Something was up.
Superiore Bay was a rather nosey town. It was something everyone who grew up here got used to. There was a particular interest in my family, the antics of my brothers and my cousins.
The Weekly Wine was a town icon, the newspaper designed to share town gossip.
But this time, it held something more serious. I could tell.
I was sitting in the town square, steps away from the gazebo, where a ring of the town’s worst gossipers congregated in the mornings. They were the old lady crew, a band of retired women who spent their summers hanging out in the park, never alone.
They’d always kind of scared me a bit, mostly because they were the only people in town who didn’t give me deference.
“Conner! Conner Ashford.” A woman shuffled my way, and I looked up, relieved it was Mrs. Chapman and not her counterparts. I wasn’t in the mood for the overt flirting I normally got from Mrs. Peterson and Mrs. Jeffries.
I grimaced, taking note of the copy of the Weekly Wine she waved in the air. “Have you seen it?”
I sighed, realizing I should have taken the time to pick up a copy this morning before braving town. Setting my coffee down on the table next to the documents I’d been reading, I stood. Sometimes, I stopped in the town square after meetings to catch my breath, to get some space before going back to the main offices, where my father would demand every moment of my time. I was still working, just without him breathing down my neck.
“Morning, Mrs. Chapman.”
She frowned. Mrs. Chapman was a formidable woman. “You haven’t bothered to read the news today, have you?”
“It’s not news if it’s in the Weekly Wine. It’s gossip.”
She waved away my words and slapped the paper down on top of my folder of documents. “This time, it’s news.”
I sighed. She wasn’t going to go away until I read it.
“Look at the sightings section,” she said.
I flipped the page, my eyes drifting to the column that usually made at least some mention of one of the Ashford boys. But it wasn’t about us.
The headline read “Selena Contreras, Sleeping With the Enemy?” My throat tightened, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know more. But I couldn’t stop myself.
The short paragraph described a wayward Lena, sneaking off to Hidden Cove, our rival town, to meet a secret date. And not just anyone. There was a picture, and I recognized the man instantly. Colin Hillson.
The Hillson family ran Hidden Cove in much the same way the Ashfords did Superiore Bay.
And Lena was dating him?
An unfamiliar feeling curled inside me, something dark and foreboding. For a moment, I realized what an intrusion of privacy it was that someone photographed them, but then my sympathy for her faded away.
Selena knew better.
Dating a Hillson was even worse than an Ashford and a Contreras being together. At least both our families wanted our town to succeed, to thrive. The Hillsons only wanted to tear us down.
“We need to fix this.” Mrs. Chapman crossed her arms.
I’d almost forgotten she was there as my mind whirled with what this meant, and anger swirled in me. I crumpled the paper in my fists. “Lena will do whatever she wants.”
“I know your families have their differences, but all of us old women thought it was only a matter of time before you were joined in marriage.”
The blood froze in my veins, and I stared at her. “What?”
“You know, your families. Selena and Carter have always been headed that way.” She placed a hand on my arm. “I wanted you to be able to be the one to tell him before he finds out another way.”
Breath entered my lungs, but it didn’t stop me from feeling like I was being held underwater. The town expected me to fix this. I could see it in Mrs. Chapman’s gaze.
I had to get away from her before I told her what I really thought of Lena and her stupidity in dating someone from Hidden Cove.
This town would never forgive her.
Movement across the square caught my eye. “Sorry, I have a cousin I need to go deal with.” I gathered my things, threw my half-full coffee in the trashcan, and jogged to where I’d just seen Max disappear into the alleyway between the coffee shop and the bookstore.
I caught up with him only to find he wasn’t alone. His younger sister, Emery, was there with him. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen my two youngest cousins. Their dad had a falling out with mine when I was a kid, and since then, all holiday invitations had been lost in the mail.
“Shouldn’t you two be in school?”
They both jerked around when they heard me. Emery looked scared, but Max lifted his chin defiantly. “What’s up, Conner?”
I raised a brow. “That’s what you have to say for yourself? It’s the middle of the morning, Max.”
“Thanks for the reminder, Dad.”
I sighed and set my sights on the easier one, Emery. The two of them were twins, but more different than alike. They were sixteen, and I barely knew them. How sad was that?
Emery finally lifted her eyes to mine. “We needed a break, okay?”
“A break?”
Max nodded. “We have our game against Hidden Cove this week.”
Game, now it made sense. Max was the quarterback of the football team. I’d seen him play a few times, and he was good, but he also had a tendency to let his nerves get the better of him. And the Hidden Cove Spring game was the biggest game of the year despite not counting toward the regular season.
My mind immediately went to Lena, wondering who she’d be rooting for in the game. There were three Hillson kids on the other team.
I shook thoughts of her from my head, sympathy for my cousins returning. I knew what it was like to face the pressure of being an Ashford in this town. Even worse was being the spurned Ashfords. They had the name and all the expectations that came with it without the money or the business.
Though, I had my suspicions that my grandfather made sure they were taken care of. My father didn’t control all the purse strings.
From the set of Max’s shoulders, I knew going back to school wasn’t what he needed. And Emery, she was the good one who never did anything wrong—unless it was for either of her brothers.
“Okay, fine. Come with me, and I’ll buy you two something to eat at the diner.” I wasn’t sure when I’d gone soft or why I wanted to help them, but I had this new urge to be more than what everyone thought of me, to surprise people.
And it seemed like I’d succeeded because the twins looked at each other like they didn’t trust what I was offering.
“You’re not making us go back?” Max asked.
“Not until you’ve had some pie.”
Emery looked at me. “But it’s morning.”
“And?” I gestured to the end of the alleyway. “Come on. If we get lemon meringue or apple, we can pretend we’re just eating fruit.”
They hustled out of the alley, and I ignored the stares of the ladies in the park. In the next Weekly Wine, I was sure there’d be a sighting of me helping my truant cousins. It was a good thing my father didn’t read the paper.
We were about to step inside the diner when I noticed Carter heading up the street toward us.
“You guys grab a booth, I’ll be right in.”
They both shrugged and left me to wait for my brother.
Carter shielded his eyes from the sun and smiled when he got to me. “Was that Emery and Max I saw you with?”
I nodded, crossing my arms.
His smile widened. “Oh good. I’ve been meaning to chat with Emery. I have a book she might like.”
“Wait a second … you read?”
Carter tried to look offended, but it didn’t work while he was laughing. “Try not to look so shocked, brother. Em and I have been exchanging books for the last two years. We’re both obsessed with the same fantasy author.”
I hadn’t even known Carter was in contact with the twins, but then, Carter and I didn’t do much talking either.
He tried to push past me into the diner, but I put a hand out to stop him. “Wait …” I drew in a breath. “Did you see the Weekly Wine?”
“No.” Carter laughed. “I never read that stuff, but what’s interesting, Conner, is that apparently you do.”
“No, what’s interesting is your girlfriend was seen eating lunch with Colin Hillson in Hidden Cove.”
Carter rolled his eyes to the sky. “I’m not sure how many times I have to tell people it’s not like that with Lena.”
“Maybe not with you, but now she’s seeing the enemy.”
“Enemy? Conner, do you hear yourself? You’re spouting out headlines written by the bored people of this town. Leave it alone.”
“So, you don’t care? At all?” I would never believe he didn’t have feelings for Lena. Why else would he defy our father time and again to see her?
Maybe for the same reason Duke ran to her. The same reason I’d stayed to talk instead of leaving the minute I found my dog. There was something about her that was impossible to dislike once she let her walls down, something compelling.
Carter sighed. “It is none of my business who she sees or doesn’t see.” He pushed past me and stopped with his hand on the door. “And it’s none of yours.”
I knew that. So, why did I feel like it was?
I followed Carter in, but he didn’t go straight to the booth Max and Emery had chosen. I slid in, watching my brother walk to the back where Enzo sat, hovering over a mug of what I assumed was coffee.
Carter didn’t stop at his table, but I could have sworn he dropped something onto it. A note, maybe? I rubbed my eyes. Maybe I’d imagined it.
Carter slipped into the bathroom, and I turned to my cousins, not really sure what to say.
We ordered pie and then stared at each other for too long. When Carter returned, it was like the entire diner sighed with relief at the end of the awkwardness. He immediately got them talking, and all I had to do was listen.
Listening, I could do. It was every other part of socializing I got wrong.
Even with family.