CHAPTERONE
BECK
Peopling was bullshit,plain and simple.
Even after growing up in Starlight Cove and spending the majority of my life in a crowd, I still wasn’t comfortable in one. Sometimes I just wanted to be left the fuck alone, which was damn near impossible when you had five siblings—including a twin—and lived in a modern-day Mayberry.
Starlight Cove was small, just a tiny pocket along the Maine coast with a picturesque downtown to one side and a lush crown of forest on the other. Everyone knew everyone, everyone was in everyone’s business, and no one could have a moment’s peace. I loved the community aspect of our little town—everyone coming together when someone was in need—but I did not love the people aspect. And there were a fuck-ton of people at the monthly Movies in the Park event, buzzing around me like flies.
Thankfully, my less than welcoming demeanor was well known in my hometown, and since I provided the best coffee in a fifty-mile radius and the best blueberry scones, well, anywhere, people tended to give me a wide berth so they could stay on my good side.
Ironically, the one person I liked outside my family hadn’t known those rules when she’d moved here and had been a persistent early morning irritant from Day One. Everly Bowman was too goddamn sunshiney for anyone to have to deal with at 7 a.m., but somehow she’d gotten under my skin by showing up every day, without fail, and talking my ear off whether I’d wanted her to or not. I’d grown to tolerate her, and then accept her, and then, miraculously, started to like her.
And then I’d gone and done something even worse…
Blankets and chairs were spread across the vast lawn of the park just off Main Street. A cartoon played on the inflatable screen to keep the kids occupied as everyone found their spots and settled in for the double feature. Concession stands dotted the perimeter, but I never bought anything from them. Why would I? I cooked for a living and could make anything they had twice as good for half as much.
Besides, they didn’t sell Nanaimo bars here, or anywhere around here for that matter.
“What’d you bring me?” My twin, Ford, dropped down next to me on the ground and reached for the cooler at my side.
I might’ve shared a womb with him, but I had no intention of sharing this, so I swatted away his questing fingers before he could touch it. “Absolutely nothing.”
“No? Who’s that for, then?” He held up his hand and said, “Wait, wait, let me guess… Everly’s on her way.”
I grunted in the affirmative but otherwise didn’t respond. When he didn’t have a quippy comeback, I glanced his way to find his smug-ass face already turned toward me.
“What?”
He shrugged, that smirk mocking me. “Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. If it were nothing, you wouldn’t have that stupid look on your face.”
“I just think it’s interesting, is all.”
“How much you manage to irritate me every day? I wouldn’t exactly call that interesting, but maybe you need to get out a bit more.”
He barked out a laugh, and my lips twitched. I was closer to him than nearly anyone else in the world, but we couldn’t be more opposite. Where I loathed people, Ford gravitated toward them. Especially of the female variety. He got out—and in, and out again—plenty. Definitely more than I had over the past two years, though that wasn’t difficult, considering my bar was set at zero.
“What I think is interesting is how much you can’t see what’s right in front of you,” he said.
“Your ugly face is right in front of me.”
“We’re twins.”
“Fraternal,” I said, though that didn’t mean much. The McKenzie genes were strong, and all four of my brothers and I bore a striking resemblance to one another. Even our baby sister fit right in with the group, though she hadn’t been blessed with the height and had maxed out almost a foot shorter than the rest of us.
“What Imeant,” he said, “was that Everly is right in front of you.”
I snapped my head up and darted my gaze around, looking for the bubbly, too-bright-for-her-own-good redhead who’d somehow, beyond all reason, become my closest friend. “Where?”
Ford laughed loud enough to draw everyone’s attention—exactly what I didn’t want—and I showed him just how much I appreciated it with a swift elbow to his gut.
He huffed out a breath and then stood before I could land another. “Exactly,” he said with a grin as he walked backward before disappearing into the crowd.
By now, I was used to the not-so-subtle hints that came from absolutely everyone. After two years of being friends with Everly, I’d been on the receiving end of the assumptions. My siblings hadn’t ever hidden the fact that they thought she and I should be a couple. Everyone in the whole damn town seemed to think that. Well, everyone except the two people involved in the supposed coupling.
She was gorgeous, yes, and she was funny and smart and kind to a fault. The perfect woman, I was pretty sure. But she was…Everly. And Everly wasn’t meant to be mine.
