11
Josh
“She was probably planning it all night,” Brynn continues. “Waiting for her perfect opportunity to get Spencer alone.”
I’m tempted to point out that she already had Spencer alone when he went to pick her up, but I don’t think Brynn wants to hear it.
“She’s always in the way,” Brynn goes on. “Always messing things up, and I’m sick of it. She hates Sloan.”
This is where Brynn and the events of tonight don’t jibe. I get that Brynn’s watched this show a lot, but the Luce I met tonight and the Luce she’s describing are not one and the same.
“She seemed pretty nice to me. It may have been something else,” I offer. “A family emergency or something.”
Brynn shakes her head. “You’ll see soon enough, Josh, trust me.”
I drop it. This is an argument I know I can’t win.
We weave in and out of the islands in our best attempt to retrace our path from earlier. It’s gotten dark since we left, and although the water is relatively calm, the warm breeze from earlier in the evening has cooled to a slight chill. I look over at Brynn. The smooth skin of her arms prickles with a rush of tiny goosebumps. She shivers.
“You warm enough?”
Brynn rubs the exposed skin of her arms with her palms. “Sloan’s sundress designs may be fashionable, but they are not all that functional.”
It occurs to me for the first time that she’s not wearing the same clothes from this morning. “Where’d you get the dress?”
She pulls the hem down in an attempt to cover her knees, which is futile, as it rides back up with every turn of the pedals. “Sloan’s closet. It’s full of them. She’s lacking in the hoodie department though. Believe me, I looked.”
“Here.” I take off my sweatshirt. “Fair warning, I have been wearing that thing since last night, but it will keep you warm.”
She shakes her head, refusing to take it from my hand. “I’m fine. I don’t need it.”
“You’re shivering.” I place it in her hands. “Just take it.”
Her eyes momentarily drop to my arms before she grabs the sweatshirt. “Fine. You win. And thank you.”
She puts my sweatshirt on. We paddle for a few more minutes, and I start to feel tired. Not because of the exercise, but from the feeling that the adrenaline of the day has finally worked its way through my system, leaving me spent.
“It has been a day,” I say, more to the universe than to Brynn, but she snorts as if in agreement.
“Is it weird that I keep thinking it’s a dream?” I ask her. “Like I’m going to wake up at any moment?”
Brynn tilts her head toward mine. “At one point this afternoon, I convinced myself that I must be in a coma. That my lifeless body was hooked up to one of those breathing machines, and I was going to open my eyes and find myself in a bed at St. Mike’s Hospital.”
I let my hand skim the surface of the water. As I lift it back into the boat, it drips tiny droplets onto my lap. Very real droplets. “Is it what you thought it would be?”
Brynn’s eyebrows knit together. “What do you mean?”
“This place,” I clarify. “You’ve watched the show a lot. I assumed you had a preformed idea of what it would be like to live here. Is it everything you thought it would be?”
She leans her head back against the seat and stares up at the sky for a moment. “I guess so. It looks the same. Everyone is a little bit older, obviously, but yeah, it’s Carson’s Cove.”
We paddle in silence for a few minutes. The night is quiet, and if you ignore that we’re trapped in an alternate reality, it’s kind of peaceful.
“I know this is a bit of a random question,” Brynn says, breaking the silence. “But what is Fletch’s room like?”
It’s so far from the question that I was expecting that I don’t know how to answer. “What do you mean?”
She shrugs, and I’m not sure if it’s that my sweatshirt is so large on her or that she’s intentionally shrinking down, but she almost looks embarrassed. “It’s just that they never showed it on the show. Every other character had all sorts of scenes in their room, but Fletch never did. I’ve always been…I don’t know…curious?”
I think about Fletch’s room. “I wish I had more exciting details to tell you, but it’s fairly basic. Bed. Nightstand. Closet and bathroom. It’s actually eerily similar to my old apartment. Straight down to the stairs that go into the bar.”
“You lived above a bar?” Brynn raises one brow, as if she doesn’t quite believe me.
“I did.”
“Actually?”
I gave Brynn my previous addresses and employment when I first moved in, but I was never sure how deeply she looked into it.
“My dad owned a bar,” I explain. “I worked there and lived above it until he passed away a few years ago.”
Brynn’s face clouds with that familiar look of pity. “I’m sorry. Were the two of you close?”
“Very,” I tell her honestly. “That whole thing with Spence and the Bronze earlier…It triggered some stuff that I thought I’d dealt with….”
She reaches out and touches my shoulder. It’s just a light press of her fingers, but I can feel their warmth beneath my shirtsleeve.
“This is going to sound completely clichéd, but someone once told me that grief is love with no place to go. Sometimes it bubbles up at the oddest of moments.” She holds my gaze as she says it. “If you want to hear about an overreaction—my ex, Matt, used to have this bright-blue polo shirt that he loved. After we divorced, I automatically hated any man wearing a bright-blue polo. Didn’t matter how nice the guy or the shirt was, the reaction from me was visceral.” She pulls her hand away from my shoulder. “Now I can’t even set foot inside a Best Buy.”
She laughs, and I find myself laughing too until a thought occurs. “Hey. I used to have a bright-blue polo, but it went missing from the dryer shortly after I moved in.”
Brynn turns her head, but not before I catch her smiling.
“Yeah, sorry about that. I’ll replace it if we get back.”
“When we get back,” I correct her.
She shakes her head and closes her eyes, but when she opens them again, her gaze shifts to something up ahead. “We’re not home yet, but at least we can say we made it back to the marina.” She points to a smattering of yellow lights in the distance.
Sure enough, as we get closer, I start to make out the outline of the boathouse, then the dock with a bright-blue paddleboat tied up next to it.
I follow Brynn’s gaze to the person sitting on the end of the dock, khakis rolled up to mid-shin. Spencer waves as we approach.
“Hey! You guys made it. I was starting to get worried.”
His open shirt catches in the breeze.
“You’re sure about him?” I ask.
Brynn’s smile falters for a second. Or maybe I just imagine it. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be? He’s Spencer Woods. He’s the dream guy. When he and Sloan finally get together, it’s going to be…don’t judge me for using this douchey frat-boy word…it’s going to be epic.”
This is what she wants.
I can’t say I understand it.
But I recognize that look she had in her eye earlier when she said, I need this. It’s the same look I saw in the mirror right after my dad died. When I was so determined to continue with his bar and not let his legacy die too.
I couldn’t make that work.
But maybe I can help Brynn with this.
I make one last push to get us to the dock.
“You can’t argue with epic.”