Chapter 70
DARCY
It was now August,and the town was getting ready for one of the monthly movie nights in the square. I was setting up the projector with Lettie when I saw someone familiar walk past the gazebo. I grabbed Lettie’s arm and pulled her into me, whispering, “Is that who I think it is?”
She looked around. “Old Man Ralphie?”
I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “No! Over there!” I pointed. “Is that Conrad Taylor?”
She squinted. “Fracking shortcakes, Darcy. I think it is. How long has it been since he’s been in town?”
Conrad Taylor was my childhood crush and my on-again-off-again boyfriend from ninth grade until senior year. He’d left Aveline and went to college out of state, followed by medical school a little farther away, until finally he completed residency on the other side of the country. We kept in touch, catching up every couple of months, but there was an unwritten rule that every time he was in town, we slept together, no strings attached. The only problem was, he always told me when he was coming, and this time, I was blindsided.
“It’s been a year, and he did not tell me he would be in town!” I whisper-yelled as I turned around, trying not to be seen.
I was still feeling sorry for myself over the whole Penn situation, and jumping into bed with Conrad didn’t feel like the best thing for my mental health right now. Normally when Conrad was in town, it was a reprieve from loneliness, but Penn had deemed me no longer emotionally or physically alone.
Lettie put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, I forgot about your arrangement.” She leaned forward and bit the inside of her cheek. “I’m going to regret saying this, but maybe this is just what you need.”
“What?” I asked her, not following what she was referring to.
“Really?” she asked, as though I could read her mind. “You’ve been so sad since Penn left. Maybe you just need something to take your mind off of him, you know, so you can move forward.”
I raised one eyebrow and gasped. “Lettie Anderson! Are you suggesting I have sex with Conrad to forget Penn? You devil!”
Lettie moved me away from the other townspeople and hushed me. “Well, when you say it like that...I just meant maybe it could be a good distraction. You would do it anyway. Don’t act like you wouldn’t. I’m just merely asking why you would change things now just because one butthole showed up and took advantage of you.”
“He was a butthole of epic proportions,” I replied.
“Exactly!” she exclaimed. “And Conrad and you have always just been...easy.”
I peered around my shoulder slowly, and Conrad caught my eye. He winked, and I watched him say goodbye to Mrs. Yesnik. Then he strolled right over to me. I turned around and checked my breath.
“Shit, Lettie, do you have any gum? My breath smells like trash.”
She fumbled in her bag and pulled out what looked like an eighty-year-old piece of gum that was barely still in the wrapper. “Here you go.”
I grimaced and took the stick in my hand. “How old is this?” I picked off a piece of fuzz.
“Does it matter?”
Conrad was getting closer, and I threw the gum in my mouth and started chewing. “I think this is going to break my jaw,” I muttered to Lettie before turning around to face Conrad. “Well, look who the cat dragged in.”