Something in me snapped. I couldn’t take another second of him. “Fuck your house! None of that matters anymore! The jig is up. I know what happened.”
His eyes narrowed as they met mine, and in an instant, his face paled. The sharp lines of his face softened, and he cocked his head at me as if I’d fall for his charms. The same way he looked at cameras during his stupid campaign commercials years before. “Honey, we can talk about this. You and I. You don’t need to shout.”
“No, they need to know.” I flicked my head at my mother and sister, ready to free them from the lies, too. I wouldn’t bury them for him. He needed to be exposed for what he was.
“Need to know what, honey?” Mom asked, her fingers threading in her pearls nervously.
It broke my heart to break hers, but I needed to know what was right, even if it wiped my family off the face of the Earth as I knew it. I’d rather have a broken home than one built on lies.
“Shut up, Trish!” Dad snapped, rising to his feet again.
That line was all it took to break the dam, the secret pouring out in a stream of pain. “Dad had an affair with Lynette Stephens eleven years ago. Luke saw them together, and that’s why he made me leave. He didn’t want Luke to tell me.”
I wiped a tear as it fell before turning to Olivia. “We have a brother, Liv. You’re a big sister.”
Suddenly, all hell broke loose.
Mom and Olivia started bawling, while Dad shouted and rose to his feet to come barreling toward me before stopping inches away. His hand hovered inches from my face, and rather than hit me as I expected, he patted three fingers against the hollow of my cheek.
“Good job ruining the family, Josephine. I hope you’re happy with yourself.”
Luke
Three days, four hours, and twenty-five minutes.
That’s how long it’d been since Josie stormed out with Lincoln, slamming the door on me and our future together.
Since I’d truly bared it all to her, and she left.
It was an awful, dirty, disgusting truth, one that she refused to see as I did.
I didn’t want to hurt her, and in the end, it was my undoing.
She wouldn’t answer the door, her phone, or texts, so I did the only thing that ever worked with Josie: I waited.
I had no idea how she was feeling.
My life had never been a lie. I had a straightforward, no-bullshit childhood. My mom was a drunken whore, and my dad was a cheating pig. Neither hid it.
But she truly thought at some point her dad was an honorable man. A decent man.
Since she’d come back to Briar, the foundation in her past was proven to be a lie. Over and over.
I loved her.
She’d come back. I knew she would. She just needed time. Time to process. Time to accept. Time to move on from pain with love again.
* * *
I stopped counting days when a week passed.
Why torture myself by noting every day she wasn’t with me?
When she wasn’t in my arms.
When Lincoln wasn’t peppering me with questions.
When Tally didn’t have a playmate.
When I wasn’t whole.
* * *
Time was a strange concept, the hands of a clock determining what time people did what, an entire species letting it make them its bitch.
Rushing moments to avoid being late.
Cutting fun short to wake early for work.
In the inlet, when the deafening noise of the world stopped, time seemed to, too. The mindless shuffle paused, and there were nothing but the waves and the wind to worry about.
I sat on the edge of the dock, feet swinging inches above the water, waves nipping at my heels.
As a kid, it would’ve terrified me, with one too many Jaws watching sessions leaving me a bundle of nerves. It was one of the few movies they played on cable when we lived in the motel before moving in with Nan.
It took a solid summer to lose the fear, to realize a two-ton shark wasn’t going to single out my pinky toe for his lunch. Of course, the day I finally got brave enough and took the plunge, there was a shark attack on the news. But once I had a taste of the water, I was hooked.
I watched my feet dangle, the two limbs containing the last few inches of skin not covered by ink.
Tally sat beside me watching them just as intently, probably bored out of her mind with her lame dad. I wasn’t as fun to hang out with as Lincoln. I didn’t chase the ball with her or sneak her treats when she’d already had too many for her own good. And I definitely wasn’t as fun to cuddle on the couch since I took up so much space.
A rolling sound behind me made me flinch, and Tally bark, the two of us big, bad, muscled boobs scared shitless.
“Luke!” Feet sounded off the deck, tiny arms wrapped around my neck from behind.
“Hey, dude!” I put an arm over his, making sure he was steady before I turned to look behind me.
Josie was walking down the dock with a large rolling bag, a smile on her face.
“Going somewhere?” I asked, raising a brow.
“Oh, ya know. Just coming home.”
My heart swelled at her words, but I couldn’t spring to my feet to spin her like mad like I wanted, the little monkey on my back keeping me in place.
“Is that so?” I teased, patting Lincoln’s arm twice.
He let go, and I eased to my feet, not wanting to get Tally too excited. She was a bull in a China shop when she got going and knocking a four-year-old in the water would definitely ruin the moment.
She nodded, continuing to stroll towards me, her hips rolling with each step while her hair blew in
