10
Brynn
Josh stands, arms crossed, staring at what is technically a boat but more closely resembles a giant plastic swan.
When Spencer suggested a trip to the island, I pictured a quaint little wooden boat. Ideally with Spencer and me rowing side by side, our shoulders bumping with every gentle swell of the waves. When we arrived at the marina, I was as surprised as Josh to see two paddleboats tied to the dock. The unobtrusive blue one was quickly claimed by Luce for her and Spencer, leaving Swanzilla for Josh and me.
“Why do we have to do this again?” Josh takes the seat on the right and holds out his hand to help me in.
“We agreed to act like Sloan and Fletch.” I ignore his hand and step into the swan, holding my arms out for balance. “This is what Sloan and Fletch do. Besides, we haven’t seen even a glimpse of Sheldon all day. We might as well enjoy ourselves.”
The moment I say it, a giant wave comes. It rocks the boat so badly that I have to reach for the swan’s neck to steady myself, but my foot slips, and I instead plummet toward the water. At the last second, two hands find my hips and pull. I fly backward, my fall broken by Josh’s body as I land in his lap.
“You okay?”
I blink up at Josh, who is studying me with a concerned ridge between his eyebrows.
“Your thighs are like rocks.”
He stares down at me. “I generally refer to them as quads, and I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
“You go to the gym?”
Josh shakes his head. “No, I run. Ten kilometers every morning.”
Huh. I never knew that.
“Why do you look so confused?” Josh asks.
“I didn’t know you did things in the mornings. I just assumed you were nocturnal and worked at night and slept all day.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m a bartender, Brynn, not an owl. I get up to many things while you’re at work, most of which you don’t know about.”
Now I want to know. I open my mouth to ask what else he does, but Luce calls out from her boat, “You two okay over there?,” reminding me that my ass is still in Josh’s lap.
Again, he holds out his hand with a “Sure you don’t need help?”
I do not go to the gym in the mornings, nor any other time of day. My below-average core strength leaves me with limited options, so I take him up on his offer and use his hand as leverage to lift my hips and hoist myself back into my seat.
Luce and Spencer are already waiting for us in the middle of the bay, making slow, lazy circles in their little blue paddleboat. I’m so preoccupied with watching them that when I reach to steer our boat toward them, I don’t see Josh’s hand doing the same.
I place my hand on top of his a fraction of a second after he touches the joystick. And as I jerk my hand away, I note that in fewer than two minutes, we’ve already had two romantic comedy moments. All the things I’d hoped for tonight are happening. They’re just happening with the wrong guy.
“Why don’t you drive?” I offer, tucking my hand under my thigh. Josh accepts and steers us out into the bay.
Our swan is propelled by two bicycle-like pedals and steered with a single joystick between the seats. We follow Luce and Spence as they weave between a dozen or so islands that litter the small bays and inlets along the coast. Some are just tiny piles of rocks. Others have thick cedar forests you could get lost in.
“See that?” I point to one of the larger forested islands ahead. “I’m pretty sure that’s the spot where one of my favorite episodes of all time takes place.”
Josh’s gaze follows my finger. “Let me guess, the cast gets shipwrecked and washes up on the shore and has to survive the entire episode on nothing but coconuts?”
I ignore the sarcastic tilt in his tone.
“You’re actually not far off. Sloan and Spencer are heading out for a paddle in a very regular, boring rowboat when they notice some storm clouds in the distance. But they ignore them, claiming they’re still far away, and decide they have lots of time to picnic and get home even if the storm does blow in. However, once they dock, they both assume the other has tied up the boat. While they’re eating, they notice their boat has floated out to sea in a current. They’re trapped. And, of course, the storm starts to build and get closer. It’s all very suspenseful.”
Josh slows his paddling. “But let me guess, they’re rescued at the last possible moment.”
I smile. “By Spencer’s dad, who spotted the empty boat from shore.”
Josh nods. “I’m starting to understand what you meant when you said that the show always works out.”
I hold out my arms. “That’s the beauty of Carson’s Cove.”
“But doesn’t it get boring?” He stops paddling completely, letting our boat get carried by the waves. “Don’t you ever wish they threw in something you didn’t see coming, just to mix it up a little?”
I don’t know how to explain to him that the worst moment of my life was something I didn’t see coming. How to explain that I was so unprepared for Matt’s sudden change of heart that I planned a trip to Cabo to surprise him for his thirtieth birthday. The trip was scheduled for precisely a week after Matt’s lawyer served me the divorce papers. I’d completely forgotten about it; it was too late to cancel. I went alone. I arrived at the Hacienda Blanca Resort and Spa and had to sleep in a bed covered in rose petals because I never let the hotel know I was coming solo. They called me Mrs. Dabrowski the whole week. I died a little inside every time but was too mortified to correct them.
“Nope.” I manage to keep my voice even. “I don’t find it boring at all.”
We follow Luce and Spencer, heading toward one of the larger islands, whose jagged, rocky shore does not look all that paddleboat-friendly until we turn the corner to a small bay with a yellow-sand beach nestled between two rock jetties.
“There’s no dock.” I point to the beach. “How exactly do we get this bad boy on land?”
As if answering my question, Luce and Spencer pick up speed. They aim their paddleboat straight at the shoreline, and their momentum carries them onto the sand. Their laughter as they come to an abrupt stop carries across the water.
“Shall we see what our girl is capable of?” Josh gives the side of the swan an affectionate tap.
He doesn’t wait for my answer but instead uses his turbo thighs to paddle harder. I join in, and our swan picks up speed.
Just as we’re about to hit the beach, I see Luce tip her head toward Spencer’s—as if they’re sharing a secret—and it flips a switch in a dark little corner of my heart.
He’s not supposed to be with Luce.
Spencer is Sloan’s.
Just as we’re about to hit the shore, I place my hand on Josh’s and jerk the joystick left. We hit the beach directly behind Luce and Spencer, slamming into the blue boat like a bumper car.
The impact from the crash pitches us both forward. Josh throws out his arm in a soccer-mom save, but he’s not fast enough.
My face hits the back of the swan’s neck with an audible smack.
“Fuuuuddge!” My hands instinctively fly to my nose as my knees curl up against my chest.
“I’m sorry.” My voice is muffled by my hands. “I didn’t mean to do that. Well, I kind of did, but…” I peer at him between splayed fingers. “Are you okay?”
Josh appears to be unharmed. “When I said ‘let’s see what she’s capable of,’ you know I was referring to the swan, right?”
I did. I don’t know what came over me. I want to blame the jet lag. Or whatever you call this feeling of being completely out of my element.
“Oh my god, Sloan, are you okay?” Luce appears on my left. “You’re bleeding. What happened?”
Sure enough, when I remove my hands from my face, they’re stained red.
“There was a bee,” I lie. “It was big. I hate bees.”
Luce nods along, as if bee-sting avoidance is a perfectly logical explanation. Spencer catches sight of the blood and starts to gag. “Oh, crap.” His hand covers his mouth. “I don’t do so well with blood. I’m going…” He doesn’t finish the sentence. He just beelines back to his boat.
To be honest, I’m a little caught off guard by his reaction. I would have expected Spencer to swoop in and tend to my wounds, maybe even scoop me into his arms and carry me to safety, but he keeps his distance, his head turned in the opposite direction as Luce returns with a paper napkin.
“Here.” She hands it to me. “A little pressure should do the trick, but if you’re not feeling well, we should probably go back.”
“No.” Any goodwill she may have earned with that kind gesture vanishes.
I’m not leaving her alone with Spencer.
“It’s just a flesh wound,” I insist. “I’ll be good in a second.”
Luce waits a moment and, when she’s satisfied that the bleeding is under control, leaves to help Spencer unpack their boat.
Once they’re out of earshot, I look at Josh, knowing I owe him an explanation, if not an apology. “I’m so sorry. That was super dumb. And borderline homicidal. I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s just that he doesn’t belong with Luce, and I hate how she always gets between them. I was aiming for a light bump. Just to startle them.”
Josh raises an eyebrow, amused. “I didn’t realize Sloan had such a dark side.”
I shake my head. “Yeah, that wasn’t Sloan. Sloan would have ignored them, then angsted over it later with Poppy. That move was pure Brynn. Am I still bleeding?”
I remove the napkin. Josh cups my face gently in his hands and tilts it upward to get a better look.
“You might end up with a shiner tomorrow, but I think you can pull it off. But please give me a heads-up next time you feel the urge to maim someone.”
“That was my first and last attempt,” I promise, crumpling the bloodstained tissue into my fist.
By the time we exit the swan, Spencer and Luce have set up a small picnic on the other side of the rock jetty. There’s a big blue blanket covered with baguettes, artisan cheeses, and what look like homemade jams.
The paddling and the adrenaline from the crash have left me famished, so I settle next to Josh, who tears one of the baguettes into two and hands me half, which I smother in what I think is goat cheese and strawberry jam.
“Oh my gosh.” I moan involuntarily as I bite. “This is incredible. It tastes like summer.”
“Thank you.” Luce bows her head, her cheeks pinkening. “It’s my third year doing the jam, but the cheese thing is new. I’m still finding my groove.”
“You made this?” I ask, still not fully understanding.
“She’s a woman of many talents,” Spencer answers, smiling at Luce in a way that makes the goat cheese in my stomach curdle.
“Yeah.” Luce shrugs off the compliment. “There’s a weird little corner of the web called CheeseTok. It’s amazing what you can learn online these days.”
Beautiful. Cool. Cheesemonger. How do I even compete?
“So.” I attempt to change the subject. “It’s been so long since we’ve all been together like this, right?”
I’ve managed to time my question while Spencer and Luce are mid-bite. They both make mouth-full motions with their hands and look at Josh, as if assigning him the duty of answering.
“Yup,” he deadpans. “I can’t remember the last time I saw either of you—in person, at least.”
I shoot him a warning look, which he shrugs off with an expression that seems to say, Well, what else did you expect?
Luce, now finished chewing, turns to me. “So I heard you sold your business. Everyone in town was talking about it. You made sundresses, right?”
I guess so. Sheldon mentioned some sort of business in Boston. Sloan wore many sundresses and dreamed of being a designer, so I guess it all makes sense. “Yeah, I sold it to, umm, Anthropologie,” I lie. “I don’t like to go into the details too much. It’s all very hush-hush.”
“Lots of espionage in the sundress industry,” Josh pipes up. “You can never be too careful.”
“Well, I think it’s great that you went out and did it,” Luce continues. “I kind of pegged you for two kids and a golden retriever by now. It’s a surprise.”
I don’t know what Luce is doing. Whether intentional or not, she’s said the worst possible thing. I have to grit my teeth and make another jam baguette to keep my chin from going wobbly.
I’m over Matt. It took thirteen months and signed divorce papers for me to stop wanting him back.
The part I’ve never gotten over, however, is the dream.
I had plans.
We had plans.
And when the imaginary kids and the imaginary golden retriever suddenly didn’t exist anymore, I grieved them like a death, and you never completely get over a death.
“So, Luce.” Josh hands me another hunk of cheese and bread as he speaks. “When was the last time you left the island, and how exactly did you do it?”
I shoot Josh a glare. He’s being way too obvious. But Luce doesn’t seem bothered by his blunt question.
“To be honest,” she says, “I can’t remember the last time. I’m a farmer now, and since it’s just me out on my farm, it’s really tough to get away.”
I nearly choke on my bread. “Did you just say you’re a farmer?”
She laughs. “I completely get that face you’re making. Not exactly what I thought I’d be either. But I took an agriculture course randomly at State, and I got hooked. I own a farm on the south side of the island. Two horses, three goats, and a whole bunch of chickens.” She holds up the cheese. “This is from my goats, Betty and Veronica. You should come to see the farm sometime.”
Spencer holds up his bread. “It’s really beautiful.”
“You’ve been?” The goat-cheese taste in my mouth turns bitter.
“Yeah.” Spencer nods, answering my question. “Luce picked me up early. She gave me a tour before we met you guys.”
A lump of something forms at the back of my throat. It feels almost like a tiny piece of bread is stuck. But it lingers no matter how much I try to swallow it away.
Tonight is not going how I wanted it to—at all.
Spencer shouldn’t be canoodling with Luce. He should be pining after Sloan, waiting for the perfect moment to tell her how he feels.
“Well, Fletch and I had a great day too.” I lean my head on Josh’s shoulder, trying a different tactic.
Josh, however, does not get the memo and shifts his body so that my head slides off.
“We’re calling that great, huh?”
I smile as if he’s joking. “Totally. We drove around a bit. Went to Pop’s.”
Josh snorts.
I attempt to whack him in the ribs with the back of my hand. However, he fully anticipates this move, catching my fingers in his before I make contact. He holds my hand for a moment and squeezes before setting it down on the blanket.
It’s a move I fully interpret as a warning message. A firm but clear Watch it, Brynn.
Spencer, however, sees something else.
All of a sudden, he shifts from giving Luce admiring looks to staring daggers at Josh.
“So, Fletch.” Spencer sits up from his elbows. “You still working at the bar?”
Josh shrugs. “Apparently.”
“And Sherry’s still running the show?”
Josh nods. “She appears to be.”
“I’ll bet you’re hoping to get out of there soon.”
Josh laughs a slow, low chuckle. “You have no idea, man.”
This is good.
Exactly what I hoped would happen.
“Josh is a really great bartender.” I give Josh the same look Spencer gave Luce about the cheese.
“Who’s Josh?” Spencer looks understandably confused.
“I meant Fletch,” I say, backtracking. “Josh is just the nickname I call him sometimes.”
Spencer’s eyes darken. “Are you guys…together?”
“No, no, no. We’re just friends!” I answer, then realize I like how he’s looking at me. “But who knows.” I keep my tone light. “Now that we’re all back in Carson’s Cove, anything can happen.”
“I guess….” Spencer takes a long sip of his water, and as he does, Josh leans in, his voice low.
“What are you doing?” he growls in my ear.
“Nothing,” I answer through clenched teeth. “Just making conversation.”
He pauses for another breath, as if he’s thinking about saying something else, but instead leans away.
“What about you, Spencer?” I ask. “Did you like living in LA?”
Spencer smiles, as if he’s been waiting for me to ask this question.
“LA has such an iconic vibe. Iconic people. Iconic scene. It’s really…”
“Iconic?” Josh deadpans.
Spencer nods, oblivious. “Yeah, but I missed this place. I missed the smell of ocean air.” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
“Isn’t LA on the ocean?” Josh asks.
“Yeah.” Spencer opens his eyes. “But it’s different.”
There’s a question I’m longing to ask him. Has he pined for Sloan the way I know she has for him?
“Was there, um, anyone special in your life while you were out there?” I attempt to sound nonchalant. “Like a pet? Or a girlfriend?”
Spencer shakes his head. “I’m not the kind of guy that can be fulfilled by a superficial fling or a one-night stand. I think I’ve always been the kind of guy who believes that when you fall in love, there’s no coming back from it. You fall hard. All in. And it either stands the test of time or it wrecks you.”
My heart clenches.
Josh snorts.
Spencer glares at him. “I know it’s been awhile, but I have a hard time believing you’re suddenly an expert on true love.”
Josh looks amused. “And why is that?”
Spencer crosses his arms. “Well…your track record, for one. You’ve always preferred quick and easy to anything lasting or meaningful. You started that band and then never played after your first gig. You ran that entire campaign to be prom king and never showed up to prom. Mandy? Tammy? What was that other one’s name? Jolene? How many times have you quit the Bronze because something better suddenly came up? I’m not saying you’re a bad guy, Fletch. You just tend to prioritize your impulses over long-term commitment.”
“Come on, Spencer.” Luce hits Spencer in the arm.
He ignores her. “What? You don’t agree with me?”
“No, you’re right,” Josh says with a completely straight face. “Classic…Fletch. And you know what? I’m feeling the impulse right now to depart this picnic a little early.” He gets to his feet, brushing the sand from his shorts. “Thanks for dinner,” he says, mainly to Luce. “I’m going to go for a walk.” He heads off in the direction of the woods.
Spencer seems to shrug off Josh’s sudden departure as Fletch being Fletch, but Luce watches him leave. When he’s out of sight, her focus shifts to the sky and the sun that is now no more than a hazy hue of orange on the horizon.
“I’m thinking we should probably head back soon,” she says, more to me than to Spencer. “It’s getting kind of late, and the wind coming in from the east makes me think there’s some weather coming.”
Her eyes flick to the woods and then back to me.
“I guess I’ll go get Josh,” I offer, then realize my mistake. “Fletch. I’ll go get Fletch.”
She narrows her eyes but nods. “Thanks. I’ll pack up the boat.”
I get to my feet and follow the path Josh took earlier.
I find him at the very edge of the forest, sitting on a rock, ripping the bark from a stick he must have picked up along the way.
“What is wrong with you?”
He looks up at the sound of my voice.
“What is wrong with me?” He gets to his feet, throwing the stick to the ground.
“Yes. What was that? You just stormed off.”
He crosses his arms. “What are you doing, Brynn?”
I hold up my hands, wondering why it isn’t obvious. “I’m checking to see if you’re okay.”
He shakes his head. “No. I mean, what are you doing tonight? What was that weird game you were playing?”
“I’m not playing anything.”
He takes a step forward, his eyes pinning me. “I’m not stupid. You were using me to make him jealous.”
“I was not…I didn’t…”
“That is what you actually want, isn’t it?” He takes a step closer. “To date Mr. Dreamy Blue Eyes? Fall in love?”
My gut wants to brush him off with some noncommittal comment, like They’re more of a seafoam color, but I can’t get that out, nor can I get out the actual reason.
Josh shakes his head as if he knows an answer isn’t coming and starts to walk off again.
“Okay, okay,” I call after him. “Fine. I got to thinking about it more, and maybe we should give Sloan the ending she deserves.”
“Unbelievable.” Josh scoffs and keeps walking, but he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand.
“Please, Josh.” My voice cracks, and this time he does stop. “It’s really important.”
I can see the rise and fall of his back as he breathes, but he doesn’t turn around. “Why?” he finally says.
“Why what?”
“Why is it so important?”
I don’t know what else he wants to hear.
I have many reasons, most of which I’ve barely admitted to feeling, let alone said out loud.
That Sloan deserved better. That she gave everything to Spencer, and he just walked away without a second thought. Without ever looking back.
Josh grows impatient and starts to walk away again.
“It’s for me too,” I call after him. “I need this, Josh.”
I don’t know why that came out. But as I turn the words over again in my head for a second time, I realize how true they are.
“This will probably come as a shock,” I continue, “but my life hasn’t exactly been going how I wanted it to.” My voice wavers, and I consider leaving it there for a moment, but the rest rushes out before I can stop it. “I thought I found my person. But we never made it to the happily-ever-after part. Which means either that he wasn’t the person I was meant to be with in the first place or that everything we’ve been told about love is complete and total crap. Because if that’s the case, you can find your soulmate, your perfect other half, and he can wake up one day and decide, Sorry. I changed my mind. This just isn’t for me anymore.”
Josh turns slowly back around, but as his eyes find mine, I chicken out and drop my gaze to the hollowed log at his feet. “And although I’m still a little jaded when it comes to love,” I continue, “I’m not quite ready to start believing that it’s all hopeless.” I finally look over at him again. “And that’s where Sloan comes in. Spencer is her guy. He always has been. If love doesn’t work out for them, in a place like this, where everything works out exactly as it’s meant to, well, then the rest of us are doomed.”
I finally find the courage to meet Josh’s eyes, but now his face is so unreadable that I immediately regret telling him all of this.
“Wow. That became much more of a monologue than I intended.” I make a lame attempt at making my voice light. “Sorry for the rant. I’m being stupid, I know.”
He takes a step toward me. “You’re not being stupid at all.”
His voice is low and soft, and his eyes are so kind as he reaches out his hand, as if he’s going to pull me into a hug, but then stops, letting his hand fall to his side.
“Thank you,” I tell him.
He shakes his head, confused. “For what?”
“For not making fun of me.”
He folds his arms across his chest. “I don’t exactly know what you or Sloan see in Spencer, but I’ll help you if I can. I’ll even act like this Fletch guy—the handsome and charming bartender everyone secretly adores—if that’s what it takes.”
I snort, and he smiles, as if that was the reaction he wanted.
“I don’t know if I used the words handsome and charming.” I walk toward him, closing the remaining gap between us. “But thank you, I appreciate it.”
He holds out his fist. It takes me a second to realize he’s looking for a bump.
As our fists connect, a cool breeze blows through the woods, sending out an echo of soft cracks of breaking branches.
“It’s getting pretty late. I think Spencer and Luce want to head out pretty soon. You ready?”
He nods. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
We walk silently out of the woods.
When we get back to the beach, the picnic is gone, and Luce and Spencer are nowhere to be found.
“Where’d they go?” I ask Josh as I notice that the blue paddleboat is also missing.
“Maybe they decided to take a paddle around the island while they were waiting for us,” Josh offers.
His words make logical sense.
I, however, know better.
We take a seat on the rock jetty and wait for five minutes, just to make sure, but there is no blue paddleboat coming around the bend.
Luce.
I knew it.
This was probably her plan all along. Wait for the perfect moment and then make a move to get Spencer alone.
“We better get going.” I rise to my feet. “I don’t think they’re coming back.”
Josh looks up at me, his eyes wide. “Um, Brynn. Did you remember to tie up our boat?”
Panic floods my chest. “Oh my god. Oh my god.”
My eyes flick to the sky, searching for storm clouds as I start to run to the spot on the beach where we last left our boat.
“Hey, Brynn,” Josh calls after me.
I slow just enough to turn my head back to him.
He’s wearing an almost manic shit-eating grin.
“I’m just fudging with you.”