Never Forever (Calico Cove) by Hailey Shore

Author:Hailey Shore [Shore, Hailey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

19

The Next Day

Matt

“Dad?” I yelled, walking through the front door. He wasn’t napping, or making a cup of tea, which could only mean he was one place. I walked over the yellow linoleum in the kitchen to the back door. The screen was open.

When I was a kid, this backyard had a fort Dad built with his own hands. Also, about ten different bikes he was always in the process of repairing for me. When I got to high school and got serious about the decathlon, he cleared out the bikes and the fort and made a high jump pit.

He used to sit in a folding chair, drinking tea and watching me practice my approach. For hours he did that. I can’t even imagine how boring that must have been.

The kittens came out of the garage tumbling over each other to run into my boot.

“Dumb and Ass,” I muttered. Last night was their fault. All their fault for getting up into the rafters and forcing us to come here. Well, them and the old man in the house, with the memories of the past and the pictures of her still up on the wall in my bedroom.

And me. And her.

Fuck!

I stepped over the kittens, immune to their cuteness. Immune to all cuteness and beauty and charm.

I was back to ice water in his veins Matt Sullivan.

I was also here to stop my dad from meddling in my business.

“Dad?” I called again, looking out over the mile high tomato plants. The climbing peas, the holly hocks, the squash and zucchini plants. It was a magical garden back here.

This was what I thought of instead of the sound Carrie made in her throat when I drove myself inside of her from behind.

She’d been so fucking tight. Had I hurt her? She would never tell me if I did. She would rather die, I knew that. She’d never believe it coming from me, but I never wanted to hurt her. Now it seemed like that was all we really had left.

Damn it. I needed to get out of my head.

I was ice man Matt Sullivan.

“Here, son,” came a disembodied voice.

“Where?”

A hand appeared over the sunflowers in the back. I took the three cement steps down and wandered the curving path past the blackberry bushes surrounded by honey bees.

I found him on his knees beside a bucket of water.

Jenny, the mama cat, beside him. The kittens joined in, attacking the drooping edges of sunflower leaves.

“What are you doing?”

“I am bathing the roots of this sunflower,” he said. Like that was normal.

“Why?”

“Because Google says so. This plant has rot.”

He swirled the giant sunflower roots in the bucket and the gigantic yellow head bashed me in the face.

“Oi.” I pushed the sunflower away, yellow petals and seeds raining down on my feet.

Dad laughed. “Sorry, son.”

He wore a big hat and I was happy to see him with some zinc on his nose. After years of scoffing at sunscreen, it only took getting cancer twice to get him to look after himself.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.