Page 132 of Death of a Grill Master

Later, as the party wound down and the music softened, Hayley found Randy near the dartboard, hugging a weepy Mrs. Penrose from the Jessup Library’s reference desk.

When Mrs. Penrose finally drifted off in search of tissues, Hayley slipped in beside her brother. “You good?”

Randy nodded, eyes a little glassy. “I’m good. A little buzzed. A lot grateful.”

They clinked plastic cups.

“Place won’t be the same without you,” she said.

“Place hasn’t been the same since you stopped singing karaoke in cowboy boots.”

Hayley smiled. “That was a phase.”

“Everything’s a phase until you pack it up in a box and ship it to Brazil.”

A pause.

Randy leaned against the wall, swirling the last inch of something dangerously pink in his plastic cup. His cheeks were flushed, eyes bright, but there was a wistfulness creeping in around the edges now. The kind that comes when you realize you’re really leaving.

“You know,” he said, nudging her arm. “you and Bruce could do worse than ending up in that house.”

Hayley blinked. “What house?”

Randy looked at her like she’d just confessed she didn’t believe in brunch. “Mine. The house. On the Shore Path.”

She laughed. “Randy, that place is huge. And gorgeous. And has a view of the ocean I don’t deserve.”

“You’d take care of it,” he said. “You’d fill it with food and people and gossip. You know that house loves gossip.”

Hayley opened her mouth to protest again, but something fluttered in her chest—an idea catching a draft.

She turned to him more slowly now. “Wait. Are you serious? What are you doing with the house?”

Randy’s grin turned sly. “Make me an offer.”

“I could never—” Hayley began, but stopped. Because now she was picturing it. Morning coffee with the waves rolling in just beyond the window. A quiet office space for Bruce. A garden. A bigger kitchen. A fresh start.

“Did I just walk into a real estate negotiation?” Bruce’s voice broke in behind her, low and amused.

Hayley turned to find her husband slipping in beside them. He kissed her temple, then raised an eyebrow at Randy. “You offering up the palace on the Path?”

“Maybe,” Randy said, “if the right buyers walk through the door.”

Bruce looked at Hayley, that thoughtful glint in his eyes she’d come to recognize. The writer glint. The one that meant he was already rewriting the next chapter of their lives in his head.

“I could live with that view,” he said. “As long as I still get coffee in bed.”

Hayley didn’t say anything just yet. But her pulse had already quickened.

And her heart had already moved a few inches closer to that window.

Toward something new.

They raised their glasses again, to Bar Harbor, to beginnings and endings.

The next morning, Hayley unlocked the front door to Hayley’s Kitchen and stepped inside alone.

It was before opening hours, the golden hush of sunrise slanting across the floor. Chairs were still turned upside down on the tables. The counter gleamed. The kitchen waited behind its swinging doors like a loyal old friend.