What she was or wasn’t doing with Landon didn’t matter, though, because that was when Clark was filmed screwing the spring-breaking college girl. I arrived to find Melody ripping the teddy bear he’d given her into fluff-filled smithereens.

I picked up a severed arm. “Aww, poor Beauregard.”

“Fuck Beauregard!” She snatched an empty box from the floor and began loading bear fragments into it. Next in—jewelry he’d given her, accumulated homecoming mums, dried flowers and printed photos, all torn into tiny pieces. “Let’s go.”

I drove to the public beach where she marched up to Clark, who had a girl on his lap. From the box I held, she showered him with armfuls of petals and photo bits and bear parts. She threw a bracelet at him and called him a cheating bastard.

Feet away, on the other side of the fire pit, Landon watched her, eyes blazing, tense and ready for Clark to do something stupid, and Boyce watched me, a lit cigarette in one hand and a koozied beer in the other. We hadn’t spoken since that kiss, other than his usual juvenile quips during biology—the ones that drove Mel and Mr. Quinn insane and made Landon smirk and shake his head and had me biting the inside of my cheek to suppress my smile.

At first I’d been confused, then disappointed, and then angry. I’d worked my way to acceptance, like when I’d known I was drowning and there was nothing I could do. He’d merely gone back to being Boyce Wynn, who did what he wanted and who he wanted. And I’d gone back to being Pearl Frank—star student, social royalty, good girl.

But I couldn’t forget that kiss. The fixed glint of his eyes across the fire said that neither could he.

Chapter Eight

Boyce

“The sandbar might work,” I said, staring at my boots and still thinking about the feel of Pearl in my arms that first time—her sweet, sweet mouth and her unexpected surrender to being kissed. I wondered what she’d do if I pulled her into my arms like that now, standing my kitchen. If I dared her to tell me no. Dared her to kiss me back.

She could have asked me to put my dad’s ashes in a rocket launcher and light the fuse right then and I’d have done it. I cleared my throat and shifted, raising my eyes to hers. “Maybe back in a marshy part.”

“Do you still have the boat?”

“Got a better one a few weeks ago—actual seats, no leaks in the hull.” I smirked. “It’s almost a damn yacht.” Her stepfather owned a Cruiser 275—which had a sofa and a bed and a damned bathroom on board. But for guys like me, ballin’ meant parking my ass on a padded chair for a day of fishing instead of a cold, hard metal bench.

“Mel’s going back to Dallas Saturday morning. Can it wait until then?”

Her question was an ice bucket of fucked-up reality. What the hell made me think anything would change just because we were adults? I was still her dirty little secret. I downed the rest of my beer, shoved off from the kitchen counter, and tossed the bottle in the green bin by the back door. “Sure. Unless I just flush him before then.”

Her laughter rang out, but the smile died off and her mouth fell open when she realized I might not be joking. “Boyce—you can’t… do that? To your father?”

“You know as well as anyone what a sadistic motherfucker he was.” My mother, wherever she was, knew. Maxfield knew.

I’d meant to unbalance her. I hadn’t counted on this goddamned hunger for her approval. Her sympathy even. What the actual fuck.

She walked to me, eyes searching mine, forehead furrowed, and I couldn’t move. Taking one of the fists at my side between her small hands, she said, “I know he made your life hell, Boyce, and it’s going to take you a while to work through it. I’m sorry I judged you—I didn’t mean to. You just shocked me a little, that’s all.”

My fist loosened between her palms. She saw right through me. She got me. It scared the hell out of me—how solidly she got me and how much I wanted her to, because that kind of need made me weak where she was concerned.

I nodded. “I wouldn’t do it.” Lie. If I hadn’t been concerned about the substandard plumbing running to and from this tin can, I’d have already dumped him.

She quirked a brow, her lips pursed like she wanted to make some smartass comment.

“Okay, yeah I would,” I admitted. “But he can wait till Saturday—he’s not goin’ anywhere. It’ll give me time to compose a eulogy and get flowers.”

“Right.” She chuckled, sliding her hands away from mine. “So… this place is all yours now. And the garage?”

I nodded. She couldn’t possibly be impressed with this shack masquerading as a home. “There’s some red tape to process. Mr. Amos—Dad’s old attorney—wanted me to look through his paperwork for a will, divorce papers, and anything to do with the business.”

“Did your dad even make a will?”

I shrugged. “No idea. So far I haven’t found anything but a bunch of useless crap. I took over running the garage almost two years ago—billing and accounts payable, dealing with the distributors, manufacturers we order from, that sorta thing, so that’s already separated out, thank Christ.”

“You’ve got your own business now, Boyce.”

Maybe I should have been a little pissed that she looked surprised, but I wanted to beat my chest. That’s right—I run my own business. I am The Man. In Pearl’s defense, she wasn’t the only one to be dumbfounded. I’d worked on my high school principal’s SUV last week—not only fixed it quick, but fixed it cheap. When Ingram came in, she was gushing oil like a West Texas rig—left a line of it straight up the driveway and thought the whole engine was about to fall out. I told her that unless she’d been driving off-road or slamming over curbs like a bat outta hell, that scenario was improbable. I think she expected me to gouge her in revenge for what a bitch she’d been in high school, but I stopped giving a crap about her the day I took that diploma from her hand. A fifty-dollar part and one hour of labor and she was on her way.