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Then again, I had missed this part of the interview and I wanted him to see that I knew what I was talking about before the fishing season opened. Even if he didn’t want me to make the changes, I would feel more justified in letting him say ‘no’ if he knew that I wasn’t talking nonsense about it all.
With one more deep breath of the fresh air, I walked back into the lodge. Though I wasn’t sure which room was his, I had a feeling that I’d be able to find him in the dining room or kitchen if I waited there long enough. After all, everyone had to eat.
I took another thorough look through the kitchen to document what I had available to try and keep myself occupied for now. There was a cabinet full of plates and bowls, which was nice. A good dishwasher and sanitizer sat to one side, meant to wash all the dishes each night, I supposed. The sink had enough room to both do food prep and wash the dishes. It had three deep sections instead of the standard two that were normal for homes.
Someone had at least set the kitchen up properly. It could easily accommodate cooking more than sandwiches for the three hundred people who stayed here when the lodge was full. I wondered what had been done for breakfast before, since I only saw frying pans and a few large cake pans for the oven.
Perhaps oven pancakes, scrambled eggs, and waffles since there was a waffle maker on the counter. And some cookie sheets. I could make biscuits!
Chapter ten
Luke
After the fight, I walked back to my room. If she needed a chance to cool down, then so did I. The way she insisted we needed to get more food on the menu irked me. It wasn’t a matter of outright denying that she knew what she was talking about, but a matter of not knowing how it would go. I usually tested new dishes during the off season because I could ask locals from Waterfront what they thought. It was usually a good sample of tasters, and it usually resulted in putting new things on the menu that were around ninety percent successful once the season began.
With her starting work just before the season, I didn’t have time to organize something like that. It usually took two or three different dinners to get the dishes right, especially since Moroni had been learning. It had been a combination of his inexperience in the field and my wish to make sure that everyone would be happy with the selection of food available that had stalled it out over the last couple of years.
Upon arriving at my room, I shut the door quietly behind me. The door was thankfully not allowed to slam because I had put a soft close device on it, but sometimes, I had to help it along because it closed so slowly.
Instead of allowing the frustration to channel itself into punching my pillows, I sat down at the desk in my room. Over the last three or four years, I had learned how to channel my emotions into writing music. It didn’t always work, but it had made for some good songs about heartbreak and the frustrations of change in life.
Since my band had been counting on me to come up with some new songs, this felt like the perfect chance to get what I needed. Between Moroni quitting and having to welcome Laurel to Waterfront, I hadn’t been able to get anything done. Add in that fishing season started soon, and I wouldn’t be able to get any songwriting started once that happened.
I usually had at least three or four songs for my band by now. If I didn’t figure out something, we’d be stuck playing old stuff and covers even though we were way overdue for some new music.
As I sat down and strummed my guitar, letting the exasperation find its own chords, I realized what exactly it was about the fight that had made me so annoyed. It wasn’t the fact that we had been fighting over food that had irked me, though that was part of it.
Laurel Pennington’s personality – fiery, acted like she knew everything, and a bit of sass to top it all off – reminded me of Sarah Kingsley. I hadn’t thought about her in a long while, but I couldn’t deny the similarities now.
If Sarah had been blonde, she might have been Laurel’s twin, I mused as I continued to strum different chords to find a combination that worked.
However, the irritation soon melted into heartbreak as I remembered why Sarah and I had broken up. We’d been together just before I had gone into the Rangers. I could remember the fight that ended our relationship as clearly as the sun shining outside right now.
“I’m going to basic training in Camp Lejeune,” I shared with Sarah, the letter in my hand. “If you want to follow me there, you’re welcome to, but I think long-distance will be hard.”
“Who said anything about me following you there and not living on base?” Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Luke, you know very well my thoughts on following and on long distance. If you want me in North Carolina with you, you’ll have to marry me.”
The words shattered my heart in that moment, but I remained strong.
“Sarah, I’m not ready. Marriage is… it’s a big step,” I said. “We’re still too young. And military life is hard. I thought it would be better for you to get a taste of it before you were stuck with it, so that you knew completely what you were signing up for.”
“If you don’t marry me, then we’re over,” Sarah had stated harshly.
“Then, I suppose we’re over,” I’d replied softly.
This only furthered my doubts that I’d had about why she wanted to marry me. I’d seen texts the week before on her phone and hearing her say that she wanted to marry me immediately before I left for Lejeune didn’t make me feel any better.
“If you’re not going to pay for my lifestyle, then you’re of no use to me,” Sarah said as she rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to hear from you again. You’re worthless. Not any kind of man worthy of marriage if you’re not willing to tough it with the woman you love. Love,” she’d let out a short snort of laughter. “As if love even exists.”
I was pulled out of my thoughts by strumming a discordant note that didn’t match the others. I sighed. That fight had been what shattered my expectations for a happy life. When I had graduated from basic training to then head into the Rangers, only my family had come to North Carolina. Sarah must have blocked my phone number because I hadn’t heard from her in ages, despite wanting to reconcile because I hated leaving her on such a bad note.
The last I’d heard of her had been a while ago, but I had mutual friends who followed her on social media. I couldn’t see any of her posts, but I was all right with that. Or, had been, until I learned that she had married one of those super religious men who would deny they had a drinking problem even if you could smell the alcohol on his breath.
“Oh, Sarah… I fear your desire to have the perfect family without the foundation of love and respect is going to tear your family apart,” I muttered as I put the guitar down to start writing down the chords that felt right for this song.
As I jotted down a few stray lyrics with the chords in the margins, I couldn’t help but think about how this was a lot like what I had to do now with Laurel. Granted, she wasn’t expecting me to pay her healthcare bills for the rest of my life, but it had been the incident with Sarah that had prompted me to stop telling people about my family unless they were genuinely curious, and I trusted that they wouldn’t use that particular knowledge against me.
Sarah knew very well what kind of money I came from because we had grown up together. It had come back to bite me in the butt when she demanded I marry her so that she could have access to that money and never work a day in her life.
