Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn

Author:Kate Clayborn [Clayborn, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2022-10-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Levi

I’m guessing she won’t come.

I’m out on my dock, Hank snoring softly at my side, trying to calm my mind by taking in the view. I missed it, this specific spot, even though the Mulcahy property is pretty—big and heavily treed, with sunlight that plays all day through the leaves. It doesn’t have the river, though, and that’s what I like best: the quiet lapping, the briny breeze, the occasional splash from a fish or a diving bird.

When Carlos first told me he wanted to sell me this place, I could hardly believe I’d gotten so lucky—getting to take over a property that had been, at the lowest time of my life, a refuge. In the last year, it’s sometimes felt less stroke of luck and more neverending project, but when I get to come out here on the dock I rebuilt myself last fall, I know it’s all been worth it. It’s taken a lot of work, making this slice of land my own, but it’s meant I get to live the way I’ve always wanted.

Quietly, privately, and on my own terms.

Growing up, I didn’t get much of that—first in my parents’ house, where almost every rule was one I didn’t understand or didn’t want to follow. After that, at the school my dad sent me to, where I had no privacy and not a second of peace at any point in all the miserable days and nights I spent there. When I finally left that place, I could only swing a shitty two-bedroom apartment in Richmond that I shared with three other guys. Even when I eventually moved back here, living at first in the trailer Carlos used to keep on the property, I couldn’t shake the sense that I was never truly alone.

It’s no real surprise, then, that I can count on one hand the number of people who aren’t contractors who’ve come out here since I’ve owned the place. Carlos, of course, who visited six months ago and heaped praise on me for the improvements I’d already made. Laz and Micah, who’d helped me reshingle the small roof in exchange for beer and pizza. Hedi, but only one time, and only to see the river and take some samples from the bank.

So part of me can’t believe I did it, sending Georgie my address, telling her to come over. I know it was clunky, doing it in a text message. But I also know that after the way I left her two nights ago, I owe her an explanation, a real explanation, and I’ve spent all this time preparing to give it. I took a half day yesterday and all day today, and I’ve spent the time cleaning and carefully putting my house back together, keeping busy while I’d practiced what I’d say to her. Hank’s heard it enough times that I’m pretty sure I gave him depression, or else he was more attached to that metal rooster than I thought.

Beside me, he stirs and huffs out a heavy, bored sigh, and I suppose I ought to go in.

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