That gleam in his eye turns to flint.
“See you at the wedding,” I call cheerfully as I open the door—as if I’ve won this exchange, when it didn’t go at all the way I’d hoped. I look better than I did back in the day and I’m a doctor twice over, which is pretty cool. Definitely cooler than having a construction business,Elijah.Yet there was none of the groveling I’d hoped for.
The air inside the store is icy and stale, but in a good way. It brings to mind biking here after a day at the beach and the taste of a bomb pop, pulled straight from the ice cream case.
For a single moment, too, it makes me think of Elijah, the way I once saw him.
As my future.
I’m not sure why, after all these years, it still feels true.
3
ELIJAH
Idon’t know who that fucking was that just walked past me into the Stop-n-Shop, but it wasn’t Easton Walsh. It was an alien playing the part. Or Easton, if she’d turned into a Stepford wife.
I slide into my truck, which is now sweltering inside, and call my sister. I ought to just wait until she gets home tomorrow—every other week she goes to California to see her fiancé, a situation that will need to come to an end eventually—but I don’t have that much restraint. “What the hell happened to Easton?” I demand the moment she picks up.
I’ve never seen her hair stick straight like that. I’ve never seen her with a bunch of jewelry and makeup and dressed as if she’s running for fucking office. Everything special about Easton—everything that was wild and free and spectacular—has been stripped away. She was an exquisite work of art, and she’s been sanded down to nothing.
“What do you mean?”
“I barely even recognized her. The clothes, the makeup, the hair.”
“Oh,” Kelsey says, and I can already hear the way she’s about to make excuses. My sister won’t put up with any criticism of her childhood bestie, even if it’s subtle, even if it’s barely criticism. “Well, you know...she was dating Thomas Prescott. I think she sort of had to look the part.”
I sit at the four-way stop, my mouth ajar, until a car behind me honks. “What do you mean shewasdating him? You told Mom they were getting married.”
She sighs. “Look, I know you two don’t always get along, but I need you to be really nice to her for the next few weeks. They broke up. He’d bought an engagement ring, and they’d chosen a wedding venue, and then he took her out on their anniversary and dumped her.”
That fucking prick.
What kind of guy takes things that far and ends it? I know, even as I ask the question, that I was not much better to her, but that’s the whole point: he was supposed to be alotbetter for her, and he apparently was not.
“If he shows his face at the wedding, there’s gonna be?—”
“He’s not. He’s not coming. He’s off on some yacht with Devon Hunt...you know, the urine guy? She’s sure it’s just cold feet and he’ll change his mind.”
“He’llchange his mind?” I demand. The rage in my voice is palpable. I need to tone it down a notch, but I just can’t. “Why the fuck would shecareif he changes his mind after the shit he just pulled?”
I turn right onto the long road toward my newest project—a custom home with finishes so high-end I didn’t even know they existed until the client asked for them. The wife was distraught that her soundbath room was not as large as she’d hoped. Wealthy people don’t know what real problems are. I occasionally wonder if this is what Kelsey will become after enough years asMrs. Hawthorne Boudreaux.
“You’re getting super invested in this when you haven’t spoken to Easton in years.”
I’ve spent a decade trying not to appear invested in Easton’s life. No fucking clue why I’m failing now, when—as Kels just pointed out—I’ve barely seen her. “We grew up together. I’m still allowed to comment if she’s being a moron.”
Kelsey sighs. “No, actually, you’re not. That’s exactly what I was talking about. For the next few weeks, avoid calling her a moron. Avoid getting into her shit at all. She’s holding it together, but you know Easton...she could be buried under a mountain of rubble with every bone broken and she’d claim she was just a little scratched up. So don’t make it worse, okay?”
I refuse to agree to anything. I swerve into the driveway and shove the car in park. “I assume she’s staying with her dad?”
“I think so, yeah,” she says. “I offered to let her stay with us, but she said no.”
My eyes fall closed. Is she sayingnobecause she actually wants to stay with that asshole, or is she saying no because staying with an abusive asshole is easier than staying withme?
I’ll never forgive myself for the way I hurt her. Fortunately, she’ll never forgive me either.
4
