Page 29 of The Right Kind of Wrong

Which was why… “My ex-husband had graduated the year before me, and he—and his family—wanted us to get married,” she answered honestly, feeling the churning in her stomach that came with admitting it. “Honestly, looking back, I feel like it was some sort of test to see how high I would go when they said jump.”

Monroe made a sound of acknowledgement, and Blake wondered, the way Monroe’s eyes shifted away from her, if she’d failed some sort of test. Even if Monroe was judging her, which she wasn’t sure about either way, she was judging herself.

Blake looked out at the yard, where Maisie was having her Barbies climb a tree, like they were on some incredible adventure. She watched Maisie walk them, one by one, across a low-hanging branch.

Sometimes, she wished desperately—the type of regret that carved out a hollowness in her stomach—that she could go back and do it all over again. Forget about pleasing her parents. Forget about living up to the expectations that her sister had set as the perfect older daughter. Definitely forget about thinking that Noah was some sort of catch, that she needed to fall in step or else she’d get left behind.

Noah, as a boyfriend, had been held up by her parents and her friends and practically the whole goddamn town as the most important thing Blake had managed to accomplish in her young life.

Naively, she’d believed them.

His family had moved to town Noah’s sophomore year, into one of the first mansions that had been built at the new country club, set fifteen minutes up in the hills. The neighborhood she and Noah had also called home together.

When he’d set his sights on Blake, she’d felt . . . chosen. It was clear that he could have any girl that he wanted, and he’d picked her.

Monroe, seemingly content to let the silence expand between them, like she could sense Blake was warring with something, stood up quietly and moved toward the sliding door to the kitchen. She did, however, hold up her empty bottle and point at it, signifying that she was going to grab another one.

Blake held up her own hand, asking Monroe to make it two.

Once Monroe disappeared into the house, Blake looked at Maisie again, exploring in the yard like she didn’t have a care in the world. She hoped that the little girls of Cypress Falls didn’t feel the same pressure she had, but from working at the dance studio, she feared she couldn’t confirm that with any degree of confidence.

It started so young, the idea that landing a good man was the biggest accomplishment a girl could achieve.

Noah’s such a catch. Blake had genuinely been told that more times than she could count. And now, looking back, she didn’t know if that had ever been true, given his drinking and cheating and temper.

Noah’s so handsome. Also debatable. His family had money, sure, but his eyes were sort of close together, and anytime that he tried to grow a beard, it was patchy. Plus, he had absolutely no ass. Truly, he already had the ass of a seventy-year-old man. Just flat, and Blake knew that his pants absolutely couldn’t stay up without a belt.

Oh, and her favorite at the time: God must really be shining down on you, Blake, to grab his attention.

She scoffed at that last one, not realizing that Monroe had come outside again until a cold bottle pressed against the back of her hand, the same one held near her face, where her fingertips were toying with her lips.

“That feels nice,” Blake sighed, grateful for the reprieve from her thoughts. She twisted so that she could look up at Monroe, who stood above her, staring down at Blake with a mix of curiosity and concern.

When Monroe passed her the beer, their fingertips brushed, a zing of electricity sparking through her at the simple contact, the human connection that had been so absent from her life.

But she couldn’t revel in it because, almost at the same time, Monroe said, like she’d finally landed on an opinion about what Blake had confided in her, “For the record, your ex-husband and his family sound like real pieces of work.”

Blake tittered awkwardly at the way Monroe so unabashedly gave her opinion. No one talked about the Duvall family like that. Ever. Not in Cypress Falls, at least.

But it was exhilarating to hear, her mind saying, Right!?, even as she tried to come up with a more diplomatic response. Old habits dying hard and all that. Her words were tentative when she finally murmured, “Yeah, I agree with you on that one. There’s no love lost on either side these days, I can tell you that much.”

Monroe let out an indignant huff that Blake found more than a little charming and twisted off the cap of her beer. Then, she moved back to her chair and sat down. Once she was situated, her intense stare focused on Blake again. “Did you marry Noah Duvall?”

“So you have been privy to the gossip around town,” Blake surmised, deflating a little. Of course it was inescapable. She wasn’t that lucky.

The look that crossed Monroe’s face was one Blake hadn’t seen before. Contemplative, maybe. Finally, she responded, “Blake, it wasn’t a big school, and you were popular. Everyone knew who you were dating. I figured if you were willing to leave college early to get married, it had to be someone serious. So call it an educated guess more than anything.”

“Okay, so maybe I was well-known in high school,” Blake agreed, which caused Monroe to let out a snort of laughter.

Monroe was smirking playfully when she said, “Well-known is such a humble way to put it.”

Blake schooled her with a look. “What I was going to add was that, even if I was well-known in high school, I didn’t know that you were paying attention.”

Which was absolutely true. Monroe Lockhart had been aloof, to put it mildly. Quiet. Reserved. Seemingly always in her own world. To Blake, she’d been one of the few girls in Cypress Falls who hadn’t existed like she’d been trying to win a pageant or snag a boyfriend.

And even in Blake’s adolescence, it was something she’d taken notice of more than once.

“Because I was always holed up in the art room and never present for a social function unless it was mandatory?” Monroe stated matter-of-factly, like she wasn’t at all embarrassed about who she’d been in high school.