Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
But I also know Mars is going to do what he wants to do. I’m strict enough that he knows I care about him getting a good night’s sleep, but not so strict that all he learns is how to hide from me. There will be bigger battles than iPads and cell phones.
If he’s anything like me.
Love you. Give Jason a hug for me.
Leave my pillow alone, he fires back.
I laugh out loud, and I see Trace look at me out of the corner of my eye. My brother has a pillow with Jason Momoa’s face on it. It’s a good-looking pillow.
My phone vibrates with a text. And nice flowers, Mars taunts. Mom dug them out of the trash.
And I promptly threw them back in, I tap out my reply. Good night. Sleep tight. I love you.
I tuck my phone back in my pocket, turning the volume up on Trace’s radio as he speeds me away from those white roses in the garbage at my house.
I love getting flowers, but not from strange men.
I’m tempted to reach out to my father and grandparents to let them know that my mother is trying to marry me off, but I’m not sure they’d care.
And I’m not asking my father for anything. He doesn’t want to support his family, so I don’t think he’ll care that my mom is trying to find a way to do it instead by making me marry someone rich.
Droplets of rain spatter the windshield, but I crack my window, inhaling the scent of the wind. The gentle lights of St. Carmen and the soft glow of the gas lamps on Main Street disappear in my sideview mirror as Trace exits the overpass. We bounce over the tracks, the road turning pebbly and loud under the tires as he coasts into the wild landscape of the Bay.
Old shacks that have been here for a hundred years serve the area’s best gumbo and fresh seafood, and we pass unkept land, the dark porches of hidden houses just peeking through the brush.
I rub my hands together in my lap.
There’s a part of me that’s asleep until I come here. Maybe it’s the heat, which I feel just a little bit more, or maybe it’s the land, chaotic and overridden as if the trees are trying to take it back.
Over hundreds of years, Seminoles and Spaniards claimed, fought, lived, warred, and then eventually built together.
And when more Europeans came and wanted the swamp and the beautiful views of the sea, the Bay became one nation unto themselves—one wall against the world.
Communities stop working together over time once they no longer have to, but the Bay is unique. After five hundred years, they’re still fighting to survive. That one common goal has kept them together.
St. Carmen has passion, too, but it’s not nearly as fun.
Trace speeds down the dirt road, passing a few homes and businesses along the main street, and then swings the car around in a U-turn, pulling up in front of his house. Half a dozen trucks and other vehicles are parked outside, the downstairs lights illuminating the windows.
We hop out, and I look next to the fence, seeing my Rover still parked where I left it.
“Son of a bitch!” someone bellows from inside the house. “I could’ve been killed!”
I inhale a deep breath. Iron Jaeger. One of Trace’s older brothers. I know his voice by process of elimination. He’s the only one I rarely hear yell, and I know all the others’ voices. If it were Macon, the oldest, I’d probably just turn around and leave.
Guys come barreling out the front door, running down the walk and out into the rainy dirt road. Their girlfriends wait by the cars, laughing and shielding themselves from the weather.
Music inside makes the house vibrate as the Seminole flag blows over the garage door. Ivy and moss climb the exterior of the ancient pink stucco of the dilapidated Spanish mission-style mansion, and I inhale like I always do, because you can eat the air here.
Stepping through the arch of the heavy wooden front door, I hear one of the shutters on the second or third floor flapping against the house. Screams pierce the air, and I wince as more people rush toward me.
I leap, Trace pulling me into his arms and out of the way. The music cuts off as they squeeze past me, out the door.
“What the hell is going on?” I mumble.
But Army Jaeger, the second-oldest, answers instead. “An alligator slithered into the pool.”
He pulls on a T-shirt. His black hair is soaked, drops of water sliding over the giant octopus tattoo that spills over his shoulder and onto the left side of his chest. I used to think he rarely wore a shirt because he knew how good he looked without one, but I eventually figured out that he simply liked to save time. When his brothers aren’t causing him enough trouble, he’s taking care of his infant son. At twenty-eight, he’s the only one with a kid.