinked fast against threatening tears. “It’s one thing to not want kids. But it’s another when you don’t even get to decide. When everyone around you is starting a family, you’re just left there. Feeling defective.”

“Hey.” Nick’s hand covered hers. Squeezing lightly, sending reassurance her way. “There’s nothing defective about you. Not a damn thing.”

Cassie sniffed once and knuckled the emerging tears from her eyes. Enough. She was not the self-pitying type. She tried for a laugh, but it came out choked. “That’s not what you said that day. That’s what hit me so hard, and hurt so much.”

His hand tensed on her arm. “I swear to God that wasn’t me. That day, at your house, I wondered who was saying those things, and why they had my voice.” He shook his head as he stared out at the water. “I don’t think those things. I’m not the family-and-babies type, either.”

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