Page 18 of The Right Kind of Wrong

For just a second, her eyes lingered on Monroe’s body, in the jeans that she hadn’t changed out of and the black tank top that strained against her chest.

If Blake did remember her, she might have been cataloging all of the ways that Monroe had changed. She was taller. Fuller-figured. She had hair she no longer tried to tame with a straight iron to fit in.

A few times in their adolescence, a subtler version of this look had been turned in her direction, she was sure. There weren’t specific moments that Monroe could recall, but there had been the overall sense that Blake was taking everything in with startling clarity.

And, right now, that thing was Monroe.

She wondered what it meant until Blake said, her voice full, “I need to apologize to you. I’ve been thinking about how idiotic it was to wander into your house on Friday. And I am so, so sorry about making your daughter cry.”

The wind deflated from Monroe’s sails, even as she chided herself for even considering that the look was anything other than remorse.

Of course Blake would be apologizing, given that she felt like she’d done something wrong. She probably still went to church every Sunday, too.

Monroe twisted the cap off her beer and sat down on the chair diagonally from the sofa. “That’s kind of you. And for the record, Maisie’s not my daughter. She’s my niece.”

Monroe assumed there would be a lot of her repeating that information as the weeks wore on, even though it opened up the floor to uncomfortable follow-up questions she didn’t really want to answer.

Still, her words seemed to settle something in Blake’s mind; the intensity in her eyes was back. She leaned forward, her elbow resting on the arm of the sofa. “Monroe Lockhart. It is you.”

Monroe held her beer up and tipped it toward Blake. “The one and only.” No point in lying, even if it had been her knee-jerk thought.

“I thought it was you, on Friday, but well, it didn’t seem like the best thing to circle back and ask, given how we’d left things. So you’re visiting?” Blake asked, sitting a little farther back on the sofa, which created a few extra inches of space between them.

Monroe wasn’t sure why, but it let her breathe a little easier. Think a little more clearly. She pursed her lips. She wasn’t quite sure what she was doing, and she didn’t especially want to get into it all right now. “I’ll be here for a while.”

“And you have a . . . show?” was the word Blake settled on, her voice ticking up to make it a question before she added, “That you’re getting ready for?”

“Guess that explains how much you heard,” Monroe responded, appreciating that at least Blake wasn’t pretending.

It felt like that was all anyone did anymore, and playing those kinds of games—ones that she hadn’t escaped in New York, not by a long shot—made her feel like she was going to crawl out of her skin.

Blake held her hands up, a lopsided, almost nervous smile playing on her lips. “I figured after Friday, honesty was the best policy.”

“I’m a painter, and I have a show coming up. I need to have my supplies shipped to me so that I can keep working.” Before Blake could ask anything else, which she’d undoubtedly do out of at least politeness, Monroe steered the conversation away from herself. “Are you new to the neighborhood?”

It was something Monroe had been meaning to ask since their first run-in. Granted, Maisie wasn’t the most social kid, but it was surprising that the person who lived twenty feet away from them wouldn’t have any idea about their next-door neighbors.

Not in a town like Cypress Falls, at least.

Blake let out a long, slow exhale before taking another sip of beer. A look flashed across her face, but it was gone quickly. “I just moved in last week, actually.”

Monroe tried to think back. In high school, Blake had been dating some alpha male wannabe who hulked down the hallway with his arms swinging like the existence of other people personally aggrieved him. Nate? Noah?

Yeah, that was the one. Noah Duvall.

And then more pieces clicked into place. Duvall Distribution, one of the sponsors for the festival today.

Her lips curled up, like she’d just taken a bad swig of her beer.

God, she hoped that Noah Duvall wasn’t her neighbor. Sure, people could change, but not people who only had more things handed to them as life went on, not fewer.

She decided to rip the Band-Aid off, asking, “Just you?”

Blake chewed at the inside of her cheek, mulling over something before she finally answered, “Just me. Recently divorced and all that,” she said with a dismissive wave that didn’t quite land, given how she ran her hands through her hair afterward, a little nervously. “I’m sure you’ll hear about it sooner or later.”

As if Monroe could give a shit that Blake was divorced. It was, honestly, the best news she’d received today. At least she wouldn’t be living next to some golden boy of Cypress Falls—whichever one Blake had chosen to settle down with.

Nodding, Monroe tried to hide her relief. “If it’s any consolation, I hadn’t heard about it. Then again, I’m not exactly a social butterfly. That much hasn’t changed.”