Page 141 of Double Puck

"Front table," Diego calls immediately, hands flapping. "They're on the front table!"

Declan strides across the kitchen, snatches them from the bowl and tosses them straight at me.

I catch them against my chest.

"Go," he says.

Colin pushes to his feet. "Nobody is going anywhere! We haven't finished—"

Declan turns his enormous body sideways and plants himself directly between Colin and me.

"Pretty sure she has."

For once in my life, Declan Morrison's overprotective bullshit is working beautifully in my favor.

"Darcy—" Colin starts, trying to peer over Declan's blocking shoulder.

"Meeting's adjourned," I tell him. "Go surfing. Go… play golf. I've got to go and find my boyfriend."

I hit the front doors at a run, Biscuit barking joyfully behind me, and sprint for my convertible with my heels in my hand and my heart going faster than the data can track.

I need to find Beck Morrison.

Because he isn't data anymore.

He's the man I love.

Chapter 22

Beck

Iremember the first morning I stood at the end of the Beachside Pier.

I thought it was the quietest place I'd ever set foot on, especially at nine in the morning.

This morning, I've been leaning on this railing long enough that the fishermen have stopped pretending not to watch me. Two of them have set up in their lawn chairs a few yards back, coolers open, lines in the water. One of them offered me a beer twenty minutes ago. When I said it wasn't even nine yet, he looked at me like I'd insulted his way of life.

Below me, the waves roll in slowly. The bright morning sun is scattered across every ripple, twinkling as it passes beneath the wooden boards.

Behind me, the boardwalk is finally waking up, with the shutters rattling open and the kettle corn guy firing up his drum. The first tourists are wandering out of the Beachside Hotel, with coffee in their hands and bad sunburns leftover from yesterday.

And somewhere nearby, the carousel operator has just flipped a switch, because the old girl's lights blink on one row at a time, and that tinny music starts drifting up the pier like it does every single morning.

I lean back and take it all in.

This is where my life blew up.

Right here. With one livestream and a badly operated microphone, my dad's affair was broadcast to me and several hundred churro-eating strangers at the same time.

That's the funny thing about places where your life falls apart.

Sometimes you go back and they're just… places. Places with the same sun on the water, the same smooth wooden railing under your hands. Even the seagulls look the fucking same.

I sigh, and look down at my phone.

I've been holding it for ten minutes with the same phone number open.

There's a meeting happening at my house right now. Darcy has probably just walked in, looking sexy as hell while holding a report I told her to write honestly. Even if it ships my ass to the desert.