Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
It was only a mile or so from the docks. I could’ve walked if I wasn’t wearing six-inch heels and didn’t have to traverse over sandy beaches.
It might’ve been endearing for some woman to take off her heels and wistfully enjoy the ocean and nature, picturing herself as a main character in a Nancy Meyers movie.
Not me, though.
I didn’t wistfully enjoy anything. Only empty-headed idiots did that. And I didn’t like the things that rattled around in my mind when I stopped to smell the proverbial flowers. I preferred the low hum of my car and the thump of bass in the heavy rock that was always playing when I was driving. Plus, I was the main character in my own movie.
The parking lot was empty since the restaurant wasn’t open yet. It looked kitschy enough from the outside. Exactly what you’d expect from a restaurant with the name Shack in the title. Fisherman themed. But not one 100 percent tacky. The outside was weathered but well maintained, blue shutters on the windows, the sign itself blazing red script written on an old surfboard, fishing nets hanging from the door in a way that wouldn’t draw me in, but a tourist might’ve deemed charming. Flowers adorned the small walk, and the door handle was fashioned out of a large anchor. It was perched on the rugged beach, a small pier stretching into the ocean, likely for photo ops more than anything.
Not bad.
Still, I wouldn’t have walked in there in one thousand years if that check wasn’t burning a hole in my Birkin.
As much as I was an asshole—and proud of that title—I wasn’t about to go back on my word. Wasn’t about to fuck over my brother on something that was important to him.
Yet every Machiavellian cell in my body—of which there were many—was screaming at me to rip up the check, throw it in the ocean then go about my day.
A smaller amount of those cells were telling me not just to do that but to pack up my shit and go back to where I belonged—New York—back to Jasper and the misdeeds I was running from under the mistaken assumption that I was a good person deep down.
I almost did it too. My fingers put pressure on the envelope, a second away from tearing. Yet I didn’t.
Instead, I got out of the car and walked on the cobbled walkway—which wreaked havoc on my heels—blood-red nails clutching the anchor on the handle of the door and yanking it open.
I’d expected it to be dark and dingy inside, as most American restaurants were. Like casinos, the lack of windows encouraged patrons to stop checking the time, get one more drink, one more plate of deep-fried food while staring at one of the ten TVs mounted on the walls while not having an original thought.
Light streamed in from the floor-to-ceiling windows that encompassed the entire back of the restaurant, giving an unobstructed and frankly stunning view of the ocean and the rugged Maine coastline.
There was no need to trick people into staying here. In another life, I might’ve been a person to find myself in a similar place, enjoying some fruity drink and watching the sun set over the ocean while Jimmy Buffett played over the speakers.
No, who was I kidding? There was no life in which that was me. Unless I’d been lobotomized.
Give me a lounge that smelled of expensive cigars with plenty of dark corners to disappear into while enjoying an expensive glass of scotch.
My eyes scanned over the tables. Again, they were tasteful yet stuck to the theme.
They were all white with white wicker chairs. The light shades were a tan wicker, hanging over the tables inside and outside on the covered terrace.
Inside, the bar was painted a light blue and white, had a polished, wooden top, and open shelves were mounted on the wall with bottles neatly lined up on top of them.
I saw my brother and Kip’s work in the place. It looked great. Simple, clean, unique and unassuming yet comfortable. Enough for the locals to feel like they were coming to a familiar haunt while also drawing in tourists who would inevitably pose in front of the décor for whatever vapid social media reasons people had.
The walls were adorned with various ocean and boat paraphernalia along with an entire wall of photos—all black and white with mismatched frames. I walked through the empty space, heels clicking on the floor to get a closer look. Most of the photos looked to be taken inside the restaurant, with various iterations of it. One was a middle-aged man with his arms around two gangly teenage boys standing in front of the sign, all of them grinning.
So fucking wholesome it should’ve made me gag.
Except it didn’t.
“You’re here.”
I jumped, so engrossed in the picture—in particular the boy on the left, younger, thinner and obscured slightly in black and white but still with the same smile and piercing eyes as the man from yesterday—that I hadn’t even realized I wasn’t alone in the room.