Reckless Hearts by Melody Grace Read Free Book Online

seriously: either something turns out fun, or it
doesn’t, but it’s not worth getting hung up over. I can
count on the fingers of one hand the nights I’ve spent waiting
around for the phone to ring, or wondering if a guy is thinking about
me or not. It’s not my style to waste a moment’s thought
analyzing their text messages, or all of the other things my
girlfriends wind up agonizing over.
    So
what is it about this man that’s so infuriatingly distracting?
    At
least now I’ve made it clear nothing’s going to happen
between us. That should be the end of that. I’m about to grab
my computer and try to get a head-start on work when my cellphone
rings. Mom.
    I
brace myself as her enthusiastic voice chatters down the line.
“Sweetie, are you OK? You didn’t reply to my text.”
    “Which
one?” I ask lightly. “You sent me like, two dozen. You
don’t need to give me a running commentary on the new Real
Housewives episodes,”
I add. “I can watch them myself.”
    “But
it’s always more fun, you know your father won’t watch
any of those shows. If it doesn’t have a cop or a dead body,
he’s not interested.”
    Mom
launches into a recap of her week, so I go sit on the front steps,
and watch the town slowly come to life in the morning sun. One day, I
want a big wrap-around porch with a swing to hang out in all day, but
for now, I like my little corner of the world just fine.
    “So
what’s going on with you?” she asks, barely pausing for
breath. “We haven’t seen you in forever, we should come
down and visit soon.”
    “You
know I’m busy with work,” I remind her. “Summer is
always our busiest time of year, all the tourists dreaming about
living here year round.”
    “I
know, but you work too hard, honey. You need to make time for other
things. Like a man in your life—”
    “Mom,”
I try to interrupt, warning, but she pushes on.
    “I
know, I’m supposed to butt out, but I never hear you talk about
anyone serious. You don’t tell me anything at all.”
    “That’s
because there’s nothing to tell!” I protest. And when
there is, I don’t exactly want to spill the juicy details to my
mom.
    “That’s
the problem, if you put half as much time into finding yourself a man
as you did finding your clients a new home, you’d be settled
with someone wonderful by now. You know I kissed a lot of frogs
before I met your father, and we’ve got our twenty-fifth
wedding anniversary right around the corner. That reminds me, you’ll
be able to make the dinner?”
    I
tense at the reminder. I’ve been ignoring it for a while now,
ever since Mom first enthusiastically shared their plans. “When
is it?”
    “On
the fifteenth. I sent you an email with all the details. I picked a
lovely spot over in Beachwood Bay, that new seafood restaurant.”
    “I’ll
be there,” I promise, sighing.
    “Oh,
he’s just pulling in front the store now. Ted!” she
yells, before coming back to the phone. “Hold on a second, he’s
just bringing the bags in—”
    “It’s
OK,” I cut her off hurriedly. “I have to go now anyway,
we’ll chat some other time.”
    “Well,
alright. And think about what I said, I know I’m just your old
mom, but I know a few things.”
    “I’ll
think about it,” I lie, before saying goodbye and hanging up.
    I
sit on the steps and let out a long, weary breath.
    Twenty-five
years.
    Except,
it’s not really that long. Mom chooses to ignore the year we
lost, after Dad came clean about the affair he’d been carrying
on with a woman at his office—all that time he’d been
lying to us both. It was such a betrayal; I can still remember the
shameful look on his face when they both sat me down to tell me. He
couldn’t even look me in the eyes, just kept his gaze fixed on
the mantle—filled with happy photographs of the family that, it
turned out, wasn’t enough for him, after all.
    After
that, things got messy. It was summer at least, so I spent almost
every night out with