Chapter 17
Diana
I’ve never gone on a date with a man I’m married to before.
I don’t know how to dress or how to act.
Ike is getting comfortable with me, and I am getting way too cozy with him.
This arrangement has an expiration date, and I don’t want to get hurt by a man who is more than capable of hurting me.
I have years of evidence of that. We need boundaries, or this is going to get dangerous fast.
“Good grief. Breathe.” Marlow switches off the blow drier and smacks my shoulder with her round brush. “You’re overthinking again.”
“This is worthy of overthinking.” I frown at my friends in the mirror. “You understand what a huge deal this is.”
“We get it.” Stevie is sitting on the edge of the tub, smirking. “But I still don’t understand why you won’t let us tell anyone you’re going on a date with Ike. You guys are married. Isn’t that cat out of the bag?”
She’s right. As far as Cape Georgeana knows our marriage is a business arrangement, though.
If they find out Ike is taking me on an actual date, they’ll revolt.
The town golden boy is not allowed to date the town witch.
It just isn’t done. Plus, they might think this marriage is real, and I have my hopes up.
I don’t have my hopes up. I don’t know why I agreed to this. I don’t want to stay married, I just like the guy. Am I not allowed to like and spend time with the man I’m married to? And when Ike realizes I’m all wrong for him and rejects me? I groan, running my hands down my face.
“Oh my gosh, knock it off,” Stevie yells over the dryer. She and Marlow are both cackling now while Marlow works on my blowout.
I shout back. “You guys aren’t taking this seriously enough.”
That only makes them laugh harder. Marlow shakes her head, turning off the dryer to comb another section of hair. “And as usual, you’re being seriously dramatic.”
I repeat some of my thoughts about how the town will react if they think I’m making an honest-to-goodness shot at their crowned prince, leaving out my fears of being rejected by Ike. “The town hates me. They’ll hate me more if I date Ike. They’ll think I have my hopes up.”
“So?” Stevie shrugs. “Let them be wrong about you.”
Marlow grins at me in the mirror. “Yeah, what’s new?”
“It’s easy for you two to say. Everyone likes you. No one has accused you of shooting out the lights in the football stadium lately.”
“Okay, but seriously.” Marlow drops the brush, and her expression sobers. She leans in, lowering her voice. “That was you, right? It had to be.”
Stevie’s full-belly laugh echoes through the bathroom.
“For the last time, I did not shoot out the lights in the football stadium.” I groan. “Where would I even get a shotgun?”
“Don’t rich people shoot skeet?” Marlow asks. When I roll my eyes she turns on the blow dryer and finishes the job she insisted on doing.
When I showed up at Stevie’s place to kill time until my date with Ike, Marlow took one look at my half-wet hair and intervened.
I didn’t want to seem like I was trying too hard, so I was letting it air dry.
Ike has already seen my bedhead—a mental image I’m sure will be impossible to supplant.
I don’t tell Marlow her efforts are fruitless.
She loves doing hair, and we need something to distract me until my date.
With Ike Wentworth.
I’m going on a date with Ike Wentworth.
I shouldn’t be nervous. I shouldn’t be excited.
I should be Googling symptoms of poisoning, or how to maintain the upper hand in a hostile situation.
Instead, my thoughts are running a very different course.
I can’t keep Ike’s hands out of my mind.
How does the man have handsome hands? Genetics were good to him, even down to the shape of his hands.
I have to stop thinking about Ike’s very strong, capable hands. I need to focus on the goal: Fixing the lighthouse and resurrecting my joie de vivre. Easy peasy.
I don’t know where this week went. I lined up painters for the interior of the lighthouse tower and the house, and they got started.
I sourced and ordered the lights and hardware for the tower.
Hinges and doorknobs are what I care about—not Ike’s hands that are so strong, yet so gentle when he moved my hair away from my cheek a few days ago.
“Argh!” I drag my hands down my face. The sound isn’t drowned out by the blow dryer.
Marlow bites her lip. Stevie lets my crazy slide this time. “Did he tell you where he’s taking you?” she asks, typing something on her phone.
“He just said dinner, and not to dress too fancy.” I didn’t know how to take that, but I was relieved.
I’ve had enough of fancy. I’ve enjoyed hiding out in the keeper’s house in my stretchy pants these past few weeks.
My grandparents must not be eager to trek across the rocks to check in on us.
I haven’t seen them since the wedding, and I’m crossing my fingers that it stays that way until we’re more settled.
Our situation is precarious enough without them not-so-subtly pushing us together.
I’m still figuring out how to act and what to say around Ike.
I don’t want to lose myself in this marriage.
So tonight I paired my jeans with a navy and white floral blouse—my subtle salute to the Yankees. I’m trying to maintain some ground, even if I’m doing it imperceptibly.
Stevie nods. “And he’s picking you up here?”
“Yeah, I thought about meeting him in our dumpy little living room, but—”
A knock on the front door shuts my mouth. Is he early? I check my phone and realize that Ike is right on time. I’m the one who’s late. How did this happen? I’m hyperventilating as I try to pull away from Marlow and her blow dryer. My hair tangles around her round brush.
I curse and yank the brush out of Marlow’s hand, but only succeed in burying it deeper in my hair. “Sonofagun,” I mutter at myself in the mirror, tugging the thing away from my head and making the situation worse.
“I’ll get it,” Stevie sing-songs, barely hiding her laughter as she heads to the living room. When I shout after her to leave him outside she lets out a full guffaw, and I hear the door creak open. She is dead to me.
I tug furiously at the brush, cursing under my breath and working up a sweat. How did this thing get snarled into my hair so thoroughly and so quickly? It defies the laws of the universe.
Marlow is hovering around me trying to pry my hands away. “You need to calm down. Your panicking is only making it worse.” She bats at my hand. “Let me get it.”
“I’ve got it!” I maneuver away from her, and my elbow connects with her face.
Marlow swears, dropping onto the toilet and covering her nose with her hands.
I drop the brush, and it dangles against my head like a fender hanging off a boat while I check the damage to Marlow’s face. Her eyes are watering, and a small line of blood oozes out of her nostril.
My stomach flips at the sight of it. Oh no.
I’m going to vomit right here in Stevie’s bathroom with a brush dangling off of my head.
I can’t handle the sight of blood, even the tiniest drop.
It instantly activates my gag reflex. Always has.
The muscles in my stomach and throat are already revolting. My mouth fills with saliva.
I shove Marlow off the toilet. Flipping the seat open as I retch, the brush clunks against my cheek with every dry heave.
Marlow is an angry blur of blonde hair and toilet paper in my periphery.
I clench every muscle in my core to hold the contents of my stomach inside, but the gagging won’t stop, and the weight of the brush is pulling my hair.
“She’s in here—” Stevie stops short when she sees what she brought Ike into. I’m hovering over the bowl with a hairbrush dangling out of my messy hair. I groan at the sight of Ike. Marlow is on the floor with a plug of toilet paper dangling out of her nose, scowling.
Stevie isn’t just dead to me. I’m launching her into space.
“Did someone call the fire department?” Ike asks with an apologetic smile that is as charming as it is exasperating.
Before I can answer he moves closer, analyzing the brush situation with a critical eye. I’m sure the Boy Scout inside him is dying to untangle this major knot. But my friend needs him more.
“I’m so sorry, Marlow.” I spin toward her, lowering the toilet lid and pulling her to sit while she holds her nose. I nod from Ike to my friend. “Want to take a look at her nose? I hit it pretty hard when I was…” I’m not finishing that sentence. “Then she was bleeding and—”
“She pukes at the sight of blood,” Stevie supplies helpfully. Thanks, Stevie.
Ike nods as he examines Marlow’s nose. “I remember.”
Kill me.
He turns to Stevie. “Can you bring us some ice and a towel you don’t care about?” Then the corner of his mouth hitches when he tells me, “I’ll take care of her while you… work on that.” He nods to the brush swinging from my head.
Right. That. I turn to the mirror and cringe when I take in the situation. I look deranged. It might be easier to cut the brush out of my hair than to untangle it. But I go to work, gently unraveling the strands until I see some light at the end of the tunnel.
Meanwhile, Ike tends to Marlow, examining her nose and declaring it unbroken. “I can have August take a look, just to be sure.” He gently holds the ice and towel against her nose. “The ice will keep the swelling down, but you should take some ibuprofen.”
“Okay,” Marlow’s voice is muffled by the towel. Her cheeks are red as Ike holds it against her face. She takes over, pressing the makeshift ice pack in place and leaning back against the tank.
Ike nods, turning to me. “On to my next patient.” I feel his eyes on me in the mirror. “How’s it going over here?”
I sigh. The brush is almost free. “Almost done.” I can’t look at him.
He’s too appealing with his damp hair combed.
And his beard is short, accentuating his strong jaw.
I wonder when he trimmed it. Usually I know when he’s shaving.
His whistling gives him away. And he’s wearing a faded red t-shirt—taunting, Red Sox red.
The conflicting thoughts and feelings are too much when I’m already dealing with the brush situation.
“One problem at a time,” I mutter under my breath as I unwrap a lock of hair from the brush. I’m so close, but my arms are wearing out. Every time I French braid my hair I promise myself I’ll be more dedicated to arm day. I hate arm day, and now I’m paying for it.
“Can I give you a hand?” Ike moves toward the mess like he’s serious. He examines the tangle with his big, brown, Boy Scout eyes. He is dying to fix this.
I let my tired arms flop against my sides in defeat. “Please.”
Then Ike’s fingers are in my hair. His gaze flicks to Marlow and back to me. “Let me see if I have this straight. You’re afraid of heights, you’re allergic to pineapple—”
“She’s pineapple intolerant,” Marlow corrects him, her voice nasally behind the DIY ice pack.
“Thanks, friend.” I wince as Ike frees a particularly snarled lock of hair.
“So you’re pineapple intolerant, afraid of heights, and you vomit at the sight of blood.” The corner of his mouth ticks up as his fingers work through my tangles. “Anything else I should be aware of as your husband?”
“She’s a hardcore Yankees fan,” Marlow stands. “It’s her worst trait.”
“I said I’m sorry for elbowing you!” I call after her as she leaves me alone with Ike in the bathroom.
Marlow gets snarky when she’s in pain. I get it—I hit her hard.
There’s no excuse for Ike, though. I arch an eyebrow at him in the mirror.
“And there’s no need to track my flaws. I’m well aware of them.
I’ll send you the spreadsheet.” This time I don’t bother hiding my snort laugh.
We’re past Ike seeing me as anything but what I am—a dry-heaving hot mess with a brush hanging off her head who has a spreadsheet for everything.
My walls haven’t come down, but my friends and grandparents pushed Ike through a secret entrance.
I might as well clear some other things up while I’m at it.
“I’m not a witch, though. I didn’t invent paper straws, either. ”
Ike’s eyes fill with a tenderness that makes me fidget. I try to look away, but his brown eyes lock on mine in the mirror.
“I know,” he says, setting the brush on the counter and smoothing my hair against my shoulder. “There’s a lot I need to say to you. Can we get out of here?”
He holds out a hand. I stare at it for a beat, taking in the strength and gentleness in it. Am I really doing this?
Of course I am. It’s only a date. I don’t have to marry the guy—-er, stay married to the guy. Nothing has to change. I slide my hand into his, twining our fingers together with a squeeze. A friendly squeeze—nothing going on here. “Where are you taking me, Mr. Wentworth?”