Page 2 of The Hometown Heartbreaker

There was a two-second pause. I could practically hear the wheels turning as her brain worked to discern whether or not that was sarcasm.

“Do you actually want me to tell him you died?” she ventured.

Yes, I did. It would save me an awkward conversation. I’d intended to end things with Peter for weeks, but like most things that required a confrontation of emotion, I’d let it fester in the soft, recessed corners of my mind, just praying he’d take the hint and move on when I took two to four days to respond to a text, or was ‘too busy’ to see him. He hadn’t. The only reason tonight’s dinner date was in my schedule was that it had been there for six weeks. Getting a reservation at this restaurant was difficult, so he’d booked it in advance.

The truth was, I didn’t even dislike Peter. He was a six-foot-two mergers and acquisitions attorney who sent me clever memes and showed up to work events and dinner parties, exuding charisma and wit. He was good with words, the man could charm birds out of trees. But the relationship was about to reach its one-year mark, and that meant it was time to bail.

Women were always complaining about men not wanting to settle down, not wanting commitment, I’d found the exact opposite to be true. The handful of relationships I’d had in my adult life had all ended because the men wanted more, triggering those good ol’ fight-or-flight instincts.

It wasn’t that I’d put a specific timeframe on my serial monogamy situationships. It just seemed to be that was about the time men started bringing up things like, moving in together, settling down, or, gasp, marriage, dun dun duuun.

The thing was, I wanted those things, truly I did, I just didn’t want them with any of the people I’d dated, at least not in my adult life. So, I cut my losses and bailed every time.

“Just cancel, tell him I’m out of town,” I directed plainly, leaving no room for misinterpretation.

“When will you be back?”

“I don’t know. A few days maybe.”

“But you have the Ashbourne dinner on Friday.” The plea and panic in her voice were evident.

Advertising was a competitive field. It always had been, but with the introduction of artificial intelligence, it was more cutthroat than ever. I’d been trying to lock down Ashbourne Hotel and Resorts as a client for three years. It was a global luxury hotel chain, but they tended to keep things in-house because it was a family run business. I had to admit, I was surprised when Mason Ashbourne, in his role as COO, finally agreed to dinner. No, not agreed, he’d requested the meeting himself after his married CEO was caught in extremely compromising positions with about a dozen different staff members.

The TikToks were going wild of guests staying in the hotels and catching Lyle Ashbourne Sr. in the act.

Janine attempted to warn me, “You know that if you’re not at that meeting, Tyson will⁠—”

“I know,” I cut her off before assuring her, “It’ll be fine.”

Tyson Finch had been gunning for partnership at the firm since my name started getting mentioned as being in the running. Did he deserve it? Nope. But he had a dick and morals that allowed him to take clients out and hire them escorts. I did a lot to acquire contracts, worked my ass off, went the extra mile to make sure they were happy, but securing sex workers was where I drew the line. Also, I didn’t have a penis, and I refused to sleep with my bosses, and/or so those factors worked against me as well.

In fairness, Finch loved the game of advertising. Closing the deal. Catching the white whale. I, on the other hand, fell into advertising. When I moved to New York I didn’t have any plans for work or school, so Uncle Ronnie got me an internship at his firm, Bishop & Black Creative. I started making copies, taking lunch orders, and fetching coffees, and little by little I found myself offering suggestions to the agents. Within six months, I went from unpaid intern to the highest-grossing Jr. Associate at B.B.C. It turned out, I was really good at listening to clients, getting to the heart of their needs, and coming up with creative ways to achieve their goals.

As an only child, growing up in the house with a sick mom and a grandpa who worked twelve-hour days on the farm, seven days a week, I was used to being in my head and creating worlds in there. I’d had to occupy myself a lot of the time.

“What if Finch poaches⁠—”

“I’ll call you after I see my grandfather,” I cut her off for the second time. I understood that the client meeting was a big deal, but right now, I didn’t have the bandwidth to discuss it.

“But, I need—” she rushed out.

“I’ll call you back.” I hung up and took a deep, cleansing breath as I glanced out the back seat passenger window.

It had been over a decade since I’d set foot in Valentine Bay. Twelve years since the day I’d packed my bags, got on a plane to New York, and showed up on Uncle Ronnie’s front porch asking if I could stay for the night. That one night turned into four years before I got a tiny 400 square foot basement sublet of my own, but I never looked back. I’d fled that night heartbroken, angry, and terrified of what my future held in store.

A dozen years was time enough to make a place mythic in my mind, a grainy, oversaturated snapshot. I braced myself as I inhaled the salty sea air and took in the wide, relentless blue sky, a shade brighter than the waters of the coastline that hugged the town. But as the Uber took the exit off the Pacific Coast Highway and into the heart of town, it was the sameness that gut-punched me so hard I almost gasped.

The familiar faded “Welcome to Valentine Bay, Est. 1883” sign, with the loopy blue font and the spray of pink hearts, lording over the boardwalk and downtown like a plastic wedding cake topper. The white clapboard church on the hill where I’d always wanted to say my vows. The same row of red-brick storefronts, still occupied in the exact same order: Main Street Eats diner on the corner, Be Mine Bakery, Ever After Blooms florist, Valentine Tools hardware, Love Letters & Lace Antiques, all of them probably run by the same people who’d run them when I was a kid. The same two-block strip of high school banners flapping from the lampposts reading “Go Cupids!” and I felt a ridiculous pang of nostalgia and sadness, melancholy maybe.

Everywhere I looked, I saw him. Dawson Lockhart. The man who I’d spent six of my formative years with. He asked me to be his girlfriend the summer between seventh and eighth grade, and we didn’t break up until the day after graduation. He was as much a part of this town as the ocean, the pier, the marina, the cove, the beaches, any of it. He was woven into its fabric, woven into my fabric.

The car glided past the fire station, the library, the boardwalk crowded with tourists and locals. It felt like time had folded itself in half, and I was peeking into my own childhood from across some invisible, uncrossable divide. Or maybe this was a Ghosts of Christmas Past sort of thing, and I’d get to visit the Ghost of Christmas Future. I wasn’t sure, but it all felt so strange.

We pulled up to the Valentine Bay Medical Center and the knot in my stomach tightened like it was being twisted in a tourniquet. After taking a deep breath, I got out of the car and stepped onto the sidewalk. The driver retrieved my overnight bag from the trunk and set it beside me.

“Thank you,” I told him. He nodded, got back inside, and drove away.

Dread overwhelmed me as I faced the glass doors buzzing open and shut with the rhythm of exhalation, the faint antiseptic tang already tickling my sinuses. I could hear my own pulse thumping behind my eardrums and, below that, the low electrical hum of the building, the whoosh of the doors, a child’s shriek echoing off the awning before being shushed and softened by a nurse.