Chapter 54: Short Summer

LEO

I was scheduled to report to Carolina the last day of July. Having a shorter summer made me acutely aware of the passing of each moment, and I didn't want to waste a single one.

Not long before Bill's death, Quinn's parents had bought the beach house where they'd spent summers almost as long as I'd known them. Quinn had been meant to work down at the shore that summer, but she'd changed those plans after her father died. I'd given up most of my clients at the lawn service my brothers and I had run for years, so I was free to spend a day here or there with Quinn at the beach.

It was Carrie's idea that we all spend my last week of summer at the beach house. I had mixed feelings about it; being down the shore would be fun, and in a lot of ways, it would be like old times: my mom and Sheri would be with us all week, and Mark and my dad would come down for the weekend. Days of sun and sand, nights on the boardwalk-I knew it would be good for Quinn.

On the other hand, there wasn't