CHAPTER 28
CASSIE
“This is it. What we’ve trained our entire lives for. And by entire lives I mean the last two days. And by trained I mean we randomly decided who would compete in what event. I mean, I didn’t train—did you?” Zale glances around the huddle.
“I swam some laps in my pool,” I tell them. “Does that count?”
“Now that’s dedication to the team,” Mackenzie teases.
“The Beacon is forever indebted to you,” Genevieve says solemnly.
I snicker. I had a lot of fun with my teammates this weekend, and I’m sad to see it end. Alas, only one event remains in the twentieth-annual Avalon Beach Games: the water balloon toss.
It’s been a frustrating day thus far for Team Beacon. We didn’t place in either of the obstacle course heats this morning. Team Yacht Club won both, which had Tate strutting around like a self-righteous peacock. We also lost out on third place in the bucket relay to those damn firefighters. We made up for it by placing third in the three-legged race, thanks to Mackenzie and Zale. Unfortunately, “the stupid twins because they have the same stupid size legs,” as Mackenzie had poetically framed it, won that race to give Team Hartley three points.
As it stands now for Mac and Gen’s side bet, their boyfriends are beating us by one measly point. In the scope of the actual competition, I think our teams are vying for third place overall. But since my teammates are more concerned with their side hustle, they proceed to torture my brain with a bunch of math that makes no sense.
“All right,” Mac is saying. “They’re up by one, so that means we need to place third in order to tie—”
“What’s the tiebreaker?” Zale interjects.
“No idea. We didn’t anticipate a tie. We’ll have to come up with something. But if we place second, that becomes moot, because then we get two points and we win. First place, we get three points and we win. But—we only win if they don’t place.”
“Wait, what if they place third and we place first?” Gen points out. She squints as she does some mental math. “Then they get one point, which puts them up by two. But we get three points, which puts us up by one. We win.”
“Right. But … damn it, if we win and they come in second, we tie again. So—”
“Stop,” I wail, covering my ears. “I can’t listen to this anymore.”
“For real,” Zale moans, his face scrunched in sheer pain. “This is too complicated. You sound like my brothers droning on about their dumbass fantasy football standings, trying to figure out if they made the playoffs.”
“All right, everyone!” Debra Dooley yells into her microphone. I swear, she brought that thing from home. None of the other volunteers have mics. “We’re about to start!”
A few yards away, Evan calls out to his fiancée. “Hey, Fred, what size should I order your French maid costume in?”
“In your dreams,” Gen shoots back.
“Every night,” he promises.
Mackenzie’s gaze travels to Cooper, and she cocks her head at him. “Well? I’m waiting. Where’s your smartass comment?”
Cooper smirks. “I don’t heckle the downtrodden.”
“Heckle this,” she retorts, flipping him the bird.
I smother a laugh. It’s funny seeing each of them interact. Gen and Evan are chemistry personified, every word exchanged practically oozing sex. Cooper and Mac are more adversarial, yet when they look at each other, their connection is unmistakable.
I look over at Tate, remembering the way he held my hand last night at the bonfire. His fingers laced through mine feels so natural, and I wonder how on earth I’m going to say goodbye to him in two weeks. My flight to Boston leaves three days after the Beacon’s reopening, and a part of me is already thinking, well, I do get a week off for midterms in October. And I do get Thanksgiving off. And Christmas. New Year’s.
Maybe we can make something work. Not a relationship or anything; I’m still doing my best to keep my heart disengaged. But who says we can’t keep sleeping together? Hooking up when we have the opportunity? We’re not sick of each other yet, so doesn’t it make sense to keep the fling going until we are? That is, if Tate’s even interested in extending the fling.
For some reason, though, I get the feeling he is.
“We’ll do a random draw to determine the order for the toss,” Deb says, and a volunteer rushes over with a baseball cap containing slips of paper with our team names. “Up first will be … the handsome sailors from the Manor!”
The rest of the names are pulled from the hat, and we’re gratified to hear we’ll be going last. Gives us an opportunity to watch the other teams and learn from their mistakes.
As Tate and his team come forward, Deb quickly goes over the rules again. The water balloon toss requires all four members to stand in a line, starting at about two feet apart. The balloon is thrown down the line from one person to the next, and after each completed leg, the team members must take a step back. The distance between each person gets bigger and bigger, and the team that makes it the farthest distance without popping their balloon wins those coveted three points.
“Ready?” Deb shouts. “Annnd toss!”
This is it. Do or die.
Team Yacht Club makes it to a distance of fifteen feet separating each member before the balloon hits Luke in the face and explodes, soaking him. Tate shoots me a wry look as they return to the sidelines, as if to say, you win some, you lose some. He takes everything in stride. I love that about him.
“Fifteen feet is the distance to beat!” announces Deb.
The bakers and mechanics are up next, finishing with an impressive twenty-two feet for the former and a dismal twelve for the latter. The firefighters finish with twenty feet. The Sharkey’s staff with nine.
Then it’s Team Soapery, working together like a well-oiled machine. Each time Deb shouts, “Annnd step!” the four ladies take a step to widen the distance. Deb shouts, “Annnd toss!” and the balloon exchanges hands.
Three minutes in, and they’re already twenty feet apart.
“Whoa,” Zale marvels.
“It’s the underhand throw,” Mac whispers to our team. “We need to go underhand.”
Team Soapery makes it a spectacular twenty-nine feet before Felice catches the balloon wrong and it bursts in her outstretched hands. Still, the ladies know they kicked ass, grinning from ear to ear as they head for the sidelines. They’ve got a good seven feet on the best team, the bakers.
“Hartley and Sons, you’re up!”
Cooper smirks at his girlfriend as he saunters by. “You’re saying all we have to do is beat twenty feet and we’re guaranteed to place? Oh no! So hard!”
Mackenzie and Genevieve simultaneously throw up their middle fingers, sparking a burst of laughter from the gathering crowd. When I glance toward the onlookers, I’m alarmed to spot my dad’s face. He’s with Nia and the twins, and they all smile and wave when they notice me looking. Shit. I didn’t know they were coming back today. Mom and Grandma are supposed to show up too. For the winners’ ceremony.
Panic flares inside me, while I strain to remember the last time Mom and Dad were in the same vicinity.
The saving grace here is that Mom and Grandma haven’t arrived yet. That means I have time to warn Dad off before they get here. But first, we need to murder this water balloon event.
On the field of play, the Team Hartley line moves with swift precision. They nail their five-foot throws. Ten. Fifteen.
At nineteen feet, the biggest upset of today’s Beach Games occurs.
Spencer, their day laborer, tosses the balloon to Evan. His hand slips on the release, just slightly, but it’s enough to alter the trajectory. The balloon veers toward Evan’s right, forcing him to take an abrupt step, and his body isn’t quite in position as he attempts the catch.
Splat.
The water explodes in Evan’s hand.
“Man down!” Deb crows into the mic, and the firefighters cheer loudly, maintaining their current third-place score of twenty feet.
“Oh baby, why are you all wet?” Genevieve coos when Evan stomps back. She pretends to be confused. “What happened? I wasn’t looking. Did it pop?”
“Use that little-girl voice again”—he narrows his eyes—“and it better be tonight. In bed.”
Mac winks at Cooper as he passes. “I’m pretty sure that wasn’t twenty feet…”
He snorts. “You haven’t placed yet, princess. And right now we’re still beating you by one point.”
Finally, it’s our turn. I can’t even believe how nerve-wracking this is. How is this low-stakes, small-town beach competition making me sweat this much?
“We got this,” Zale says.
“We got this,” Gen echoes.
“Annnd toss!” Deb yells once we’re in position.
Team Beacon makes fast work of it. Five feet. Ten. Fifteen. Those are the easy ones. Now come the scary little one-footers between fifteen and twenty. If we hit twenty, though, we only tie with the Hartleys, and we can’t have that. We want the win. Which means we need to beat not only the firefighters but also the bakers in order to move to second place.
At eighteen feet, my palms are so clammy I have to bend down and wipe them off in the sand.
At nineteen feet, I can’t feel my legs anymore.
The pressure is monumental. We’re tossing for twenty now. If we make it, we’ve tied the firefighters.
We make it.
“Annnd step!”
We take another step. If we succeed in this next sequence, we’ve knocked the firefighters out.
“Annnd toss!”
Zale tosses. I make the first catch.
I look at Genevieve. “Ready?”
She wipes her hands on the front of her denim shorts. “Ready.”
Very methodically, I throw underhanded in a perfect straight line. The balloon floats like a weightless feather into her waiting palms. She catches it, and a collective breath of relief travels through the crowd.
Gen turns to face Mac, features creased with deep concentration.
She tosses.
Mackenzie makes the catch.
“Twenty-one feet!” Deb declares.
“Holy shit!” Zale screams. “We did it! We did it!” He starts jumping around, thrusting up both arms and punching the air.
I choke out a laugh. “We’re not done!” I remind him. “We’re still playing.”
“Oh, right.”
“We have an actual shot at second place here,” Gen marvels.
And we do it. We make it to twenty-three feet before my balloon explodes at Gen’s feet. Doesn’t matter, though. We successfully edged out the bakers to finish second place in this final event.
We’ve beaten the Hartleys at Beach Games.
By one point.
That was really fucking close.
“What size thong do you need?” a smirking Gen asks the twins once our team celebration dies down. Her gaze shifts to Evan’s groin. “I don’t know if they make it in extra small, sweetie.”
“Extra large, you mean.” Growling, he lifts Gen off her feet as if he’s going to toss her, but instead brings her close. She wraps her legs around him and they start making out.
Rolling my eyes, I wander over to my dad, who now stands alone on the boardwalk. “Nice job!” he exclaims, giving me a quick side hug.
“Thanks. Where are the girls?” I ask, glancing around.
“They got bored of watching you throw balloons, so Nia took them to get ice cream.”
I nod. “Hey, so I should probably warn you—Mom and Grandma are going to be here any minute. They’re coming for the winners’ ceremony.”
“Really? Your mother?” He lifts a brow.
I smile ruefully. “I know, right? But … I haven’t said anything to you about this, mostly because I didn’t trust it at first, but Mom really has been making an effort since she got to town.”
“Has she?” I can’t quite discern his tone.
“She has. It’s been fun, actually.”
Dad is taken aback by that. I don’t blame him. I’ve never used the word fun in relation to my mother.
“Oh. Well. That’s great, Cass. I’m glad to hear you’re enjoying yourself and that she’s putting in the effort.”
This time, I easily pick up on the skepticism lining his voice.
“Like I said, I didn’t entirely trust it. But she’s been good lately. Attentive. Funny. Forthcoming…” I hesitate for a beat. This probably isn’t the most appropriate time to take the conversation deeper, but I also suspect we likely won’t get another opportunity to discuss my mother, and so the words just slip out. “She told me about the miscarriage.”
Dad lurches as if I struck him. “She did?”
“Yes.” My palms are sweaty again. Dad and I rarely discuss anything this sensitive, so I’m unsure how to navigate it. “I’m glad she did. It made me understand her better, you know? Why she fought you so hard for custody. I thought she was trying to keep you away from me, but I guess she was trying to keep me close after her loss. So … yeah. I’m grateful that she told me.”
“Yes. Well.” His expression shutters, but not before I glimpse a flash of anger.
“Cassie!”
I turn in time to see my sisters racing toward me. Nia trails after them, wearing brown sandals and a loose-fitting sleeveless dress.
“Wanna know what Pierre did today?” Roxy exclaims. “He farted!”
The girls proceed to double over in high-pitched laughter, while their mother grimaces.
“It was very unpleasant,” Nia says stiffly.
I glance at Dad. “You didn’t warn them about the whole stinkpot thing?”
“Clayton?” growls his wife.
“Thanks, Cass. Thanks a lot.”
I snicker. “Hey, you knew going into this purchase that if they handled him too roughly he’d unleash a fart attack.”
“Fart attack!” Mo squeals, and the girls start skipping around shouting those two words over and over again. A resigned Nia offers an apologetic smile to all the people who turn to stare at us.
“Attention, Avalon Bay!”
A voice suddenly blasts out of the boardwalk’s PA system. Deb, of course. I’ve heard Debra Dooley scream into microphones so many times these past two days that I could now pick her voice out of a lineup.
“The winners of the twentieth-annual Avalon Beach Games are about to be announced. Please make your way over to the Tourism Center.”
“Did you win?” Mo asks me, wide-eyed.
“I don’t think so. But if my teammate’s math is right, we may have come in third. I’ll see you guys later, okay? Gotta find my team.”
“We’re heading out now,” Dad says, which tells me he took my warning seriously. “But I’ll call you later. Good job today.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
There’s a large crowd gathered at the tourism hut when I arrive. I search the sea of faces until I spot Zale’s familiar Afro. “Cass!” he shouts. “Over here!”
I join my team, and we wait impatiently while Deb delivers another one of her speeches about how much she loves this town. She stands atop a low stage that barely holds two people, let alone a team of four. The winning teams select one member to go up and accept their trophy.
The firefighters win first place, while the yacht club takes second. And for the Beacon’s long-awaited return to the world of Beach Games, our team comes in third.
We break out in cheers as Gen hops on to the small stage to accept our third-place trophy from a beaming Deb Dooley. It’s about ten inches tall with a copper finish and gold accents around the beach ball figurine at the top. The brown wooden base just has a generic THIRD PLACE engraved on it.
Gen flashes the Hartleys a smile as she saunters past them holding our trophy. “Aww, they don’t give these out for fourth?” Gen asks sweetly. “Look how cute it is.”
“A third-place trophy, Genevieve?” Cooper shoots back. “Grow the fuck up. If you don’t win, you lose.”
Mac offers a brisk nod of agreement. “He’s not wrong.”
“You two psychos are made for each other,” Evan mutters.
“Hey, Cassie,” Mac says, turning to smile at me. “Thanks so much for being on our team—this was such a blast. Will you come back next year?”
“Really? Even though I don’t work at the hotel?”
“What do you mean? The Beacon was in the Tanner family for fifty years. You’ll always have a place here.”
I’m so touched, my eyes start to sting. I didn’t expect to form genuine connections this summer, but I’m so glad I did. Stupid Grandma was right. It is nice being part of a group.
Speaking of Grandma, I suddenly spot her in the crowd, a frown staining my lips when I notice she’s alone. I excuse myself and make my way toward her. She greets me with a smile, but it’s clearly strained.
“Hey,” I say, leading her toward a less busy section of the boardwalk. “Where’s Mom?”
“Well…” Grandma presses her lips together.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. But … perhaps a little hiccup. We just ran into your father and his family in the parking lot.” Grandma pauses. “Your mother stopped to speak to Clayton.”
Shit.
“Damn it,” I mutter. Then I force a smile so Grandma doesn’t worry. “Are you cool waiting here for a minute? I want to go and make sure nobody’s been killed.”
I race off in the direction of the little gravel lot behind the tourism center. This situation needs handling ASAP. Last thing I need is for Evil Mom to make a reappearance when we still have a week left in the Bay. Which means I need to defuse any bombs that might blow the rest of my summer to smithereens.
I catch sight of them immediately, gratified that it’s just the two of them. Nia and the girls must be in the car already. Silver lining, I guess.
Hurrying toward them, I manage to catch the tail end of Dad’s incensed accusation.
“Using the miscarriage to turn our kid against me? Trying to make yourself look like some sort of martyr? That’s low, Vic, even for you. You fought for custody because you’re a selfish—” He stops abruptly. “Cassie, hey. Hi, sweetheart.”
Mom whirls around. Her brown eyes blaze with anger. Not directed at me, though. She’s still wholly focused on my father.
“Guys,” I beg. “Please. I don’t want you two to fight.”
“Neither do I, Cassandra. But I’m not the one fighting, am I, Clayton?” Mom says coldly.
Dad frowns. “Victoria…” I don’t know if it’s a warning or an appeal.
“No, I think this conversation is over. Why don’t you go now? Your nurse and her children are waiting in the car.”
“My children,” he growls.
I reach for Mom’s arm. “Come on,” I urge. “Tate’s taking us to lunch. He and Grandma are waiting.”
Her thunderous expression doesn’t change, but she also doesn’t object when I start leading her away. I glance over my shoulder at Dad, whose face is bright red, his movements jerky as he repositions his glasses on the bridge of his nose.
“I’ll see you this weekend,” I tell him. “We’re still doing dinner, right?”
“Yes, of course. See you then, sweetheart.”
And then Dad stalks off and Mom is still fuming, and I feel like I just fought off a pack of rabid dogs. This is why confrontations should be avoided at all costs. They never lead to anything but misery.