“I get it. Beach is too dark.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s it. That and it felt a little too cliché to sit out on the beach drinking. That really makes me a bum. At least by the pool I felt, I don’t know, like I had a privilege to be there. Someplace to go.” He looked at me. “Clearly I was wrong. Sorry I scared you.”
Was I hearing this right? He was apologizing to me?
“So,” he started in his most cheerful impression of a high-school girl. “How was your date with Fancy Pants?”
“Bearable,” I said after swig of my soda.
“Ah! So where does bearable land on a scale of ‘definitely second date’ and ‘you’ve gotta be kidding me’?”
I watched him hold out his hands to mockingly weigh the two options, and found myself actually considering it. After I got home that night, I barely gave Chris a second thought. Which was unlike me. I would overthink even bad dates more than I should have at certain times in my life. Since I wasn’t about to answer his question, I decided to turn the tables on him.
“Is that why you were lounging at the pool after hours? Were you weighing your options?” I asked.
He looked at me thoughtfully. “No.” Then he turned back to the burning fire.
Now he had me curious. Which was probably exactly what he wanted. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was because of a girl. “That’s okay, I’m not much of a talker either. Especially not about my love life.”
Rick coughed out the sip of soda he’d just taken, to imply that I’d made him choke. It was so loud I looked over at the kids. No movement. Then he started chuckling, which only irritated me.
“Are you done now?”
He cleared his throat and shook his head vigorously. “I’m good. Sorry. You thought I went there to wallow over a girl? I got better ways of doing that. One that’s proven to be more effective than listening to country music alone in your car,” he paused. “With a pound of ice crea—”
“I get it, Rick,” I snapped, annoyed.
He stopped smiling and looked at me thoughtfully, then turned back to the fire. “Sorry, it’s just my sister.”
Suddenly the most horrific things entered my mind. Anytime someone mentioned being worried about a family member, I tensed up. I didn’t even know he had a sister, but I guess I didn’t need to.
“Oh, is she okay?”
He concentrated on the fire then looked up after a moment. “Oh, yeah. No, she’s fine. For now, at least.”
I didn’t understand, but I decided not to say as much and wait to see if he wanted to tell me more.
“Jill’s sixteen. She’s a sweetheart, not your average rebellious teen. My mother got remarried a few years back. They live in Maryland but travel a lot, so we stayed with my dad. My mom’s great—she calls, visits, we go see her—but now Dad found a new business venture in Florida. A bar,” he paused. “I don’t want to go, but Jill…”
“She has to,” I finished.
“She’s still a minor. That’s why I still live with my dad and her. To watch over her. He’s a great dad, would never hurt her, but he’s had his head full of ways to get over my mom. He won’t give Jill the attention she needs. I can’t leave her. She needs me.”
I nodded, understanding.
“That’s why I didn’t take Sarah’s offer to stay at Bays House. I need to be nearby.”
“So you’ll need to stick it out there for at least two years.”
“A year and eight months,” he corrected immediately.
I turned to stare into the fire for a moment. “Where would you be if not for Jill? Or if it was a different situation?” I asked curious to what he wanted.
“I would have moved out on my eighteenth birthday,” he said with a forced laugh.
“Do you think Jill would want to live with you?”
“You mean alone? I don’t know, I’ve never asked her.” He frowned and then shrugged. “I guess she would. Anyway it wouldn’t matter. He’d never go for it.”
