Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
I loved playing racquetball with him today.
And seeing Quinn. Jesus. The way she looked up at me from under the bill of that hat, the same big eyes... I noticed that about her a long time ago. It was the way she looked only at me. As if waiting for something.
A painful swell fills my chest. “God, I miss them, Dad.”
All of them.
And I can’t wait to leave. I’d forgotten how small this town is, how everyone notices everything, and how slowly things move. I like the city. The busyness of Dubai is addicting. There’s always someone to meet. Things to see. Places to be. Food, music, work…
Shelburne Falls is a fucking fish bowl.
My dad stares at me but says nothing. He stopped speaking to me years ago.
Setting my water down, I climb the stairs, throw on some joggers, sneakers, and the white hoodie from the gym last night. In a minute, I have my earbuds in and my phone snug in the pocket of my pant leg, playing “Bother” as I lock up and leave the house.
I scan the street. Empty, except for an old, white Malibu that’s been sitting there since I was in college. Most of the houses are dark aside from a couple of porch lights. I look around again, awareness rising up the back of my neck, before jogging down the steps and onto the sidewalk.
He’s not in town anymore. I’d felt easier about returning once I knew that, but no one knows where he is and…
Others did take his place.
The longer I stay in town, the higher the chance they’ll find out.
I’ll leave as soon as the house is listed and the things my mother left for me are safely stored.
I pass a few overgrown lawns interrupted by the odd manicured yard, but nearly every house needs a paint job and roof or gutter work. The McKeltys still favor that ugly chain link fencing, but…they did replace it, at least. No more rust.
It wasn’t a bad neighborhood growing up, and I can’t say it’s bad even now, but it’s not Madoc’s neighborhood. And it’s not Fall Away Lane. We kept our property up, even without my father—or rather, my mother did. The house could be very easy to sell.
Or it could take forever. It’s not close to schools, and the neighborhood is too old to change its ways, most of the homes inherited or owned by an aging population that won’t be ideal for new families.
Either way, it means nothing to me. It can take a lifetime to sell as long as I don’t have to be here for it.
I jog into town, past Jared’s shop, Astrophysics, and the store where I bought all of my bicycles growing up. E-bikes now sit among the others in the window display.
Coming to the end of the street, I pause, ready to go right to the high school, but the tiny stubble on my cheek hardens like needles, awareness surrounding me.
I don’t have to look to the left to know where that road leads.
Into the country, the path darkening as it courses farther from town and deep into the woods.
Pushing off, I run straight, instead, but I make it no more than a block before Quinn’s shop comes into view on High Street. I tap my earbud, silencing the music.
Frosted.
Crossing First Avenue, I jog down the opposite side of the street from her shop, and I notice a light through the windows. There’s a warm glow way in the back, through the kitchen doors.
A figure moves past and disappears again, and I draw in a long breath, remembering last night at the gym.
“So, what is she…?” my friend Lance whistled behind me as I watched Madoc drive off with Quinn in the passenger seat of his car. “Ten years younger than you?”
He was teasing me for the shit I gave him over his wife’s age.
But something swam in my chest as I watched Jared and Jax barreling after them like a fucking convoy was necessary to make sure their sister got home.
“I wasn’t looking,” I told him.
He just laughed and moved to his car at the curb. “She was.”
I’d forgotten how perceptive Lance could be. When I got into town, I wasn’t even going to call him, but I see him often enough when he travels abroad, and he just got married. He would’ve been pissed if I didn’t contact him after not returning for the wedding.
And Quinn is twelve years younger than me. His wife doesn’t seem so young now.
I really should’ve recognized her last night. Instead, I watched her watching me and thought maybe I could get through this visit with a nice distraction like her in my hands for a few days.
Shit.
I stare at the shop, seeing a glimpse of her again in the kitchen. She wasn’t looking at me last night. At least not like that. I was just important to her once. I’m sure it was weird to see how I’d changed.