Page 49 of The Right Kind of Wrong

Monroe wore the heat well, Blake decided. Her hair was down, and the wind whipped through her heavy curls to the best of its ability as they pulled out onto Main Street. Blake could see the gentle sheen of sweat on Monroe’s collarbone after only a few minutes outside.

Even though Blake was buzzing with questions, she let the silence envelope them, some ‘90s country tune playing through her speakers.

Monroe didn’t seem to mind. She stared out the window at the downtown buildings moving slowly by.

Taking Monroe up on her impromptu coffee date was not a sound idea, given that Blake had been planning to use this time to finish up some coursework that was due later tonight—especially after she’d stayed out so late with Holland—but the offer had been too tempting to turn down.

Maybe Blake should have suggested one of the cafés within walking distance, but she wasn’t going to miss the chance to show Monroe the hidden gem that was Slider’s, the coffee shop about fifteen minutes outside of town, on the way to the small waterfalls and walking trails that earned the town its name.

Slider’s hadn’t existed the last time Monroe had lived here, and in Blake’s humble opinion, it was one of the best things that had happened when the town started expanding.

So what if she hoped that she’d get to be the first one to show it to Monroe? Unless she’d already been there before.

Her thoughts returned to Monroe and Denny as they cruised down the street.

If she squinted, she could sort of see it, the two of them as a couple at some point. But Denny was a goofball, through and through. Not immature, per se, but sweet and simple, if she had to label him. He didn’t fit with what Blake would have expected a budding artist to gravitate toward in high school.

Plus, dating in Cypress Falls was always a very public affair, especially for teenagers, and she couldn’t remember ever seeing them out and about, at parties or school dances together.

Thinking back, though, they had always been attached at the hip. Eating lunch together. Walking home from school with one another. Probably cutting class together, if that was something they did.

Blake hadn’t really known either of them then, beyond the anonymous ways kids in a thousand-person high school would cross paths when they didn’t run in the same social circles. Now, though, she was struck by the easy familiarity that they shared with one another, and she realized just how close the two of them had actually been.

What kind of close was the question, and it nagged at her a surprising amount.

Blake could feel herself wanting to dig in. Ask more. Understand more.

Still, she focused on the road as they rolled through downtown. You never could be too careful as far as a rogue elderly person—by car or by foot—was concerned.

As they drove, she made a point not to look at the corner of the park, out Monroe’s window, to which she’d been relinquished during the Wild West Fest. A bitter taste lingered in her mouth about that.

She almost commented on it, but she didn’t want to be that person. The one always complaining. The one who never had a kind word to say.

But she didn’t have a lot of kind thoughts floating around up there, not after seeing Noah at her family’s birthday party. Grace hadn’t even given her a heads-up that he was invited.

It had made making new friends difficult, given that it felt like gossip was ninety percent of the language native to the town. The other ten percent was carefully couched euphemisms either meant to wound or, coming from someone like Allison Landry-Haas, maim.

Everyone Blake was likely to meet already knew what had happened, or they knew of the Duvall family and wouldn’t consider stepping on their toes.

It wasn’t until she was on the outside looking in that she realized how much her position as Noah Duvall’s wife had propped her up in this town. She’d been stupid enough to believe it was because she tried to be a good person that good things happened to her.

Suddenly, with the signing of divorce papers, her hometown was a much less kind and forgiving place. Before, she’d have told you that Cypress Falls was such a welcoming little slice of Texas. She groaned outwardly; the worst part was that she’d have meant those idiotic words, too.

They had stopped at a red light, along the block with the bistros and bars and high-end restaurants, which were just starting to come alive in the late morning.

Monroe looked toward her, concern written across her face. “You okay?”

“What’s the story between you and Denny?” It’s not what she’d meant to ask—to say, even. She sucked in a breath and glanced over to Monroe, waiting for her answer.

Monroe’s arm was extended along the window ledge, her hand tangled through her hair. She lifted an eyebrow. “It’s a tale as old as time. Boy sits behind girl in homeroom. Boy won’t stop asking her about her art. Boy continues to follow her around like a lost puppy for the next four years while also growing ill-advised facial hair because he thinks it’s cool.”

They started moving again, and Blake was grateful for the gentle breeze the truck’s movement kicked back up. “So you guys were together?” she clarified as they took a left at the edge of downtown.

Monroe laughed. “Did people think that? Wow, he’s never going to let me live that down if they did.”

Blake shook her head, confused. “I don’t know what people thought. Just that the two of you were always together. And seeing you both today . . .”

Intimate was the word that came to mind, though she didn’t voice it, already knowing, for some reason, that she wouldn’t like the way it tasted in her mouth.