Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Mia
Irefused to take another blow-job shot. The girls had dropped the sex talk after I’d returned to the table sans crown and sash. They didn’t ask what had happened to them, and I didn’t give any explanations.
My fingers traced my lip as I sat at the table listening to the ramblings of the girls.
I could still feel his finger on it, the way he had studied my face when I exited the bathroom.
I noticed what I was doing and put my hands in my lap.
I was fantasizing about Bower. The blue-eyed boy who had turned into a man over the last nine years.
The man I, somehow, had disappointed tonight.
Why did his words affect me? Maybe I don’t know you as well as I thought I did. Of course he didn’t know me like he had all those years ago. I was nine years older and a hell of a lot more mature. I was engaged. I had lived another life without him being a part of it for a week every year.
Was he the same Bower I used to know? Probably not, judging by his enlarged frame. He had lived another life as well. We were both different people. We finished growing, apart from each other.
So why did I still feel we were connected? He had been such an important part of my life for so many years. My safe place when I was floundering with my SPD. He’d never judged me. So why was he judging me now?
“Let’s go watch the fireworks.” Ruby came from the bar and pulled me up out of my seat.
“Fireworks?” The girls squealed and jumped out of their chairs. They were already feeling the effect of the drinks and shots during dinner.
We left the bar out the back doors. The sun had set about an hour ago, and the stars twinkled in the night sky. I stared up at them from where we were standing on the large deck outside the bar, looking over the lake. The reflection of the stars glittered in the water.
It was a short walk to the beach. Laura, Rachel, and Mindi ran ahead of Ruby and me, arms linked, blonde hair flowing behind them.
I heard their shoes thump into the sand as they kicked them off and their shrieks and splashes as they waded into the water.
My toes curled in my boots. I still couldn’t bring myself to go in the lake.
All the sediment and algae floating around touching my skin.
Small steps still get you to where you want to go.
It was one of my therapist’s go-to sayings.
I was doing so well making accommodations and exposing myself to things that’d previously made me uncomfortable—now I even wore sandals sometimes.
Eventually I’d get to the point where I’d be able to put my feet in the lake. Small steps.
There weren’t any lights out here, just the stars and the moon that was almost full. The first pop of the fireworks met my ears before color burst across the sky. I didn’t know who was setting them off this year on the little island out in the lake.
I looked over to the end of the beach where it got rocky. Where Bower and I had climbed to find the perfect firework viewing spot all those years ago. My breath got caught in my throat, and I stopped walking for a second, the sand slipping under my boot.
Tiny cairns stood on the rocks. Around fifty of them. All varying heights.
I still had the agate from that summer, the top of the cairn I had built, kept safe in my purse. It was always a reminder of that firework show with Bower. When I had felt like I was home.
But my home wasn’t here. It hadn’t been in many years.
Forget it, I told myself. Forget him. I looked back up at the sky, watching the fireworks.
The bar became crowded as soon as the firework show ended and everyone hustled back inside for a refill.
Dean was hustling to get the drink orders of the resort guests and the needy members of my bachelorette party.
They kept asking for drinks he didn’t have or didn’t know how to make.
He wasn’t a mixologist. He was a can cracker and beer pourer.
The air left the room when Bower walked into the bar. His hair was wet beneath his backward cap, a few stray drops of water running down his neck. Where had he been?
Dean was struggling. Luckily he didn’t harbor hard feelings toward me.
Even after he had been so angry nine years ago when Bower got arrested.
He made sure to keep my drink full. Ruby sat next to me, an empty glass in front of her.
I could only assume he was purposefully ignoring the empty glass.
She resorted to stealing sips from my drink.
We took over the back of the bar, along the end of the U-shape against the wall. It was by the jukebox that Rachel kept feeding money to play her favorite songs. The entire bar was currently listening to “Call Me Maybe.”
The clink of a shot glass hitting the bar in front of me caught my attention.
“Congratulations, Mia,” Bower said from behind the bar. He pushed the glass closer to me.
I reached out to grab it, our fingers briefly touching in the exchange. Ruby smirked before she stood up and joined the rest of the bachelorette party by the dance floor.
“Thanks, Bower.” I tucked my left hand in my lap between my legs.
“I’m sorry about earlier.” Bower took his hat off before he ran his hand through his wet hair.
He put his hat back on and put both of his palms on top of the counter.
He made a cage with his body, boxing me in with his arms even though he was on the other side of the bar.
His black Henley covered his arms and chest like a second skin.
He had my full attention. “You surprised me by being here…like this.”
I looked down at my lap, at the hand that wore the ring Archer had given me. I hadn’t expected to see Bower here either. He had been gone so long; I didn’t think he was ever coming back.
“The resort looks good,” I said, changing the subject. “It’s cleaner.”
“Yeah, it’s been a lot of work. Dean’s been—” Bower paused. He breathed sharply out of his nose, glancing down the bar before he looked right at me with his blue eyes. “I’m gonna cut the shit, Mia.”
I squeezed the shot glass in my hand. The liquid inside the glass quivered.
He looked right at me. “There was never a day after that night on the beach that I didn’t think about you.
I thought about you every fucking day.” Bower brought his face closer to mine, and the noise of the bar became dull in the background.
His voice became the only thing I could hear.
“And now that you’re here, in front of me again, all grown up, I don’t think I’m ever going to forget you. All those summers we had together.”
I shook my head and closed my eyes for a second. My thoughts raced through my head a mile a minute. I couldn’t catch them. What happened to It’s good to see you? It was like he couldn’t manage small talk. But then, neither could I.
“You never even said goodbye.”
“Fuck, Mia, I couldn’t. I’d already put you at risk on the beach that day. I saw the way you looked at me from the boat after the party got busted, and I just couldn’t.” Bower backed away from the bar, his hands linked against the back of his neck.
The way I’d looked at him? I tried to think back to how I might’ve reacted in that moment on the boat, but all I could remember was feeling terrified for him.
Not that it mattered now. It had been nine years without a word, and today was the day he decided to pour his heart out.
I picked up the shot glass with my left hand, intentional, and tipped the glass back, letting the liquid burn my throat on the way down. As I slammed the shot glass back onto the bar top, Bower zeroed in on the ring on my finger.
“It’s a little too late.” Tears welled in my eyes, but I willed them away. I looked around, anywhere but back at him. I couldn’t look at his face. Or let him see mine.
I saw Ruby on the other side of the bar. She had escaped the other girls. I slid off the barstool and didn’t look back at Bower, though I felt his eyes on me as I walked around the U, dodging drunken resort guests.
“Hey, how did that go?” Ruby asked when I sat next to her. Bower remained on the other side of the bar. Hopefully he would stay over there.
Dean stopped by where we were sitting, two open beers in his hand. “Why does Bower look like he just swallowed a brick?”
“Probably because he confessed his love for me and I shut him down,” I said cooly, trying not to flinch as I did so.
“You what?” Ruby swiveled in her seat, facing me. Dean looked back at his patrons before handing the beers, intended for them, to us.
“Dean! We’re waiting over here!” a resort guest yelled from several seats down.
“You can wait, Johnny. You’ve had five beers already!” He bent over, resting his elbows on the bar. “What did he say?”
“That he never stopped thinking about me. How he can’t forget me.” I picked up the beer Dean had placed in front of me and took a drink.
“And you told him to take a hike?” Ruby asked. “What were you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that I’m engaged. That I’m at my bachelorette party.”
Bower looked over his shoulder at me as he pulled a tap handle, filling a beer. I made sure to look away.
“Would you have said yes to Archer if you knew Bower was still an option?” Ruby asked.
I looked at her before sighing, my shoulders slumping. I didn’t want to answer that.
“He hasn’t been around for years; you didn’t know he was a possibility until tonight.”
“Nine years without communication. He thinks we can pick up where we left off when I was sixteen.” I looked down at my ring. That hand felt heavy again.
“I don’t think he ever left Agate Harbors. Maybe physically, but mentally he’s been here,” Dean said. He bent down beneath the bar and grabbed a cold beer out of the refrigerator.
“Dean!” Johnny yelled from down the bar. “Beer!”
Dean held out the beer he had just taken out of the fridge, showing Johnny it was on the way. “Every letter he wrote was about the resort. Wanting updates,” he said to me. “He asked about you every summer.”