Page 75 of Rhodes

I think about it, and it makes me sad and happy to hear him say that. I don't remember my mom at all, but I love the idea of her being close with her boys. I was only four when she died, so all my memories of her come from what others tell me.

We sit quietly for several minutes, but it’s an easy quiet. Just two men taking in the party from the side.

The band shifts into something with more spunk, and across the two terraces, Tallulah's out near the wall now, head tipped back. When I bring my eyes back to Banksie, he's already got his on me. He takes his drink, then sets it down on his knee next to the plate.

"She's not as breakable as everybody keeps deciding she is," he says. "But she's also not as unbreakable as she'd like you to think, either."

I take a pull off my beer.

"You've got a steady hand, Rhodes. You always have." He looks back out at the party, like he's talking about weather coming in off the water. "Just watch where you put it."

He pats his knee once and stands slowly, his joints popping loud enough for me to hear, and picks up his plate.

"Think I'll find your brother," he says. "Greer owes me a dance."

I sit there with the sea going flat and dark below me and understand, for the first time, that I am not as invisible as I built myself to be.

The party dies the way they all do. The old folks go first. Thomas walks Granger out somewhere past midnight, both of them arguing about tides in the friendly way men do when they've had enough wine to agree on everything. Sisue went up an hour ago with Quinn and Keller. I think because they have a child, they were put on Sisue duty. The band packs down to just the guitar, then to nothing.

Cain and Greer slip off without announcing it. That's the only tell. Cain, who never leaves a room quiet in his life, gone quiet, her hand in his, up the stone stairs and away.

Cooper's the last of the loud ones to fold.

He's got both elbows on the table, and his tie is somewhere on the floor. He squints at me.

"I'm done, brother." He gets up in stages. "That wine is criminal. Should be illegal."

"You've been in Europe over a month, and one Italian wedding takes you out?"

"Spain didn't have this wine." He grips my forearm, laughs at nothing. "You staying up?"

"For a minute. I'm enjoying the breeze."

"Suit yourself." He points at me, loses the point, gives up. "Down the road, I'm in the little one. If I die in the night, you'll know where the body is."

"Sleep, Coop."

He goes, weaving toward the cottage down the way where he's got his own bed and his own walls, and I watch until the dark takes him.

The last few party-goers drift off. I didn't see the asshole who got handsy with Tallulah last night, which improved my night. Hopefully he was so embarrassed he left the country.

I walk up to Tallulah, who is on another bench on the other side of the dance floor.

"Hey, wild woman,” I say as I sit down beside her. "Mind if I join you?"

"Please. I'm spent, but it feels too damn good out here to leave yet."

"Same. Just said the same thing."

"Did you see Thomas? He was going to sleep-teach my dad about oyster grounds. Thomas."

"Granger let him. That's the funny part."

"Granger was drunk enough to think he was learning something." She chomps on a piece of ice from her cup. "Whole family, down for the count."

We both look at each other and pause. I can't help but to stare at her lips, and it takes every ounce of willpower I have not to kiss her right here, right where anyone who wants to could see us.

"We should probably turn in," I say.