Chapter 3

"Jesus, this town hasn't changed at all," I mumbled to myself.

I turned down the main road at the big sign that read ‘Welcome to Ocean Shores.' If you blinked, you'd miss the entire town and drive straight into the Pacific Ocean. There were a few scatterings of restaurants and souvenir shops along the main road before hitting downtown, though I wasn't sure you could classify it as such. The center of town consisted of a gas station, a McDonalds, and the IGA store. There was a little movie theater a block over that only had one screen and a bowling alley a little further down the road. That was about it.

Besides the hotels that lined the beach, this town had little going for it. When I was a kid, we'd come out here in the summer and stay at one of the hotels, then hit up the arcade or the go-kart track, but in the last ten years or so, the residential side had grown. Investors, including my uncle, bought most of the houses and converted them into rental properties.

Uncle Drew didn't live very far off the main strip in an old A-frame-type house. It wasn't painted and the old, dark wood siding stood out next to some of the newer developments. I parked next to his beat-up red truck in the driveway and was greeted by his dog Max, barking inside.

When the big brown ball of energy came barreling out of the front door, I braced for impact. Max jumped, his front paws landing on my chest as he panted and licked at my face. He was a chocolate lab that my uncle had gotten as a puppy since he was out here by himself. I never did quite understand why he never had a special someone in his life.

"Hey, boy. Good to see you, too."

"Max, ya dumb dog. Get down off him."

Max jumped off me, running in circles around my legs for a moment before trotting back to my uncle, who leaned against the door frame of his house.

"Hi, Uncle Drew." I raised a hand in greeting before making my way over to him. He'd changed a lot in the last four years. His black hair had more streaks of gray in it, and the wrinkles on his face were more pronounced than the last time I'd seen him. If I didn't know that he was in his early fifties, I would have thought he was a lot older than he was. Uncle Drew wasn't always in the best of health — and it showed. The pack of cigarettes peeking out of his breast pocket probably didn't help.

"Was the drive okay?" he asked as I approached, stepping aside to let me in. The AC inside the house cranked out so much cold air that I shivered as it hit me. Max was sniffing around the floor like he was looking for any food that might have been dropped and left unnoticed.

The living room had changed little from when I was here as a teen. In the middle of the room, the old rust-red sofa sat with a crocheted afghan tossed across the back. The coffee table was littered with old magazines and dishes while the TV played on mute. The curtains were drawn over the windows, probably to help keep the heat down, but that didn't seem to be an issue right then.

"It wasn't too bad. Long."

Uncle Drew chuckled as he disappeared into the kitchen before coming back, holding a glass of water out to me. I took it gratefully, taking a sip before sitting on the couch. Uncle Drew landed on the cushions next to me, and we settled into an awkward sort of quiet. I set my drink on the table and I'd need to ask the hard questions, and soon. With the way he kept flipping his phone between his fingers, he had to know what was coming.

"Good, good." He cleared his throat, refusing to meet my eyes as I stared at the side of his head.

Since we were avoiding the elephant in the room, also known as my summer job, I changed the topic to something else. I tapped the box that was in his pocket, drawing his attention to it. "Weren't you supposed to be giving that up?"

Uncle Drew pulled the pack from his pocket with his empty hand, studying the label before tossing it on the table. The lighter inside the box rattled as it hit the wood surface. "That's easier said than done. Not that it counts, but I have cut back a lot."

I nodded. "Cutting back helps, but you were supposed to quit. That clot you got in your lungs—"

Uncle Drew let out a frustrated breath. "Nathan, I know. It scared the shit out of me, too. But you cant always quit a habit youve had for years overnight."

It was hard to understand. Nothing made you feel more powerless in the middle of finals week than getting a call that your favorite uncle was being rushed in for surgery. It didn't help that the nearest hospital that could do anything of significance was so damn far away.

"I'd like to keep you around for a few more years is all..." I dragged my hands down my face before resting my elbows on my knees, trying to figure out what the hell my uncle had been watching on the TV before I got here. From the looks of it, it was one of those dramatic talk shows where they're always trying to figure out who the baby daddy was. Something funny lodged itself in my chest and I realized that I'd been so stupid over the last few years. While I'd always used protection, I was fortunate that I hadn't ended up in a situation like that.

While I had come clean to my friends and family about being bisexual, it never felt right being with another guy after Chase. It felt all wrong, even though I had tried. Every time I'd kiss someone, my mind would try to shove his face onto theirs, and it felt like I was cheating on him, though we weren't together. I didn't seem to have that problem with girls.

My thought process was abruptly cut off when Max ran to the door, barking again. Gravel crunching underfoot could be made out through the loud woofs coming from the dog, and my heart rate kicked into hyperdrive.

"Max!" Uncle Drew yelled as the front door swung open.

Like some weird movie moment, everything switched to slow motion. My pulse pounded in my ears as the man stepped through the front door. His mouth was moving, but I couldn't hear a damn thing he was saying. All I could focus on was the way his dirty blond hair stuck out from the bottom of the backward-turned baseball cap as he shoved an overzealous dog off of him.

When Chase looked up, and our eyes met, the oxygen might as well have been sucked from the damn room. Those steel-gray eyes didn't look very welcoming, laced with so much resentment, and they quickly flicked back to my uncle. All at once, everything unfroze, and I could hear again, not that I wanted to hear what he had to say.

"So it's not a fucking joke? You're really doing this to me?"

Uncle Drew looked at his phone screen before shoving the device back into his pocket and standing. "You ever consider being an Olympic cyclist? That took you next to no time at all to pedal your ass over here after I sent that message."

My gaze bounced between the two of them. They obviously knew something that I didn't, but I guess this saved me the trouble of asking if Chase was still around or not. A sense of betrayal settled in that my uncle had surprised me with him like this, not that my family knew there were hard feelings between us—hard feelings that were there because I'd fucked up.

Chase stormed back out the front door, the dog following behind him.

"Well, that went well," Uncle Drew said, watching him go.

I let out a humorless laugh, looking up at my uncle from the couch. "What the hell was that all about?"

Uncle Drew ran a hand down his face before shaking his head. "I informed your co-worker about who he was going to be working with for the summer."

Well... shit.