Chapter 13 #3
“I’ll see you later,” I say to Nate, then start heading toward the thrift shop.
“Wait up!” Nate breaks into a light jog to keep up with me. “So, she seems like a real peach,” he says as we pass the barber shop where my dad has gotten his hair cut for the last sixty years.
“She’s always been that way.”
“Bitter and jealous of you?”
I huff out a laugh. “Insanely competitive. I guess I was too. We were best friends growing up, but also always trying to one-up each other.”
Nate nods in understanding.
“You have any friends like that?” I ask.
“Totally. We used to race shopping carts in the grocery store parking lot. It was fierce.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” I say with a grin. “Many a friendship has been lost to competitive shopping cart racing.”
He smiles back at me. “We’re actually still really close. We do a monthly phone call to check in with each other. They’re more like family.”
“That’s so nice. I have that, too—with my college roommate, Sybil, and her friends from home. They kind of adopted me into their friend group.”
“You didn’t have your own friends from home?” Nate asks. He seems surprised.
“I did,” I concede. “But…” I pause, trying to think how to put it into words.
“I loved growing up here, in this small town, but I knew I wanted to experience something more—something different. Most of the other girls my age didn’t have those same dreams.” I pick at a loose thread on the hem of my top.
“And then, when I got into pageants, I met girls who were just as ambitious as I was—but could be totally cutthroat. I often felt I had to watch my back around even my closest friends. When I met Sybil’s friends, they weren’t like that.
They were so supportive of each other—of me.
” I tuck a piece of hair behind my ear. “Honestly, I feel like I can be myself around them more than anyone else.”
“Even your family?” Nate asks.
I nod, thinking about how I lied to Dad about my apartment-
hunting progress—and then did it again to Mary Moore just now. For some reason, I don’t want to lie to Nate.
“I don’t have an apartment in LA,” I blurt out. “I mean, I did—but I gave it up right before I came home.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Gonna be pretty tough to host Mary Moore, then.”
I let out a groan. “I don’t know why I let her rile me up.”
“So… are you thinking of leaving the city?” Nate asks. His face is totally neutral.
“No,” I insist. “I do really like it there.”
“I heard you looooove it there,” he says mimicking me. “It’s so energizing!”
I swat at him. “I’m just… taking a beat. To figure out my next move.”
“Seems… sensible,” he says. We’ve reached The Second Shop. “Well, I guess I’ll leave you to your pot shopping.”
“Vase shopping.”
“Whatever.”
I smile and start to walk toward the thrift store.
“Wait,” Nate says, spinning me back to face him. I flush at the feeling of his hands on my waist. “It’s your birthday soon?”
“On the eleventh,” I confirm. “Oh, and that was a dig, too, by the way.”
“Wishing you a happy birthday?” Nate looks like he’s trying to decipher the behaviors and rituals of a rare species.
“It was her way of rubbing it in that I’m almost thirty and still single.”
“The horror,” Nate deadpans. “Marriage is for conformists and reckless fools anyway.”
I laugh, but this one’s less genuine. He may not consider himself marriage material, but I like to think that I could be.
“Do you really think that?” I ask him.
Nate shrugs, his expression growing more serious. “I thought I was going to get married once, actually. Came pretty damn close to it. But all that came shattering down. Pretty tough to give credence to it anymore.”
I remember that first night on the dock. How he’d drawn inward on himself when we talked about the pain of being blindsided.
“Came pretty close? Were—were you engaged?” The thought seems intriguing, shocking. Maybe even a little threatening. It doesn’t fit this lazy, carefree attitude he seems to have.
“Nah. Thought it was serious, but you know, couldn’t’ve been that serious for Sarah since she was banging her grad school TA behind my back.”
I wince. “Ouch.”
Nate shrugs. “It’s in the past. Where I’d like to keep it. And all thoughts of marriage, for that matter.”
“Noted.” I nod, though a mysterious disappointment swells in my throat. Almost like I’m disappointed for him. Lord knows I’ve been through my fair share of relationship bullshit, and I’ve gotten cynical because of it too.
But I guess, unlike Nate, there’s still a part of me holding out hope.
“And speaking of marriage, don’t worry so much about Cara and Cooper,” he says.
“Once they realize what they’re getting into, I don’t think it’ll take too much for them to back off from this whole horrible idea.
In fact, I’m gonna talk to Cara about it again tonight.
See if I can talk sense into her for real this time.
I’m sure we’ll be out of your hair and on our way back home before you know it. ”
I force another soft smile. “Right. Yeah.”
With that, he waves and heads back to the truck. And I’m left with a hollow ache at the thought of him gone.