Reckless (Mason Family 3)

I stand in the middle of the kitchen and look around. “I should get busy on the dishes.”

But I don’t.

The house is so quiet. The only sound is the hum of the freezer as it kicks on to fill the ice maker. Despite the chaos surrounding me, I feel at ease.

I can’t remember the last time I felt like this.

I make an effort to search my memories to recall the most recent moment of feeling completely at peace … and come up empty.

Every memory of my childhood seems tainted with the scent of alcohol. Even the Christmas that I got the pink and purple scooter that I had begged Santa for has a cloud over it thanks to Pete’s drinking problem and Mom’s quick defense of her husband.

My sister and I would huddle in our room. Jeanette would try to distract me with games of Riddle Riddle Ree and knock-knock jokes. She’d capture my attention with stories about middle school or high school—stories that I thought made my ten-year younger self cool by osmosis. Jeanette was my savior until she left on her eighteenth birthday. She said it was to find her father, which was a man our mom met in a bar in her “wild years,” as she called them. But I think she was just getting away from Pete and Mom’s co-dependency.

I couldn’t blame her.

I left on my birthday eight years later.

My heart drops at the thought of Jeanette and twists into an almost unbearable knot.

“What happened to you, Nettie?” I ask.

I mosey through the house, my mind still on my sister and how different my life might’ve gone had she not abandoned me. Would I have the scar on my sternum from the railing that Pete pushed me into? Would I still run my hand over the top of my head and feel the raised skin from the broken vodka bottle? Would I have left town with Shawn a month short of my high school graduation?

Would I have this sense of not belonging anywhere, to anyone, that I have now? That I’ve had all of my life?

I stop at the window in the living room and look outside.

The yard is the perfect shade of green, even in the almost-dark sky. Solar lamps give the white paint on Libby’s garage and Boone’s house a honeyed glow and the flowers in the beds lining the front walkways and window boxes scream less house and more home.

Even though I know what a bachelor pad Boone’s house is, I can still see the makings of a home there too. It’s easy to imagine little kids running through the grass, their voices shrieking through the moss-laden oak trees. The tall windows should have fingerprints marring the glass from sticky hands after a snack stolen from the pantry. I close my eyes and can imagine music playing in the living room and scents of roast beef coming from the kitchen.

He’s built for that kind of life. The way he talks about his family, how he ran out of here to help his brother, the way he is with Leo and me—he’s a people person. It’s not hard to imagine him with a wife and kids someday. Actually, it’s impossible to envision him without a host of people surrounding him.

It makes sense. It’s the natural order of things.

For most people.

I used to think I would be a wife too. I had daydreams as a little girl that I would be the mother to a little girl who looked just like me. We would play dolls, have tea parties, and bake cookies together just like the families in the movies I loved so much. My husband would come home and kiss us both on the forehead.

“It could be worse,” I say, tearing my eyes from the house next door. “At least I get Hawaii as a consolation prize.” And you never know. I might find my own Jason Momoa in Hawaii too.

I snort. “Keep dreaming, Jaxi.”

I head back to the kitchen, singing about staring at the blank pages in front of you, and feel my spirits rise.

Hawaii feels like such a stroke of luck. I kind of think it’s the universe’s way of giving me a fresh start, a break from a battle I feel like I’ve had to fight my whole life. First with my parents, then with Shawn and then my landlord when I finally started on my own.

I haven’t let myself think about it too much. There was too much to do, too many things to get rid of, too many plans to make to spend too much brain power on beaches.

But I’m ready for it. Lord, am I ready for it.

Just as I get to the sink, my phone rings.

“Hello?” I say, pressing the speakerphone button.

As soon as I hear the voice on the other side, I freeze.