“Where will you sit?” she asked after setting her tray down.
“Next to you.”
Again, she felt her heart race, gallop, and skip. It was doing so many different palpitations she couldn’t pinpoint just one.
“Brooklyn, these are my best friends, Bowie Holmes, Grady and Graham Chamberlain.” He pointed to the two guys sitting across from her. “And that’s Jason Randolph and Monroe and Mila Whitfield. Roe and Mila are sisters, and I’m pretty sure you figured out Grady and Graham are twins.” Brooklyn glanced at Austin, who adjusted his baseball cap. She had, in fact, realized they were twins. It was really obvious, but she didn’t want to call Austin out and embarrass him. Plus, she’d already met the girl he called Roe. The guys mumbled some sort of hello, and Roe pointed out that they had English together. Mila smiled, sort of, and offered a small wave.
“Where are you from?” Jason asked.
“Seattle.”
“Why would you move here from Seattle?” Mila asked. There was a bit of snark in her voice, something that surprised Brooklyn. So far, everyone had been pleasant to her, but Mila seemed put off by her presence.
Brooklyn had been asked this question multiple times already and was wondering if there was something wrong with the town. She found the town to be cute, a little quiet, and completely opposite of what she was used to, which her mother loved.
“My dad is the town doctor,” she said.
“I’m going to be a doctor,” Jason added. “The University of Washington is where I’m headed.”
“It’s a really great school.”
“Go, Huskies!” everyone except for Brooklyn and Mila said loudly. Brooklyn caught Mila staring. For the most part, she felt as if she fit in with everyone here, especially at this table, but Mila had a different vibe. She wondered if Mila had a crush on Austin and thought maybe she should find out before her own crush turned into something more. The last thing she wanted to do was come between a close-knit group of friends.
The rest of her day went as well as her morning. Each time she’d stop back at her locker to put her textbook away, Austin was there. They ended up having three classes together, one of them being physical education, where they partnered.
Once the final bell rang, Austin led Brooklyn through the parking lot and to his truck. He took her bag and set it into the cab and held out his hand for her to use as leverage to climb in. “It’s okay,” he said when she looked at him questioningly. “I’ll never let go.”
Brooklyn wiped the tears from her face as she sat at the top of the cliff overlooking the sound. She held her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth. Being back here brought on a barrage of emotions she wasn’t ready to face. Everywhere she went, Austin was there, reminding her of the love they once shared. He had been her best friend, her constant companion, her first love. He had been her everything until they were both left brokenhearted.
“Did you let go, Austin?” she asked, directing her words toward the ocean. He was out there, somewhere, doing what he loved best.
Her phone rang, and she pulled it out of her pocket, smiling down at the screen. After sliding her finger over the screen, she rested the phone against her ear. “Hey,” she said.
“Are you there?”
“I am.”
“And? You know I’m dying for all the details.”
Brooklyn sighed and dropped her head. “Carly closed the inn,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t believe I’ve been so determined to stay away from here that I had no idea. I should’ve peppered Brystol with questions.”
“What she does isn’t your business, Brooklyn.”
“I know, Rennie, but I can’t help but think I had something to do with it. If I had stayed and raised Brystol here—”
“Stop,” her best friend barked into the phone. “Just stop with the nonsense. You had to do what was best for you and your daughter. You couldn’t stay there, not with everything that had happened. You would’ve never escaped the stigma of being Austin Woods’s girlfriend.”
“I know,” Brooklyn said quietly.
“I can come up this weekend, if you want.”
“Don’t you have plans with Theo?”
“Meh, they can change. Besides, he’ll be in Seattle midweek; we can take a weekend off.”
Brooklyn stood and walked toward her car. Over the years she’d missed the Pacific Northwest, its beauty and everything it offered. She could ski in the morning and be at a beach by sunset, enjoying the best of both worlds.
“I may take you up on your offer, Rennie. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep everything bottled in.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be there. Before I hang up, have you seen him?”
Her question gave Brooklyn pause, and she almost stumbled over a protruding tree root. “No, and I don’t plan to.”
“Sure, ya don’t.” Rennie giggled. She said goodbye before hanging up, leaving Brooklyn with a scowl on her face. She glanced behind her, along the path that she and Austin had once walked, hand in hand, and tried to wipe her memories clean. She needed to move on, to bury the past and let it go.
Her phone chimed in her hand, a message from Rennie. She opened it, and her heart lurched. Staring back at her was a group photo from prom. One of her friends had asked Rennie to go with him, which had pleased Brooklyn. Brooklyn expanded the picture and studied herself, Austin, and the guy standing on the other side of her. Inseparable was what they used to be.
FOUR
Bowie went to knock on the wooden door, something he’d rarely done when he was growing up, and paused, his fist suspended in midair. He tried to come up with a valid excuse why he hadn’t been around, why he hadn’t stopped in to check on his best friend’s mother, why he hadn’t thought to bring his wife around and introduce her to the woman he used to consider a second mother. He came up with nothing.
He dropped his hand and contemplated returning to his truck. As much as he needed the job, he wasn’t sure if he could face the person he had become after Austin’s death. He was a shell of the man he used to be, but that was no defense for abandoning the woman who had taken care of him as if he were her own child.
He turned around and walked toward his truck. He had no business being here. As far as he was concerned, the job needed to go to someone that cared about the inn and the people who lived there. That wasn’t him.
“Leaving so soon?”
Bowie stopped at the sound of Carly Woods’s voice. He turned slowly to find her leaning against the doorjamb with her arms crossed over her chest. Aside from graying hair, she looked no different from what he remembered. He hung his head in shame and desperately searched for the words to tell her how sorry he was. It had taken him years to get over the passing of his friend, and most of the time, it still haunted him. His actions surrounding that day were never far from his mind.
“The answer is no, Bowie,” she said, pushing away from the doorjamb. “Come in; we have business to discuss.”
His steps were heavy as he made his way to the house. He shut the door quietly behind him and let the feeling of being in her home again settle in. Everything was exactly as he remembered. The flowered wallpaper still hung; he used to pick at the corners when he was little, and Carly used to call him an imp for it. He shifted his weight and smiled instantly at the familiar creak the floorboard made. No matter how many times he and Austin would try to sneak out, this piece of wood gave them away. He closed his eyes and with vivid clarity recalled sliding down the banister of the staircase. He could hear the laughter of his friends, the adults in the house telling them to knock it off even though that never stopped them. He could smell freshly baked cookies, could even taste the warm chocolate as it hit his tongue. There were many hours spent here while growing up. He fell in love here for the first time, with someone who never saw him for who he was until it was too late.