21
Brynn
I’m lying in the grass, sunlight streaming on my face, listening to the sounds of the ocean waves in the distance. Somehow I know I’m in Carson’s Cove. Maybe because I can sense him lying beside me, our feet tangled together.
I can hear the even rush of his breath and feel the heat from his body. Everything feels easy. Exactly as it’s supposed to be. As I turn my face to him, I inhale. He smells like cedar and sunsets. Like happiness. Like home. Like a woodsy lumberja—
“Josh?”
My eyes fly open at the same time as his. I scramble away, but our legs are intertwined. My body heaves itself off the bed, but without legs to stand on, the resulting motion is more of a log roll onto the floor.
“Gosh forking darn it!”
I hit the floor hard, my forearms taking the brunt of my fall.
I press my hands to the mattress, hoisting myself back up. Josh rolls gracefully out of the bed, body shirtless and hair perfectly tousled.
“Morning.” He stretches and lazily scratches the back of his head. “How are you feeling?”
The moment the question leaves his lips, the throbbing headache hits. As do the spins and a rancid aftertaste in my abnormally dry mouth.
“What happened—” I don’t even need to finish the sentence before the memories come flooding back.
My Coyote Ugly routine onstage.
The roof.
My water going down.
My pasta dinner coming back up.
“Oh my god.” My hand goes to my mouth. “I am so sorry.”
He runs his hands through his hair, and it causes his abs to contract.
I find myself counting. All eight of them.
I tear my eyes back to a safer body part. His face. Except all the hand-running has made his hair extra tousled and sexy, and now I’m picturing what Josh looks like post-sex, which immediately turns into what Josh looks like during sex. And that image is so provocatively filthy that I have to squeeze my eyes shut and count to ten.
One…
Two…
Thr—
“Listen, Brynn, about last night.”
My eyes fly open in time to see him hesitate, and in that pause, a second memory surfaces. This one is the most mortifying of all.
I kissed Josh.
No. I mauled Josh.
Like a feral cat.
We were having a perfectly normal conversation. He shared intimate details about his fears about not getting home in time to buy his dad’s bar back, and then I responded by climbing into his lap and sticking my tongue down his throat.
“Oh my god.” I hold out my hand, halting whatever he was going to say next. “Okay. Listen. I had way too much to drink. I think it’s best if we never mention the whole night again. Like, ever.”
His eyebrows knit into a solid line. “Okay…I just thought…”
I don’t want to hear it. I may have been drunk, but the memories are clear. I kissed him. He responded with a very polite “Thanks but no thanks.” The last thing I want to do right now is rehash it all. Especially since he’s not even the guy I should be kissing.
Speaking of the guy I should be kissing…
“Do you think he knows?” I peer between splayed fingers at Josh, who has crossed his arms over his chest.
“Who knows? About what?”
“Spencer. Do you think someone told him about my…performance last night?”
“I think you’re good.” Josh’s tone is flat.
Relief floods my veins. “Well, at least that’s one piece of good news.”
He takes a tentative step forward. “I’m confused. I thought you weren’t…” There’s a hesitancy to his tone.
“Weren’t what?”
His arms drop to his sides. “Last night it seemed like you were maybe…reconsidering him?”
My head is pounding so hard that I’m finding it hard to think. My brain is trying to list the reasons why I need to keep pursuing Spencer for Sloan, but my eyes keep wandering back to Josh.
Josh and his abs.
Josh and his kindness.
Josh and the ability he has to make me feel safe.
Josh and his low-slung sweatpants that expose his stupidly sexy hip dips.
Josh and the dark trail of hair that starts from his belly button and heads down, down, down.
No.
Eyes up, Brynn.
I shouldn’t be imagining what it would be like to feel his hands all over my body. Or wondering if he tastes like he smells.
“Oh my god. I need to stop.”
“Stop what?” He looks understandably confused.
“I didn’t mean to say that part out loud.”
What am I doing? Why can’t I concentrate?
“I better go.” I head for the door but stop before I hit the landing. Sherry and Barry are downstairs cleaning up from last night’s party.
“I think I’ll take the fire escape.” I turn and head for the window.
“Why?”
Josh, still shirtless, steps toward me.
I avoid looking directly at him. “This town is too small. What if people see me leaving here? What will they think?”
“You’re right. What would people think?”
My eyes fixate on the blank wall behind him, but I don’t miss the hurt in his voice.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No, you’re right.” He walks to the window and opens it. “Spencer needs to end up with Sloan, or else we don’t go home, right?” He steps to the side to let me out onto the fire escape. “It’s still pretty early, so you should be good.”
He turns and heads toward the bathroom before I get a chance to thank him for everything.
I manage to make it almost all the way back to Sloan’s without anyone witnessing my walk of shame. Until I hit Sloan’s street.
Spencer is on his front lawn in very tiny shorts, eyes closed in what looks like a very deep warrior one pose. I know I should be excited to see him, but I’m still in last night’s dress and feeling terrible.
I attempt to sneak past, but the moment I do, his arms begin to windmill.
I panic, searching my surroundings for somewhere to hide, but there is no conveniently situated bush this time.
Spencer downward-dogs. Our eyes lock as he lifts his leg into three-legged dog, and he immediately straightens.
“Hey, Sloan! You’re up early.”
I adjust my wrinkled skirt and attempt to fluff out my bed-flattened hair with my fingers. “Yeah, um…I thought I’d go for a walk. It’s such a lovely morning.”
Spencer bends down, retrieves a white towel from his mat, and wipes his forehead. “I was actually hoping to run into you. I wanted to see if you felt like hanging out later. Maybe we could head to Pop’s for a milkshake?”
Spencer moves the towel from his face to his neck, then tosses it over his shoulder. A thin sheen of sweat highlights the toned curves of his body. My eyes drop to his abs, but my body’s response is a sour taste in the back of my throat that I can’t seem to swallow away.
“Yeah, sure. That sounds like fun.”
His face breaks into the most beautiful smile, the kind that, from the ages of thirteen through seventeen, would have made my stomach flip and my southern parts tingle. However, the only thing my stomach does this time is roil.
I practically sprint the rest of the way back to Sloan’s house. I feel like I’m going to be sick. I’m sweaty and antsy, and my body feels off, which is silly because everything that I wanted to happen is happening. Spencer just asked me out again. His Teen Beat smoldering looks are aimed solely in my direction. Carson’s Cove is set up to deliver on all of its promises. And yet…
I barely make it to Sloan’s bathroom in time.
I repeat the events of last night, but this time, there’s no Josh to hold my hair back.
When I’m certain there is nothing left in my stomach, I lean back and rest my head on the cool yellow tile as I reach out and flick the toilet handle with the toe of my sandal. The water whooshes, carrying away the contents of my stomach. I’m left with nothing but the pounding in my skull, which continues to grow louder and louder until it occurs to me that it may not be my head at all.
I consider staying in the bathroom, rationalizing that it’s probably Poppy again and I’m not emotionally prepared to deal with her this morning. But the knocking persists. In this battle of wills, mine is weak, and I give up first, stumbling my way downstairs and flinging open the back door, mentally preparing for another lecture on my appearance.
But the person standing on the other side is someone else entirely.
“Sheldon?”
He’s dressed like a UPS driver. Brown pants. Brown shirt. But as I read the gold embroidery, the letters are reversed: USP.
He steps inside the kitchen without invitation and begins to pace the six feet between the refrigerator and the stove.
“I’ve heard some very unsettling rumors.”
My fingers start to tingle.
“Rumors? What rumors?”
He finally stops, and although his head is turned toward me, he avoids my eyes. “Oh, I don’t know, that you were dancing with other men on a stage last night, drinking alcohol with your mortal enemy as if you two were the best of friends, and completely obliterating the perfect reputation of this town’s most beloved resident?”
I feel a mix of agitation and relief. He doesn’t know about Josh.
“Yes. I was hanging out with Luce yesterday. I don’t know if we were ever mortal enemies, but we’re definitely not now. And I don’t know if I’d describe it as dancing with other men. It was more just dancing in proximity of other people.”
Sheldon slowly shakes his head. “That is not part of our plan, Sloan. You and that poor excuse of a Fletch keep messing things up! Fixing up the Bronze, getting everyone in town drunk. You’re not supposed to be running around changing things! I tried to send you a subtle message, but shutting down the power was clearly too vague of a hint, so now I’m here being very overt about what exactly needs to happen next.”
“Wait! That was you who cut the lights?”
Sheldon throws up his hands. “You’re missing the point. We had a plan and you’re messing it up!”
I don’t like his use of the word we. Especially since I feel like Sheldon’s plan for Sloan may be deviating from mine.
“About that.” I think about how to frame my next sentence without him freaking out. “Have you ever considered that Sloan has grown up a little these past years? She’s thirty now. She’s seen things. I mean, she has been on her own for a long time. Is it possible she’s maybe changed—”
“No!” Sheldon slams his hand on the kitchen island so loudly that I jump. “She hasn’t.” He steps toward me, so close that I can count the flecks of yellow in his eyes. “She is still the sweet and lovable girl next door. She has finally come home, where she will take her place as Lobsterfest queen and, more importantly, queen of Spencer Woods’s heart. They will end up together. Happily. Ever. After. No deviations. No funny business.”
On some level, I understand Sheldon’s need for this. I’ve been there. I spent three days straight in the same pair of gray sweatpants, on my second twenty-pack of nuggets, grasping at any reason for why things didn’t turn out the way I wanted them to. As I watched rerun after rerun while going through my divorce, I looped both myself and Sloan into the same group of those that loved hard and lost.
But the last few days have shown me an error in my logic. I’ve assumed that there is only one way to that happily ever after: fall in love with the perfect boy and get him to love you back forever. Now I’m not so sure.
“What happens if she doesn’t?”
Sheldon’s eyebrows knit in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“What happens if Sloan doesn’t win the pageant? What happens if she and Spencer don’t end up together?”
Sheldon shakes his head, his eyebrows doing the same thing as before. “That’s simply not an option. She wins. They wind up together. If for some ludicrous reason it doesn’t happen at the seventy-fifth annual Ms. Lobsterfest Pageant, then we try the seventy-sixth, then the seventy-seventh. I have all the time in the world.”
But I don’t.
More importantly, Josh doesn’t either.
“Sheldon, I don’t want to do this. I may have been on board when we first got here, but I’m not anymore, and Josh isn’t either. We want to go home. Now. Carson’s Cove is a television show. Sure, it didn’t end the way we wanted it to, but it’s not the end of the world. And that’s why there is fanfic. You can dream up any ending you want.”
“I don’t think you get it.” Sheldon straightens, his wiry body suddenly tall and looming. “You made a wish. That wish brought you here, and until you fulfill your purpose, there is no going home. I have been playing nice up until now. I have let you do things your way. But if you keep wasting this incredible opportunity, I will intervene and remind you that Carson’s Cove isn’t all about falling in love. It can get dark. Very dark.”
I don’t miss the threat in his tone.
“Message received.”
I feel sick. Even worse than before.
“Good.” Sheldon nods. “You should probably go get changed, then. I hear you have a date tonight.”