Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
RORY
After fourteen voice mails and too many texts to count, I had given up on getting my pain-in-the-ass sister here for Gran’s birthday. Nothing pissed me off more than not being able to accomplish something I’d set my mind to, and I hated my sister a little bit for ruining what I had planned.
But just because I couldn’t give Gran the one thing she wanted for her eightieth, that didn’t mean I couldn’t still throw her one hell of a party. It’d been a challenge, fitting party prep in between juggling my job at town hall, school bake sales and PTA meetings, not to mention all the design work with Nash… Though, if I were honest, it wasn’t tackling the clients with Nash that took up so much of my time. And energy.
Our time together hadn’t waned. If anything, it’d grown more frequent. While he kept his overnight stays to the days the girls were at Sean’s, he’d taken to coming by on my nights with them, too. Bringing the girls’ favorite takeout and hanging out while we all crammed on the couch and watched a movie.
Ava and Ella both loved him, and while I’d never introduced him as anything more than Nash, Aunt Nat’s best friend, I was relieved at how much they liked him.
While I wasn’t looking, he’d slipped so easily into my life, and it scared me.
But that was something I could dissect later. Right now, I was on a mission to throw the best surprise birthday party Havenbrook had ever seen.
“Mac, would you mind grabbin’ some more of those pale pink votive candles, please? I want the backyard to look like it’s lit up by a thousand stars.”
Mac dropped her head back on her shoulders and groaned. Shopping with her was nearly as bad as dragging Ella along—who, thankfully, was getting up to trouble at Mimi’s with her sister. Unfortunately, Will, my usual shopping partner, was busy and couldn’t get away.
I tapped my chin, picturing the placement of them in the backyard and calculating how many I’d need. “I’m debating if we should get one or two…”
“Dozen?”
I shot Mac a horrified look. “ Hundred , Mac. One or two hundred . What’s the matter with you?”
Mac stared at me in silence for a full ten seconds before she shook her head, snagged a buggy, and strolled off in search of candles without a word.
“If they don’t have enough pink, ivory will work, too!” I called after my sister’s retreating form.
Mac lifted a hand in a wave without turning around. I was pretty sure she’d been holding up her middle finger while she’d done it. My sister, always a lady.
I rolled my eyes and ran a nail down my list, scanning everything I had left to pick up. I’d already gone into Parkersville earlier in the week to get the majority of the things, but there were always last-minute items I’d forgotten about or changed my mind over. Now that we were only a couple days away from the party, I was getting down to the nitty-gritty.
The food was being catered by The Sweet Spot—a local business owned by family friends that had, thankfully, recently expanded to also include lunch fare instead of strictly desserts.
Back in high school, the owner’s son, Hudson, and Mac had been best friends. Though the two had seemed to lose touch after Hudson had enlisted and moved away, Mac had kept up a relationship with the Millers. Thank heavens, too, because the connection had given me a little leeway in planning this party on such short notice.
I pushed my buggy down the aisle, scanning the shelves for what I needed. When I finally found the section all the way at the end, I nearly sagged with relief. I wasn’t sure they’d have the fairy lights in stock and had worried I’d have to make another long trip to purchase them.
I tossed one box into my cart and reached for another before someone said my name. I glanced up to a still-empty aisle and twisted around to find where it was coming from. When I realized they weren’t speaking to me but about me, I narrowed my eyes and craned my neck to hear. If this was Carol Ann again going on about me, I couldn’t be held accountable for my actions…
“Poor thing,” one woman—definitely not Carol Ann—said. “I don’t think she’s taken this whole situation well at all .”
“Do you blame her? Her husband was off gettin’ up to no good while she was home raising those babies.” The second woman—Verna, maybe, from town hall? I wasn’t sure based on voice alone—tsk-tsked. “Wouldn’t blame her one bit if she was chumming up this workin’ relationship with Little Nash to make Sean jealous.”
I could barely keep in my groan and was almost positive my eye roll could be heard for miles. Yes, I had nothing better to do with my life than try to make my ex-husband jealous.
“I was thinkin’ the same thing,” Not Carol Ann said. “I have a hard time believin’ the rumors that they’re really together. She’s a beauty for her age, but she’s so much older than him! And she can be a little…well, you know.”
Maybe Verna hummed in agreement. “Hard to keep a man around with all those demands and expectations weighin’ him down. And if she couldn’t keep that no-good, cheatin’ sack of bones happy, she doesn’t stand a chance landin’ Little Nash.”
I blanched even as my body lit on fire from the inside out. The words landed like knives in my chest, and I gripped the handle of the buggy just to keep myself upright.
Nothing they said was news to me—I’d thought those exact things about myself dozens of times. My high demands and expectations had kicked me in the ass more than once, and they were something I’d vowed to work on. Something I was in the process of right now, actually.
As for the age difference…I’d worried about it more than once. Had wondered what kind of future we could possibly have outside of sex.
Or at least…I used to.
Somewhere along the way, things had changed. For me, at least. Maybe when he’d cooked me dinner. Or when he’d stayed with Ella the day Ava had needed me. Or when he’d surprised me with a beautiful porch swing I hadn’t asked for. Or when he’d started showing up as a natural fixture in my life.
Sometime in between our marathon sex sessions and our banter-filled days on the job sites, I’d fallen just a little bit in like with Nash.
But though I already knew all those things about myself, hearing them from an outside source—having my deepest fears and insecurities not only confirmed but used as reasons I didn’t deserve Nash—hurt like hell.
“All right, I got ’em,” Mac said from behind me. “They only had twelve packs of the pink left, so I got eight of the ivory. That cool, or do you want an even amount of each?”
I couldn’t find the brain space to respond to her, too stunned to do anything but keep right on listening to the Chatty Cathys around the corner. Despite having been in this snooping position enough times to know nothing good would come of it… Despite the fact that my stomach churned and my face felt as if it were on fire, I just couldn’t help myself.
“Rory,” Mac said again. “What?—”
“Well, if Little Nash is anything like his daddy, he’ll get tired of her sooner rather than later,” Not Carol Ann said.
“Mhmm, poor thing. And now with Sean and Sarah Beth…” Maybe Verna tutted. “Still can’t believe he had the gall to propose! Right there in the Square for everyone to see.”
“Showin’ off and provin’ to everyone he’s moved on faster than Rory, I suppose. Bet those rumors about her and Little Nash pushed that timeline along a bit.”
“No doubt about that. I sure hope Sarah Beth’s smart enough to realize what she’s gettin’ into with that one. Once a cheater, always a cheater.”
“Mhmm. But you know, she was the one who?—”
Their voices trailed off as they finally walked away, and all I could do was stand there, frozen in place, a package of fairy lights in my hand and my stomach in knots. It was too much to process. Confirmation that the people of Havenbrook saw me exactly how I feared, that my working relationship with Nash had been twisted to suit their narrative. Realization that Sarah Beth wouldn’t just be a thorn in my side for a while, but now a permanent fixture in my life—and in my girls’ lives—and the reminder that I wasn’t quite enough.
Still , I wasn’t enough.
“Well, fuck that guy,” Mac said, her voice too loud for the public place we were in. “Fuck him straight in his lying, cheating, no-good?—”
“Mac.” I shook my head, smoothed a hand over my hair, and placed the package of lights in my buggy. “I’ve almost got everything on my list. Just need to run over to the fabric store and grab some tulle to wrap these lights in, then we’ll be all set and can head back to Momma’s to start decoratin’ the backyard.”
“Rory…”
“Everything’s fine.” I pasted on a smile, but it felt brittle. “I’m fine.”
Except it wasn’t. I wasn’t. And I wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all myself.
I’d spent years not being fine and had faked every second of it—had tricked every single person in my life into believing it. But somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten how to hide that part of myself. Forgotten to keep that fake smile plastered on my face every second of the day. Forgotten to step into town with my armor on.
Without realizing it, I’d been letting the real me shine through.
I’d need to keep that armor firmly in place now, though, because something was playing on repeat in my mind and wouldn’t let up. A worry that’d been eating at me since that very first night with Nash, a whisper those women had turned into a roar.
If I couldn’t hold on to a guy like Sean—someone who was a mediocre father, a shit husband, and an even worse lover—how did I ever expect to hang on to one like Nash?