“This is what we get for not immediately directing everyone to the door after the last act,” Meara said as we watched the group erupt into laughter.
I twisted a dish towel around my palm. “Lesson learned.”
Her husbands ambled outside, a sure sign that they were ready to wrap this up, and she leaned in against my shoulder. “I’ll take care of this, and don’t worry, I’ll make it painless. They’ll think it was their idea and they’ll come back again soon.”
One of the many reasons I loved this woman. She was as cutthroat as they came yet managed to do that without anyone noticing the knives.
Sure enough, she moved that group of stragglers along and together we finished the last of our closing chores in record time.
“I won’t see you tomorrow, right?” she called from inside the office. “Or do I have the schedule mixed up again?”
“Nope, I’m off,” I said as I wiped the front counter one last time. “Muffy will be in early to bake since she didn’t do it tonight.”
Meara emerged, bag on the crook of her elbow and a blazer draped over her shoulders. “Then I won’t see you until we meet on Tuesday morning,” she said. “I’m headed to the Hamptons on Sunday for some corporate fuckery thing with the husbands and we’re not back until late Monday. Whatever it is, I’m supposed to wear white, which is complete bullshit if you ask me.”
As long as I’d known her, Meara always wore black. There was the occasional gray or a navy blue. Rumors existed of a deep purple moment but I couldn’t confirm it. “Do you own anything white?”
“I do not.” She gestured to her milk-pale face. “I would disappear in white clothes. I’d vanish.”
We made our way to the door, switching off lights and pushing in chairs as we went. “The husbands wouldn’t let that happen.”
“I’d hope not but one wrong move and I’m swept out to sea. So long, farewell, et cetera.”
“Please don’t let yourself get swept out to—” I pushed open the door and found Beck waiting outside, leaning against his SUV. His tie was long gone, the top buttons of his shirt wide open like a challenge, and he capped it all off with those inexcusably sexy glasses. I really needed to dig into why that look did it for me. “What are you doing?”
“Waiting for you to finish,” he said. “I didn’t realize vegan cafés pushed the limits of last call so hard.”
“Aaaaaand why were you waiting for me?”
He folded his arms across his chest with a laugh. “Because there’s no way in hell you’re riding your bike home at this hour.”
“You could follow me,” I said. “You didn’t have any trouble doing that last week.”
Meara wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pressed her cheek to mine. “See you next Tuesday.”
I met her gaze and gave her a tart grin. “Unnecessary,” I whispered.
“Be terrible,” she said as she crossed toward her husbands, waiting in their car. “Make unapologetically bad choices.”
Beck and I stared at each other as those words took shape between us, growing and expanding until they seemed to force us closer. Until we made eye contact with the truth that weweremaking bad choices, had been making them for weeks—maybe even months. Since the start, since that very first morning. And that we had yet to stop ourselves. The reasons were there. We knew them backward and forward, recited them to each other when it seemed like the appropriate thing to do. But we climbed over those reasons like hidden rocks revealed by low tide, one after the other as we chased our way down the shore. Unapologetically.
Once Meara and her husbands pulled out onto Market Street, I asked Beck, “So, if you’re taking me home—”
“It’s not a question. I’m taking you home. I’ve already loaded your bike into the trunk.”
I tapped a finger to my chin as I processed this. “So, if you’re taking me home,” I repeated, thrilled at the way his jaw ticked with annoyance, “do you plan on parking yourself at the curb for an hour or two again or will you be going in there with me?”
He shot a thoughtful frown at the ground. “Is that an invitation?”
“If it is, how are you going to respond?”
He pushed away from the SUV and moved toward me. “Don’t you think you’ve asked enough questions for the evening? It’s late. I’m driving you home. We’re going to use that time to see if you can stop being a brat for five consecutive minutes, and if you can, then I’ll make some decisions about how we spend the rest of the night.”
“Oh,you’llmake the decisions,” I said. “That’s adorable. So precious. Did you come up with that all on your own?”
On a sigh, he yanked open the passenger door, saying, “Get in the fucking car, Sunny.”
I dragged my gaze between him, all long limbs and finger-raked hair, and the mellow glow of the dome light shining over the front seats. Since my feet were killing me and I’d had it in my mind to ask Meara for a ride, I stepped under the arm he’d extended over the doorframe.
