As I feel my way down the stairs of my parents’ house, my eyes are half-closed. It’s been a long time since I woke up this early. I’m dressed in cutoffs and my favorite I LOVE NY tee shirt. It looks shabby, but that, I’m afraid to say, is by design. And that design took me entirely too long to come up with.

If I wear this shirt, will I look like I’ve come home to little old Magnolia Shores, Australia, with my tail between my legs? A failure trying too hard to show she’s returned by choice, a blazing success? Or is it hitting the mark I’m after, that I loved my time there? I’m the exotic girl who ventured all the way across the world to see what destiny had in store for her. And now, I’m just as adventurously returning here where the wind blew me? 

In the end, I was ashamed that I was ashamed to wear the tee shirt, and that logic added up to last night me laying it over my old bureau where I put my clothes out every day of my life until I left for New York, in a burning need to wear it for some reason that was really important. Now that I have it on, I can’t remember what that logic was exactly, but I’m too tired to change.

And my dog Alyx, who just came out of quarantine yesterday is barking in the kitchen because he wants his breakfast. A real New Yorker. Well, the pace is a lot slower here, buddy. In the kitchen, I’m surprised to find Mom brewing coffee at the ancient proper Italian espresso machine she managed to find at a flea market decades ago. “Good morning! How was your second sleep back at home?” “Good. Good morning to you too.” “Jet lag better today?” I nod. It is. “Just so I know, are we going to be counting all the sleeps until I tell you my plans for how long I’m staying?” “Of course not, darling. I’m so glad you’re here. And you know this is your home—either for a day or a lifetime.” 

Yes, I do know that. And I am grateful. But I also wanted a different life for myself. And now here I am. And I know that’s sparking all kinds of fantasies for Mom and Dad that I’ll be taking over the family diner, aptly named, The Big Apple. (I know, the irony.) And the whole thing is weighing like a pile of bricks on the shoulders of my I LOVE NY tee shirt that I should really go up and change right now.

“Well, your dog certainly knows how to make it clear what he wants.” “New Yorkers!” we say at the same time, then catch each other’s gaze. Something loosens in me. My New York-born mother is amazing. A port in the storm. Always has been. But I’ve always been determined to show I can go out in the storm, brave it all on my own, and then tame that storm into whatever I want it to be.

But being with Mom, at the moment, makes me want to curl up on her lap and latch on like a koala. I know she sees it. I scoop Alyx’s food from the tub Mom’s thoughtfully stored it in, and put it in his little blue bowl that traveled all the way from New York to Sydney in a cage with him. His tail wags so fast, it goes blurry. Funny little guy. We became family because I was walking dogs—yup, my glamorous New York life!—and his owner moved out of the country and thought he’d stick him with me. Well, Alyx and I were the winners of that schlimazel because we’ve been inseparable ever since.

Mom was obviously frothing the milk for my flat white, because the second I slide onto the stool at the timber-topped kitchen island, she lays it down with the pleasant clank of cup on saucer in front of me.“Thanks.” I pick up the steaming coffee in one of her lovely cups—a handle-less matt ceramic in the lightest of the many earth tones she has of them. They’re made by her best friend, Louisa, who lives two blocks behind us.

The taste of the coffee and the familiar feel of the cup’s grooves, the whole experience makes a disorienting echo reverberate through my heart. It’s such a rush of warmth and unwanted bliss at being back here after the cold, overcrowded, hard lines of Manhattan, that I feel my throat thicken. I have to swallow hard so I don’t choke on the coffee and it’s painful. I start to cough. Mom shoves a glass of water in my face. No wonder I couldn’t make it on my own.

Aren’t parents supposed to be disappointments who don’t pay you enough attention and screw you up? Well, I’m too well-adjusted to shout at her for that, so once I can breathe again, I accept her open arms and lose myself in the comfort of her jasmine perfume. Fuck New York, I think. “I’m here, whenever you want to talk.” She doesn’t have to ask me if I know that because I do. The pressure about taking over the business is all me. They wouldn’t dream of putting it on me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel it keenly. I nod. “Why don’t we go over anything that’s different at The Big Apple since I left?”

I’m keen to change the topic away from my issues and toward my first day back working at the family’s diner—a novelty in our small Australian beach town when my New York-born parents opened it twenty-six years ago when they relocated here. She sits, leaving one empty stool between us because these are our seats, our lovely time-worn driftwood stools. My father made them because this is the kind of dreamy home they wanted. Together. And that is the kind of stool my mother saw in an expensive shop one day. And that is the kind of marriage they have.

 If you want anything bad enough, if you dream big enough, you can make it happen. Yup, that kind of family. Which is why I’ll never be able to tell them the truth about why I’m back. Turns out that at the Big Apple Diner, Magnolia Shores, not much has changed. With the exception of free Wi-Fi access for customers because they just couldn’t put it off anymore. The password is BigApple112, which is my birthday and has an annoying capital in the middle that messes everyone up.

The warmth of knowing my parents chose my birthday for that password and the certainty that it was the first thing that came to both of their minds along with the inconvenience of the capital letter that makes everyone come up to me a minimum of twice to get it straight are the most accurate metaphor for the way I feel about my life 2.0 at Magnolia Shores.

Two hours later, I’m halfway through the morning rush, and losing myself in the rhythm of lining up takeaway cups for espresso shots and various milk preferences (oat milk has gained popularity from my last barista shifts), the sliding of piping hot trays of bagels and croissants onto racks, the pinching of bakery tissue paper from the box to bag a donut from the display case. I’ve got my “memories” mix playing over the sound system, even though it’s becoming increasingly obvious that I’m being a little transparent. I tell myself the songs are soft enough to just be mood music, rather than the soundtrack to my discombobulating homecoming that has me circling back to a certain someone I don’t have the bandwidth to think about.

It takes effort, but I just about shut down the rational side of me that knows these customers have my parents’ music library memorized. The mind is a powerful thing. Mom’s coming in late so she can stay home and harvest her heirloom tomatoes, and the joy I feel at knowing I gave her that time feels like that childhood image of kindness—filling my cup. Can life be this simply joyful, I think as Jewel croons about leaving wet towels on the floor?

And if so, why was I always raging so hard against it? Is it possible I’m not so much delusional as just being present? The overwhelming majority of these customers have known me since I was born. Most are not the sort to keep their opinions to themselves. And my tee shirt doesn’t do much to help matters. As I suspected, it sends a message that my life is up for inspection, the kind that gets pasted onto a slide, magnified, and dissected on the micro level.

At least we’re getting it over with. I’m no fool. I’ve come prepared with canned responses and I shoot them out rapid-fire, and then move on with purpose to the next person or task with a kind excuse to shoot down further questioning. “Oh, honey, didn’t it work out in that big bad city?” Hattie Brown asks before she even says hello. She’s the oldest resident of Magnolia Shores and is known for speaking her mind—even when no one wants to hear it.

“Yup. I won New York. Then there wasn’t anything left to do. So now I’m back.” I spin around and squat under the counter to restack the to-go lids, putting the kibosh on that one. In my head, I tick off another step to completing my return rites.

“Did someone break your heart?” Hattie says like it’s an obvious fact, already nodding and furrowing her brow on my behalf. “Nope. Broke theirs. Had to get out of there because he just couldn’t accept it.” I shrug and grimace. “Men. Turns out they’re the same right around the world.”

 “Tell me about it,” she says, turning to Mr. Brown—who’s fifteen years younger than his wife, but just as afraid of her as everyone else—and elbowing him. “What did I do?” he says. “Two long blacks?” I offer loudly, shutting it down, all while showboating my knowledge of the people of this town. “Yup.” Leaving the two high-school part-timers, Luanne and Kiki, to it, I take a second out back. It’s glorious outside, sunny and that shade of blue I missed dearly in New York.

I close my eyes and let the sun warm my face. I breathe in the sea air, listen for the waves crashing across the road, and stand strong through a storm of emotion as I look down at my phone to see the next song in the queue is Fuel’s Daniel. That’s the song that was playing on repeat that night when Mr. Certain Someone himself, Lucas, my oldest friend in the world, and I spent on the beach on graduation night. Even the sight of it makes my guts swirl and my chest feel funny. An angel and the devil have a bit of a battle in my head. Your intense reaction has a logical explanation. It’s just because it’s a time of transition. You’re feeling your feet. It doesn’t mean anything.

Oh yeah? Well, then why do you keep hoping the next person to chime the bells on the front door will be him? You know—Lucas. Do not. Do so. Do not. Do—okay, this could go on for a while. I wouldn’t have thought the devil would give up so easily. But I will not take that as evidence of anything. Instead, I head to the back room and switch the sound system to play the local radio and reach for one earbud, turning on the power, so I can continue to listen to my sad songs privately.

The Bluetooth options come up on my phone and I try to work out which one is my earbuds because there are two that say WH-1000T2. That’s odd. I click the first one and wait for them to pair. In the meantime, I tap PLAY on Daniel and head to the front to fill my water bottle so I can do some prep for lunch in the kitchen. The phone says Connected, but nothing happens. I hold the bottle under the spout of the big water cooler and look around. Does someone else have a pair of the same headphones?

The first person my eyes zero in on is him, Lucas—looking stupidly gorgeous in old dusty jeans and a work shirt rolled up to his elbows and stretched perfectly over that unforgettable torso. The world’s most unlikely billionaire. He’s at a window bar seat, craning his head. He turns to scan in my direction but hasn’t seen me yet. The confusion in his eye is unmistakable. Is he WH-1000T2? Is he listening to my give-in-to-your-unrelenting-thoughts-of-Lucas song?

In case there is any question of that, he points to his headphones with a crinkle in his eyes and a questioning smile on his face. Nod. Just nod. It’s a simple thing to do. Head up; head down. The devil’s not having it. He decides (yes, the devil is obviously a man) that I’m going to pretend I haven’t seen Lucas. Even though you clearly have. Any self-respecting man would take the hint and turn back around. But not Lucas.

He’s too set on giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. Being good and kind and all that shit that apparently six years in New York did not help me to forget. I make my way to the back, but he’s too fast. Probably because of those ridiculously muscular thighs that fill his jeans out so gorgeously. His manly scent is everywhere. He taps my shoulder. Shivers. Actual fucking shivers. Knew it. How do you make the devil leave your body? Impossible. “How come you’re playing our song?” he says. “This is not our song.” “It so is.

And I’m going to choose to take that as a very meaningful hello after all these years.” “You’d be deluded, but okay.” If you really want him to believe you, it would help if you stopped staring into his eyes that way. Seriously, devil, FUCK OFF. But look at those blue eyes. Seriously. A person could drown in them. “And a very meaningful hello right back ‘atcha, Amy.” I don’t know exactly what he does to the syllables of my name to have that effect on me.

But I swallow to clear my throat, then take a calming breath to stop this runaway train. He puts his arms out for a hug. The fucking muscles. I catch myself staring at them. Have they gotten bigger? So what do I do? I turn around and go to the back room. And shut the door in his face. I can hear him laugh on the other side. I slide down to the ground and drop my head into my palms. And now my earbuds decide to connect.

Amy is back. I shouldn’t have been shocked. I knew she’d be there this morning when I went to the Big Apple. I heard the news yesterday. I’d just walked the winding path to the wooden stairs down to the beach. Bandit was already way ahead of me. He loves his afternoon walk, the 100-pound mixed breed lover boy trots along the same path every day. If I even think of going in another direction he pretends not to notice and keeps going his way, the right way.

I think that’s the beagle in him. Part of the attraction to that section of beach is that there are ten other dogs he regularly sees at this time. And he is the most social dog on the planet. He knows he’s a handsome son of a bitch, and I swear his posture straightens when he sees all the doodle dogs (labradoodle, cavoodle, groodle) wagging their tails for him. The Blue Heeler doesn’t like it one bit.

But somehow Bandit charms him anyway. He never lasts more than thirty seconds ignoring my mate. Nobby had his Fourex beer can in a stubby cooler, and he held it up in greeting. Farnsey was next to him, but he was drinking his alcohol-free beer because he gave it up after a mother of an intervention a few years back. Gotta hand it to him, he’s stuck with it. Nobby spoke first. “Amy Green’s flown in from America this morning.”

 “Oh yeah?” I said, trying to look casual despite the onslaught of memories these words brought on. He was looking for a reaction because he’s a bit of a sticky beak. But I wasn’t going to give him one. I nodded and pointed down the shore like I had to get going. He smirked and I could feel his stare as I made my way down the worn driftwood steps and tossed my thongs under a bit of scrub at the bottom.

They’re flip-flops, I heard Amy say in my head. Eff me. I was so not ready for her to be back. That last night before she left for uni, (college, she called it, though she’s lived here her whole life) we were just a couple of kilometers from here. In my truck, watching the waves wash up along the shore in the blackness of night, her head on my chest. The rain came out of nowhere and we leapt from my hood into the shelter of the truck’s cab. I can still see the drops slide down her cheek. It’s what finally made me kiss her. I never wanted to kiss someone so badly.

I remember in the anticipation of our kiss, feeling like my whole life was about to change. And then? She went to New York and we never spoke again. Until my mother died two years ago. Amy flew here for the funeral. Held me in a hug that nearly broke me and helped my stepdad, Christopher, clean up because he was clearly comatose in his grief. I knew she lingered because she felt. We felt. Fuck, did we feel.

 But I wasn’t going to let her pity overwhelm whatever kept her from me all these years. I wasn’t going to let my pain be the reason she spent one more night with me. That would have killed me. So I thanked her, took the dish towel from her hand, and ushered her to the door. I didn’t let that final embrace linger. It was chaste, a message. “Thank you for coming,” I said. Her brow furrowed, but she nodded and reached for my hand. I squeezed, nearly pulled her back to me. But I found the strength to let go and watch her retreat down the block under the yellow haze of the sodium lights. The next morning, she was on the first flight out. And I was left with the thundering echo of what we felt.

And now, here she is, back in Magnolia Shores, listening to our song. What happened in the city to send her back? I never thought in my wildest dreams I’d see her behind the counter at The Big Apple again. That’s a whopper of a lie. I’ve dreamed of it plenty. But I never thought it would actually happen. Now that it has, I can’t think of anything but the way she ran her eyes over my arms like she wanted to lick them.

And how I’d love her to do just that. But we left that all behind us for a damn good reason. Only now I’m not so sure it was good enough. Because seeing her —for just that one minute—is the closest I’ve felt to right since I found out about my “real” father, the billionaire Jack Wheatley, and became a part of the billionaire Wheatley family, throwing everything I ever thought my life was into question.

SIX YEARS AGO – LUCAS

“Last fucking day of school.” Amy’s got her skirt rolled up at the top so it’s too short. She’s not the only one, but she’s the one who makes the other girls want to do it. She’s wearing Doc Martins and black sheer tights with a few strategic holes. I have to give most of the male population at school the warning look several times a day, but she just rolls her eyes at me. “Lucas.” The way she says my name, shaking her head is one of the touchstones of my day.

“You’re not paying attention.” Oh, I’m paying attention, but not the way she thinks I should be. I’m an only child and Amy has lived two streets away from me since we were born. Our mothers are friends because they bonded over our births and apparently we grew into toddlers and then preschoolers who used to do embarrassing things like put cookie tins on our heads and say we were awfully breaded husband and wife.

We learned to swim together, shared a shelter and sausages at the beach every Australia Day, played footy on the sand, boogie boarded, surfed, collected shells—oh, so many shells, she was crazy for them, we drove boats together, shared a driving instructor. “No, I gotcha. I know. It’s pretty sad. I’m actually gonna miss this school.”

“Whaddya mean? You’re gonna pass it every fucking day.”

“Do you have to curse so much?”

“Fuck yeah.” She smiles and stretches her seat belt over her chest. I roll my eyes. But wait for the click before shifting into drive. I can’t help it, I’m built protective. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t. “Are you really leaving in two days for New York?”

“Fuck yes.” She grins, knowing exactly what she’s doing with those F-bombs and the drawn-out S that gives me a peek of her tongue. Or she doesn’t. I’ll never fucking know, will I, Amy? “How are you going to make it without me cleaning up all your messes?” I ask. “Excuse me?” She bats her lashes and places a dramatically offended hand on her chest. Her school shirt is too small. It’s like one for a third grader and stretches around her breasts in a way that haunts my dreams. I know for a fact she gets in trouble daily for her belly being on display.

Another thing she gets all the other girls to do without even realizing she’s doing it. She’s trouble. Always has been. “What messes?” “Never mind.” It’s not worth getting into. She doesn’t get it. Never has. But this is why I worry about her in New York. She doesn’t realize how powerful she is, and because she is so focused on her future and her goals, she’s not careful about the way she wields her influence.

She doesn’t think it’s significant because it’s always been so effortless for her. “Listen, Lucas. If you want to waste away here in this nowhere town, then be my guest. But I’m so outta here.” “Are we looking at the same place?” I toss a palm toward the windshield where the sea is wild and woolly today, and as usual, reflecting my soul. I could just as easily leave this place as I could cut off my right arm.

“Sure, it’s pretty.” She shrugs like that’s an insignificant detail. “Pretty?” Fuck, there she is undervaluing the most important things. As usual. Drives me nuts. Sometimes I think she undervalues me. And it’s irony at its worst because don’t I fucking know I won’t find another person to replace her. I’ve got tons of mates, sure. But none of them talks about a fucking thing that matters. The way I see it, when she leaves in two days’ time, I’m gonna be doing a lot of fucking surfing to take the edge off these questions and thoughts I’ll be keeping to myself.

“But it is so small. Don’t you ever want to see what’s out there?”

“Not really. I mean, now that I have this truck, I’ll take some road trips, but I’ll always be happy to get back here. I know you think whatever’s out there is so glamorous and special, but I hope you’re not disappointed.” She turns to me and I feel that gaze of hers burn into me. “Do you think you’re scared of something Lucas Wheatley Kelleher?”

“Me? Scared? Dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Mmm-hmm.” She rolls her eyes and I can’t help but smile. It’s a trademark of hers. Another dream haunter. “Maybe we should agree to disagree.”

“Because that always works so well for us,” she says. “But this time, yeah, you’re right on that at least. I don’t feel like not speaking during graduation and not having a proper good-bye.” Having, not saying. Is that significant? Is it another detail flying powerfully under her radar? “Are you gonna miss me, Lucas?” I think of saying something dumb, but I take my sight off the road and look her in the eye so she knows. “Yes.”

“Thought so.” I shake my head. She can’t say it back. That’s a weakness to her—needing people, letting them hold you back from what you need to achieve. Again, the irony is award winning. I’ll never let myself be the reason anyone is held back. I’ve seen that look in Mum’s eye too many times to ever be the cause of that again. I was born an intuitive child, Mum always said.

And fuck, I wish I hadn’t been because then I would’ve been oblivious to all the sacrifices she made for me. Amy, though? Oblivious as fuck. A couple of my friends don’t speak to me anymore because of her. Because of how sloppy she was with their hearts. In certain moments, I know she realizes what she’s missing, living her life so sloppy. Those are my words, I’ve said them to her in moments of white-hot frustration.

Hence the “not speaking” she referred to. Part of me thinks it would be good for her to get a few bruises over there in the Big Apple, but that’s a cruel thought, and I shove it away, immediately sorry for ever thinking it in the first place. I’ve always felt responsible for her because that’s how I feel about everyone I love. “You’re such a sensitive boy, Lucas,” Mum would say when I’d be out back trying to save an injured rabbit or bird, something I did on the regular as a kid.

She saw it as a liability, and as I grew older, I sensed that’s because living her life the way she thought was best for those she loved, even if it didn’t meet her needs, was a heavy burden. Though I never knew exactly how. Just had that motherfucking intuition making me know it razor-sharp deep in my gut.

And as much as my best friend makes me angrier than anyone else can, I fucking love her. And yes, I’m going to miss the hell out of her. And when things get hard over in New York, she’ll miss you too. I wave away that ungenerous thought. But for some reason, it won’t go.