Page 19 of Every Heartbeat After

“Who are you calling old?” He narrows his eyes, squeezing my arm where it rests on his clavicle. “I’m not the one complaining about the youths and their late-night partying.”

We dissolve into laughter, the bubble of emotion popped. We remain that way until Zoey arrives and I pile into her car, headed for Denver. It distracts my heart from thinking about Kit and how different this drive was with him by my side.

It’s for the best.

ChapterSeven

Kit

I spendfour months swearing under my breath that I’ll forget her. A single drunken evening researching the resort she mentioned visiting every summer. Two months reminding myself that it’s a bad—and quite frankly, creepy—idea to show up there when she’s most likely forgotten our kiss even happened.

One mulling over the fact thatsheinvitedme,after all.

At three months out, on a night of profound weakness, I book the flight.

A week before, I tell myself there’s still time to cancel the reservation. Who wants to go to some resort in the Gulf chasing a girl he can’t forget anyway? I’ve got two weeks of PTO to waste. I can go anywhere in the world.

But when the day comes, I’ll be damned if I don’t get on the plane.

May

ChapterEight

Tess

The first timeTed and Marissa Monroe stayed at the Carmen Beach Resort, they knew it was something special.

It was their honeymoon, and because they’d married young, a trip to the nearby Gulf Coast was all they could afford. The resort was little more than an oversize shack at the time, with clapboard siding and a rotten back porch that led to the sea. It wasn’t a bad thing, though, because they were in that kind of love that makes even the most humble date nights feel like a grand affair. They played in the surf, ate jumbo Gulf shrimp and oysters until their bellies were nearly bursting, then stayed up all night chatting while huddled close beneath sandy sheets as they dreamed of the life they’d build together.

One that, a few years later, would grow to revolve around me.

The Carmen grew bigger, too, but maintained its charm. My parents had a regular room on the top floor with a view of the water. It was jokingly named the Marilyn Suite, golden plaque and everything, as a riff on our last name and my mother’s gorgeous blonde hair. When I picture Mom and Dad, he’s wearing a Cuban-style linen shirt and her sundress billows around toned, suntanned legs. They’re leaning against the white railing of their balcony, laughing at some joke that only makes sense to them.

My grandparents continued bringing me here after my parents were killed, but staying in that room was too difficult for them. Too many memories, especially for my grandmother, who never quite got over the loss of her daughter and son-in-law.

It wasn’t until she, too, was gone and my grandfather became too sick to come with me that I reclaimed my parents’ room. Mauricio, the operations/maintenance/a little-bit-of-everything manager, was overjoyed. The room still smelled like them. Or maybe my memories of them are so wrapped up in this place that, to me, they smelled like the room. They were everywhere, from the pergola covering the rooftop bar that they helped the owners, Alex and Jenna, select to the mimosa tree the gardeners let Dad and me plant by the entrance when I was six.

Even now, as I walk through the sliding glass doors into the lobby, I swear Dad’s booming laughter is echoing from the hall that leads to the elevator bay on my right. Mom’s espadrilles slap the seashell-colored tile just to my left, at the edge of my vision. I turn, half expecting her to be standing by the coffee counter with her arms wide open, welcoming me home.

Because that’s what the Carmen is to me. Home. With all its pain and comfort wrapped up in an ocean-blue bow.

“Mi querida Tessa.” Mauricio sweeps me up in his cigarette-and-cologne scent before I’ve even spotted him. I squeeze him back, peppering kisses along his cheekbone as he does the same to me. “Te extrañé.”

“I missed you, too, Mo.”

We retreat to cupped elbows, scanning each other for new scars or fashion movements (I’m not sure which). He smiles, folding his tan face into joy. I mirror it, though my heart is still throbbing with nostalgia.

It’s a relief, knowing if some of the grief leaks through my facade that I won’t be judged for it. The Carmen is the one place where I can be honest. Where I don’t owe anyone my composure. I just exist here, in this limbo at the edge of my real life. For the rest of the year, the staff here do not know me. So what does it matter if a tear falls in their opalescent lobby even as I smile?

Mo swipes my cheek clean without faltering. “How beautiful you are. More like your mamá every day, Tessa.” His accent is thick, landing firmly on each consonant. He’s also the only person in the world I’d let add anAto the end of my name. “So grown up I can hardly bear it.”

“Gracias, Tio.” Despite his persistence through the years, my Spanish is abysmal, but he loves it when I try. Even my simple phrases earn a wash of pride over his expression. “I’m literally thirty, though.”

He mock spits on the ground to my right, his left, then says, “Not possible. Because that would make me old, and I do not feel old,querida.”

I rub a thumb over the wrinkle between his dark, bushy brows. “You’re not old, Mo. Simply experienced.”

He blows a raspberry that trickles into laughter. “Come; the ladies will not allow me to keep you to myself much longer.”

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