Laurel:
Cami’s bringing me home, be there in five.
It was actually lesstime than that when my daughter came strolling through the front door of the cottage, her face displaying her disgust at the living situation.
“Lawn chairs? Seriously, Mom?”
“Well, it’s no twenty-thousand-dollar couch, but on the plus side, there are no dumb boys over here.”
She blew out a heavy sigh, walked straight for me, and wrapped her arms around me in a tight hug. “What the hell happened?”
“You should sit down for this.” I gestured to the other lawn chair next to mine. “It’s kind of a big deal.”
“Oh shit. Are we moving again?” she asked, the distress in her voice surprising.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. I thought I’d had it all figured out, and that had only blown up in my face. “I got a job offer yesterday. For that position in Boston you wanted me to take.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. I asked for a little time to get back to them, and then I went to talk to Quinn. About making my position here permanent.”
“Like…permanent,permanent?”
“Yep.”
“As in, we’d stay here, and I’d graduate from Starlight Cove High?”
“Yeah. I wanted to talk it over with Atlas first—and you know how that went,” I said, gesturing to me sitting in a lawn chair in the half-finished cottage. “And you, of course. What do you think of Starlight Cove? And don’t pull your punches now.”
“You know I never do.” She was quiet for long moments as she studied me. “I hated it when we first got here.”
“I remember,” I said dryly.
“But now…” She blew out a sigh. “I don’t know. It’s different than we’re used to. Everyone knows everyone, and I thought I’d hate that. But I actually sort of…like it? And the friends I have feel like actual friends, you know? Ones I can count on, not just people I hang out with.”
I felt similarly about Quinn and the women she’d introduced me to. Her sisters-in-law and her other friends. The pool of people in town was small, but it was a tight-knit community that looked out for its own. And it had started to feel a little like Laurel and I were included in that.
“Plus, I like hanging out with you more. And how happy you’ve been here.” She poked my foot with her own. “Tell me what happened with Atlas.”
I exhaled a heavy breath, my chest squeezing painfully all over again. “He saw the emails about the Boston position andassumed I’d take the job. Told me it was a great opportunity and not to worry about the lease here.”
“Okay, but he, like,talkedto you about it, right?”
“No. He texted me what amounted tosee you aroundand then went to One Night Stan’s and didn’t answer my calls or texts.”
“Oh mygod. Seriously?”
“Yep. When he finally showed up at home, we got into it. He said what we had was fake. That it was never supposed to be real.”
Her mouth dropped open as she stared at me. “What adick.”
“Not the worst thing I’ve called him in the past twelve hours.”
“You know what’s going on, right?”
Yeah, I knew what was going on. I’d fallen for the one guy who was more emotionally unavailable than I was, and look where that had gotten me.
“What’s going on is I’d begun to think what we had was real, and he’d been banking on it being fake the entire time.”
