Beyond Now: The Hutton Family Book 3 by Brooks Abby

Author:Brooks, Abby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little Bird Publishing, LLC
Published: 2019-10-03T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty

Maisie

To us.

The words sounded sweet and tasted bitter.

As wonderful as today had been…

As much as I needed the time to lounge around doing nothing…

As perfect as Caleb was…

…he was medical marijuana and I didn’t partake.

This life, sleeping until ten, hanging out in comfy clothes, watching TV on the couch, it wasn’t mine. I didn’t make monstrous lasagnas because I didn’t have time. (Not to mention in LA, that kind of reckless indulgence in carbs was highly frowned upon.) My clients needed me to be in their corners, fighting for their dreams, and that meant I didn’t get to spend days with my phone turned off.

With me turned off.

But I’d had such a lovely time and couldn’t imagine saying what was on my mind, so I smiled, lifted my glass, and toasted to us.

To beautiful, poetic, short-lived us.

“Do you remember Fort Maileb?” I asked as I set my glass down on the table.

Caleb smirked. “I think you mean Fort Casie.”

His answer brought another smile to my lips. “Oh no,” I said, wagging my finger. “I very much mean Fort Maileb. It was my idea to join our names together, so obviously, my name got to go first.”

“Sure, it was your idea. But I was the one who found all the scrap wood and”—he held up a finger—“I’m the one who knew how to use a hammer and nails, so clearly, that meant my name earned the place up front.”

“You call what you did knowing how to use a hammer and nails?” I dropped him a wink, then leaned back and took another drink, remembering the grove next to Caleb’s house where he and I had built ourselves a sanctuary from the rest of the world. A place where no one could call our dreams dumb, or make fun of us for my clothes or his body. A place where we could say what we were thinking without fear of judgement or criticism. “You think it’s still there?”

Caleb shook his head. “Dad bought that land a year or two after you left to expand the hotel. Nothing but bungalows there now.”

I rolled my eyes. “I guess I should have known that. I was there just the other day and saw zero groves.”

“Eh.” Caleb shrugged. “There’s been a lot going on.”

I lifted my glass. “To understatements.”

He agreed with a chuckle, then polished off his wine and stood to start clearing the table. We worked side by side again, moving around each other as if we’d done it for years, already comfortable sharing a space.

“How come you don’t work with your family at The Hut?” I leaned on the counter to watch his reaction. “It seems like you would be a great asset there. And with that cove as a tourist spot? Could you imagine? That is pure gold, right there.”

Caleb finished loading the dishwasher and turned to me. “Wyatt offered once. Before I started my own business. But, I had washed my hands of Dad and wanted nothing to do with him, so I said no thank you and forged ahead on my own.

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