22. Marnie
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Marnie
Grady smiles coyly from the driver’s side of The Beast when he pulls up to the house the next morning, and finds me waiting on the porch for him. My stomach erupts with little somersaults over his unabashed smile—I love that he’s no longer stingy with them.
“Ah, Grady. The Beast? For me?” I coo, descending the stairs.
He slaps the side of the old truck, grinning. “Thought you’d prefer it.”
Grady Tripp considered my preference? A bit tickled by the gesture, I feel my cheeks flush. I circle the classic truck and climb onto the leather bench seat.
“So, where to?”
I twist in my seat to see him clearly, but hesitate to deliver the mini-speech I prepared. He’s more handsome than usual, which seems impossible. He’s clean-shaven and a hair above casual in his dark jeans, long-sleeved blue and gray shirt, and white sneakers. Even the air collected in the cab around him screams classy. He’s wearing cologne, a gentle mix of cedar and ginger that’s incredibly pleasant.
Everything about Grady is pleasant—a surprise, given his whole Grouchy Tripp reputation.
A second passes, and he says, “You look nice,” beating me to the words I want to say to him.
I did make an effort—my mission today required it. A sage green maxi dress that I bought for my honeymoon combined with a little jean jacket and white tennis shoes for a chic, casual vibe that hopefully says I’m doing just fine , even if it’s not 100% true.
“Thanks. You, too. We look like we could be on a date,” I tease.
He huffs. “I don’t date, but if this were one, you’d know it. Now, where to?”
“Wait, you don’t date? Ever? Why not?”
“Don’t want to. Quit distracting me, and tell me where to go.”
“It might sound weird.”
“Marina, tell me.”
“Sunny’s Beach Market at Carolina Beach,” I blurt, determined to get it out. “I know it’s a haul. I’ll pay for gas?—”
“Why?”
“Ashe has something that belongs to me, and I want to get it back.”
“What is it?”
“Marnie’s Market Manual,” I explain, hoping he doesn’t think I’m steering our ship to a fool’s quest.
He puts the truck in reverse, backs into the Pike’s driveway, and turns left on the road.
“It’s an old-school Trapper Keeper notebook I scored at a thrift store,” I continue, “repurposed for all my best ideas. There are sketches and how-tos on every display I’ve created, plus sales ratings to show their efficacies, displays to try, design layouts for department floor plans, and how sales increased by putting things in one place over another, seasonal displays, promotions, marketing, everything I’ve pitched over the years, whether they agreed to it or not. It’s all my future ideas, too, like starting a customer VIP program, pick-up and delivery services, and lists of local vendors I’ve discovered. It’s ten years’ worth of brainstorms and light bulbs to make Sunny’s the best it could be, over three hundred pages.”
“Ashe took it?”
“I left it in my desk drawer at Sunny’s. I asked Cora for it weeks ago. She sent a box with my stuff, but no notebook. I called all of Sunny’s managers. No one’s seen it. I even had Wren snoop in my old office for it—no luck. The only explanation is that Ashe took it to help him with the new store. He’s used my ideas before to impress his parents, a few times in college for business projects.”
“Of course he has,” Grady huffs, rolling his eyes.
“I never minded helping him. It’s just… I’ll survive without the notebook, but why should I have to? They’re my ideas. My research. My creativity. Asking Ashe in person is the best way to get it back. I checked. He’s at work today, so I’m sure he has it. He’ll do the right thing.”
Grady doesn’t look convinced, but he turns left onto the main highway, heading toward the beach. “Have you seen him since the breakup?”
I huff. “I haven’t seen Ashe since the hospital.”
His brow pinches. “Wait, how did you break up, then?”
A heavy sigh plummets from me. “Cora.”
“Fucking figures,” he fumes. “You think a guy like that will do the right thing?”
“There’s always hope. I need to try, anyway. It’s been over a month. I’m about to start a new endeavor. He’s not the guy I thought he was, but I love him. Or I did. Seeing him will be like testing a battery to see if there’s any charge left. Does that sound crazy?”
“Makes perfect sense. I felt that way seeing Emma after we filed for divorce.”
“Any charge left?”
“No. Not for a long time.”
My brow crinkles at the thought. I want a charge left between Ashe and me, not because I enjoy heartbreak, but because it might hurt worse knowing that our love could change to nothing so quickly. “It’s sad how fast that can happen.”
“Not all love stories are forever. It’s good we’re doing this together,” he says, like he understands something I don’t.
I don’t argue. He probably does.
Sunny’s Carolina Beach is my dream come to life. All the right words pop into my head when we walk in. Stunning. Pristine. Inviting. Friendly. Elegant. Supercool. Perfect.
He used my sunburst design for the store’s layout (duh, Sunny’s). Aisles extend outward from the curved ball of the front end, allowing customers to see almost the entire store at first glance, with Sunny’s signature gazebo pulling them to the middle. Beach murals adorn the free wall space, with a wide section at the front honoring the town itself and Sunny’s owners and managers, with portraits next to their titles. My conceptualized displays adorn every end cap. The What’s for Dinner? display boasts a rectangular assortment of gourmet taco kits, cheeses, and a rainbow of tomatoes, avocados, onions, and peppers. He even used my Oasis idea—palm trees and blankets to create a wall of books, sunglasses, sunblock, beach toys, and beach chairs. Everything needed for a day at the beach.
It’s a heaven of a grocery store.
Grady breathes out beside me. “This is all you. Isn’t it?”
“If you could walk through my brain, this is what you’d see,” I gawk. “It’s beautiful.”
“There’s the asshole now.”
He motions to the store’s left, where Ashe stands, arms folded around his checklist clipboard, talking with another employee in the dairy section. He looks as handsome as ever in his dark blue chinos, crisp white button-down, and fitted blue vest.
My nerves knot into tight balls, and my determination wavers into regret. This is the store I imagined, yet I don’t belong here.
“How do you want to play this?” he asks.
“I’ll talk to him alone,” I say.
“Sure you don’t want your cane? You might need a blunt object.”
I scoff, glad I left it in the truck. “I’ll be fine.”
“Of course, you’ll be fine,” he smiles. “You’re Marina fucking Strange.” Then, he tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans and wanders into the store.
I beeline toward Ashe. He doesn’t see me coming, but the grocery manager standing with him does. “Can I help you find something, ma’am?”
Ashe turns, and his smile unravels like a pulled shoelace, falling apart and dangling limply at the sides.
“Hi, Ashe,” I say, determined to keep my smile though he lost his. Nothing disarms a person quicker than a smile and a kind word. “How are you?”
He looks annoyed. “Give me a minute, will you?”
“Sure thing, boss,” the other manager says before heading to the front end.
I offer a wider smile when his eyes finally land on me again. “The store looks beautiful, Ashe. I’m blown away. You’ve worked so hard on it.”
“Well, I had more time on my hands, so…” He shuffles his feet. “What’re you doing here?”
“I wanted to see the store,” I say, nerves rising as his eyes dart around me. “You talked Cora into the motion-censored freezers, I see. That’s impressive.”
This buys me a timid smirk. “And automatic lights in the bathrooms, loading docks, and an in-store recycling center. She gave me whatever I wanted after… well, after.”
“Well, you deserve all the bells and whistles,” I tell him, and I mean it. “And blue really is your color.”
It was another thing we planned together—having a different color scheme at the beach store than the olive green at Sunny’s in Seagrove. His hands go to his vest, straightening it out. “Yeah, I love it here. It’s close to my condo. I surf or paddleboard every morning before work. It’s been good for me.”
“I’m glad. I only want what’s best for you.”
He releases the tension in his brow, allowing a short smile. He shifts on his feet, still holding his clipboard to his chest like a shield. “Yeah, um, you, too.”
Memories tell me I should feel things, but I don’t. Our battery is dead—a fact that saddens and unburdens me. I couldn’t show up at the altar how he wanted; he didn’t show up for me when I needed him. Over and over. He drained the love right out of me.
“Here to beg me to take you back?” His smile curls with cold arrogance.
“No. You don’t want me back, Ashe. I don’t want you either. Not after… Anyway, that’s not why I’m here,” I mutter, trying to keep my voice low.
“Then, what do you want, Marnie?”
“I want my notebook.”
He hesitates. “What notebook?”
I scoff. “ My notebook. The one you used to make that display.” I motion to the nearest end cap. “And every other one in this store. The one that told you what layout to use and what lights to buy. My notebook. It belongs to me.”
His hazel eyes narrow as he looks down on me. “What notebook?”
He says it slowly, assuring me I’ll never see it again. A cheesy, handwritten, and sketched scrapbook of my time at Sunny’s, the culmination of every conceivable effort over a decade to make his family’s store the best it could be snatched away like I was never there. Like I didn’t matter.
And him, bitterly keeping me from it. He could’ve made a copy, transferred the information to the cloud, and had it forever. He could’ve asked me for it in the first place, and I would’ve handed it over. I never minded him using my ideas or even taking credit for them. But under his intimidating glare, I know his refusal isn’t about ownership of the ideas or worries that he can’t survive without them.
It’s about keeping me from what’s mine—the one thing I have left to claim. A game of keep away with me, squirreling around after it while he holds it just out of reach. It’s about hurting me.
As if I haven’t hurt enough.
“You are such a child,” I breathe, smiling through the simmering anger. “Thanks for assuring me I’m better off without you or Sunny’s.”
His jaw tightens as his lips clamp together. “Get out of my store.”
“Your store? Doesn’t look like it.”
Practically seething, he points toward the entrance as if I don’t know where it is in his store and stares me down as my feet inch backward.
I don’t breathe again until escaping the final double doors. The cool March air hits me first, followed by sunlight, as I step wearily onto the pavement and search the parking lot for The Beast’s distinctive red and white panels. I feel genuinely winded by my encounter with Ashe, angry at him and myself for thinking this could’ve turned out any other way. Even my fingers tremble with irritation as I chalk this excursion up to yet another foolhardy move by Marnie fucking Strange, and add my Trapper Keeper to the long list of things Marnie lost in the accident.
But then, my eyes land on the truck and zoom in on Grady Tripp. He leans against the passenger door, waiting for me with a devilish smile.
The sun catches on the plastic and flickers in my eyes, forcing a gasp as I realize what he’s holding. Grady Tripp has commandeered my notebook.