CHAPTER SEVEN
South Island, South Carolina
November 26
Standing on the dark sand, Steady looked up at the beach house. It was still in disrepair but much improved after a day of intense labor with his makeshift construction crew. The stilts had been reinforced, and the shingles and shutters repaired. The deck was still a hazard, and the sliding glass door frame was boarded over, but in a few weeks, the place would be palatial. He turned back to the ocean, pleased with what he and his brothers had accomplished.
Telescope in hand, he trudged across the damp sand toward the surf. They were finally getting a clear night, and he was eager to do some stargazing. It was one of his fondest memories with his dad growing up. Each May, before they left Charlotte for the shore, they would spend time determining interesting and anomalous astrological phenomena and when they would occur. Then, throughout the summer, they would set up the telescope and canvas chairs on the beach and bring a bag filled with whatever treats they could swipe from the kitchen. They’d sit and talk until the start of a meteor shower or a planetary alignment. His father worked crazy hours and traveled extensively for his job running the family business, a small chain of boutique hotels. There were weeks during the school year that Steady rarely saw him. So those nights on the beach just sitting and talking to his dad—the telescope incidental—meant the world.
It wouldn’t be fully dark for another hour or so, but Steady spread the tripod and planted the telescope in the sand. He had plenty of time to heat the casserole Maggie Bishop—Herc's grandmother and the unofficial den mother of Bishop Security—had dropped off for him knowing his kitchen currently consisted of a microwave and a minifridge. Steady figured he would include a kitchen renovation in the repair work—in for a penny, in for a pound and all that.
As he turned to head back to the house, the headlights of a car pulling into the driveway next door caught his attention. This small strip of beach houses was active in the summer, but the places were far enough apart that it never felt overrun. This time of year, it was a ghost town.
He heard the muffled slam of a car door, and a moment later, a light came on in the home. More out of curiosity than suspicion, Steady aimed the telescope toward the house and bent to look through the eyepiece. When he spied the outline of a woman in a duster and beanie entering, he immediately jerked himself to standing. Eyes on the sky, creep. He knocked the heel of his hand against his forehead and headed back to the kitchen.
An hour later, Steady once again stood behind the telescope and pointed the lens skyward. He was just about to see what magic the heavens held when the low thump of bass had him looking up the beach. A football field away, every light on the first floor of the neighboring house was on, and Steady caught a flash of hot pink through the sliding glass doors that separated the living space from the wraparound deck.
The music—he thought it was classic Ramones. Suddenly the temptation was too much, and he swiveled the telescope toward the house and leaned down to take a look. Well, call it what it is. He bent to peep. There, in the large family room, a tiny slip of a woman was dancing around, more like jumping around, to the music wearing a T-shirt and boy shorts. Her clothes, however, were not the flash of pink that had caught his eye. That came from her head. The dancing girl had hot pink hair.
Could this get any weirder?
Then, as if the universe answered his question in the affirmative, the pink-haired woman jumped her way over to a whiteboard, erased a section of a complex formula, and began rewriting it. Nothing in the night sky could compare to what was going on in that house, and Steady watched like his orbital bone was glued to the eyepiece. Until a voice sounded from behind him.
“Whatcha doin?”
Steady shot up, upending the telescope, and spun to face Cam, smiling like the kid who found the last Easter egg, hands in his pockets rocking back on his heels.
“Oh, eh, hey, Cam,” Steady said.
“Spot any heavenly bodies, Stead?”
Steady shot both hands to the top of his head.
“Fuck, I know, but seriously, it was too much. She's cranking music and dancing in her underwear, writing math formulas on a whiteboard.”
“Got a hot-for-teacher thing?” Cam quirked a brow.
“Doesn’t everybody? We all had that spank-bank teacher in middle school.” Steady kicked the sand.
“Mrs. Jones.” Cam sighed wistfully, then paused, rubbing the back of his neck. “Huh.”
“What?” Steady asked as he righted the telescope.
“I just realized she married a SEAL. Maybe that's what got me interested in the Navy, not all that service and honor crap.” Cam looked up at the sky.
Steady chuckled as he ran a hand through his hair. “Shit, is everything we do just to get laid?”
“Nah, I took out the head of Shining Path with the RPG he thought he was buying. That was for Uncle Sam.” Cam looked to the ground after the uncharacteristic disclosure, then circled back to the situation at hand. “So, is she hot?”
“So hot I want to walk over there and propose.” Steady threw his hand toward the house.
Cam stepped to the telescope, and Steady obliged, tipping the main tube toward him. Cam adjusted the focus. “Well, she's gone. The whiteboard is there, though. That's not a math formula. It's a chemical formula. There's molecules and shit.”
At Steady's raised brow, Cam shrugged. “Mrs. Jones taught science.”
Both men laughed, and Steady redirected the telescope toward the sky. “There's a meteor shower tonight. Starts in about twenty minutes. Beer's in the cooler, and Maggie dropped off some snacks.” Steady pointed to the supplies on the blanket.
“Sweet.” Cam parked next to the food as Steady snagged them each a beer and took a seat on the blanket.