Catching Cassidy by Melissa Foster Read Free Book Online

Delilah reaches up and places her hand on Cassidy’s, but she’s still looking out the window.
    Harborside is a midsized town, and during the summers it gets loads of tourist traffic. It’s still early in the season, so I’m able to drive at a pretty good clip into town. The closer we get, the more tension eases off of me like a snake sheds its skin. I roll my window down and inhale. Harborside smells like someone took the ocean and sprinkled it into the air, then tossed in some coconuts, which is totally bizarre, since there are no coconuts in Massachusetts. Except the kind you buy at the store.
    The main road into Harborside has two lanes, and it’s lined with farms and little ranch-style homes. I imagine it feels a lot like a farm town. But just when you think you’ll be bored as hell in the place, the road widens to four lanes and the next few miles are littered with beach houses. The farms give way to grass and sand, and finally, the ocean comes into view off to the left.
    “There it is!” Cassidy’s face is practically smashed against her window as she looks at the ocean. Her grip on my shoulder tightens.
    She opens her window and sticks her head out. I glance at her in the side-view mirror. Her long brown hair whips around, smacking her cheeks. She laughs and then falls back against the seat as I turn down the road toward the pier, passing GiGi’s Diner on the corner, with its bright yellow sign hanging above the door and big potted plants under the front window. Colorful storefronts line the road. I smile as we pass Pepe’s Pizza, with its tables and big red umbrellas out front, the only twenty-four-hour pizzeria in town. We’ve sat beneath those umbrellas pondering surfing conditions and shooting the shit more times than I can count. Our friend Brandon Owens worked there one summer and brought us free pizzas almost every day. Brandon graduated from Harborside University with a double major in computer science and mathematics but refuses to work in an office—his form of rebellion against his straitlaced family who doesn’t get him.
    We pass Endless Summer Surf Shop, owned by our friends Jesse and Brent Steele, with brightly colored surfboards lined up out front and sale racks of T-shirts and wet suits. It feels good to be back.
    I pull up to a red light and look down the road to my left, where I see the restaurant Jesse and Brent recently purchased and are currently renovating. Scaffolding blocks half of the brick paver walkway. Before buying the restaurant, Jesse ran the Taproom in the off seasons. Two months ago, the summer manager of the Taproom quit, and Jesse agreed to stay on until my parents arrived, which, of course now, they never will. I’m glad he’s around because I know absolutely nothing about running a bar and grill. It’s almost like our parents foresaw their futures when they guided us toward our degrees.
    Ugh . That’s a messed-up thought.
    I pull through the light and my chest tightens as our parents’ bar—well, our bar now—comes into view at the end of Harborside Pier. The pier runs high above the water like a bridge to another land and forms a T at the end, where the bar is located. My throat thickens as memories come flooding in. Counting the slats on the pier with my father, eating ice cream as our feet dangled off the side . How many times have Delilah and I raced down the pier while our parents strolled hand in hand behind us?
    My dad will never again point out the constellations from a table outside the bar. He’ll never stand with one hand on his hip, the other shading his eyes as he points to a boat in the distance and asks me what type it is, as if I were a midshipman and knew the answers. He will never jingle the keys to the bar and say, One day this will be yours and Dee’s, son. One day is here. The bar is our responsibility.
    Holy shit. We’ve inherited the Taproom . We have to run the bar.
    I can’t even think about all the stuff my parents left us without