The Messy Kind (The Bluebell Cove #2)

CHAPTER ONE

My best friend just told me my ex is coming back into town after seven years.

Admittedly, I should’ve been over it by now. I was twenty-five, allegedly successful, supposedly well-adjusted, and in therapy. But no one ever said the therapy was working.

“Travel and Taste?” I repeated, feeling my soul temporarily leave my body.

“Oh, right. You might not know. Teddy works there now. He’s their travel photographer.”

I stared at Georgie—the woman I’d known since birth, apparently committed to setting my autumn on fire and tossing it in the ocean. She just blinked, frowning and freckled, completely oblivious to the havoc she’d detonated in my brain.

Sliding my sunglasses over my eyes, I kept my voice as even as possible. “Well. Isn’t that… interesting.”

Knees weak, I strutted out of her pottery shop and onto Main Street. I was reasonably confident the cobblestones didn’t usually shift under my feet, and that the buzzing in my ears wasn’t, in fact, a swarm of killer bees coming to finish me off.

In typical Georgie fashion, she was already chasing me down the sidewalk. “Is everything okay, Margot?”

I didn’t look back. She’d been particularly relentless as of late, and my mood had soured beyond the point of fielding a thousand questions about my feelings or that mushy-gushy stuff I usually tried to avoid.

Captain’s Table wasn’t typically my safe haven. Having grown up in the tiny two-bedroom apartment upstairs—the one my mother insisted on keeping so she could open early and stay late—it felt more like my right elbow than a safety net. Still better than the copper-haired ball of energy behind me.

I blew out a long sigh once my heels met that familiar pink-and-white checkered tile.

My mother inherited this diner before I was born, and she refused to change any of the decor.

The Elvis-threw-up-in-here baby blue leather seats and matching juke box held a certain charm.

And anyway, it was a hit with everyone who stepped inside—from the Bluebell Cove residents who frequented the restaurant like it was their own kitchen to the tourists who made a point to stop in here at least once on their trips.

To me, it was a strange combination of home and a reminder of my perpetual “Take Your Daughter to Work Day” childhood.

My therapist, Candice, preferred the term “emotional complexity.” If that were the case, then I was a giant rubber stress ball full of emotional complexities. One approximately two seconds from bursting.

“Everything alright, darlin’?” My mother asked in her Southern accent that had a knack for charming anyone who met her. She was always good at being there for everyone else. Except me, most of the time. Except Dad, always.

“You make a better wall than a door,” she added with a single lifted brow.

“I’m fine,” I mumbled, stumbling out of the doorway and hating how uncoordinated my limbs had become from the mere mention of him. Traitors.

She poured a mug of coffee and slid it toward me on the bar, as if beckoning me, and said, “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

Captain’s coffee was terrible. Notoriously too-dark and too-burnt, but vastly more popular with the older customers than the Morning Bell. Still coffee, though. I couldn’t get through the next few minutes without something in my system.

The stool squeaked beneath my weight as I sat down and reluctantly took the mug between my palms. At the very least, the heat would revive me.

My mother watched while I took a sip and, predictably, rolled her eyes when I wrinkled my nose.

She always told me to stop being too picky, too serious, too this, too that.

To her, life was better so far outside the lines that you didn’t even know what colors to use anymore.

That would’ve been fine for a friend. An entirely different story for her daughter.

I flatly stared her in the eyes, channeling my inner Georgie and dumping an egregious amount of cream and sugar in.

“Now you’re just bein’ ridiculous, Margaret,” she huffed, taking a rag from her apron and wiping the blue-and-pink terrazzo bar.

My mother was also the only person who ever used my full name. The formality could’ve been considered poetic. I fixated on the clink of my spoon against the ceramic and shrugged.

My phone buzzed. Sucking in a sharp breath, I unlocked it with some level of reluctance.

Georgie Wheeler: Meet me at the cafe! Urgent! xoxo

Not exactly what I’d been expecting, but possibly not any better, either.

“Who’s that?” my mother tried again for the umpteenth time, curious gaze fixated on the glow of my phone screen.

“I’m going to the cafe,” I replied, pushing my mug away and slipping off the stool.

She put her hand on her hip. “Will you be by for dinner tonight?”

“I don’t know, Ruth, what’s the special at Captain’s tonight?”

Before she could unload another attempt at a motherly lecture, I pushed the door open and strode back onto Main Street.

It had been a particularly chilly year in Bluebell Cove, and the temperatures dropped even further as autumn arrived.

Tourists milled through the shops and captured pictures of the ocean horizon, idyllically framed by the signature white oaks lining the road like sienna-and-amber clouds.

Even though I spent so many years dreading coming back here, I couldn’t deny the classic allure of hot apple cider and Victorian architecture in the fall.

I almost regretted not throwing on a coat that morning. But that would ruin this outfit, and I had a reputation to maintain.

Weaving through a crowd headed for Captain’s, I marched up the sidewalk, traversing the cobblestones in my heeled boots with practiced accuracy. The brisk air nearly penetrated my wool sweater, but after seven winters in New York, I’d grown accustomed to suffering for the sake of style.

The bell above the door jingled as I pushed inside and sent Rachel, our resident barista, a brief greeting. I tapped my nail against my phone, sucking my teeth as the person in front of me hemmed and hawed over the menu.

The Morning Bell was like the cooler, younger counterpart of the diner. With worn, mismatched leather furniture, vintage art and news clippings lining the wall, it had the same energy as the movies about a long-gone Brooklyn. That was one thing about the Cove: nothing could rival it.

“Cortado?” Rachel chimed once it was my turn.

I sighed and nodded, pulling my wallet from my skirt pocket.

At our table by the window, I slung one leg over the other and tentatively sipped my drink.

It didn’t take a genius to know why Georgie wanted to meet.

Since I opened up to her about a month ago concerning the series of misfortunes that harassed my life lately, she didn’t let an opportunity slip by to ask about my feelings.

She was my best friend, though, and even if her relentless optimism ground my gears on occasion, Georgie was better to me than anyone I’d met in New York.

As if on cue, she rushed into the cafe like a hurricane of color, the door nearly catching her fluttering green dress. After she got her drink from Rachel—I was pretty sure she kept a stock of pre-made extra-sweet white mochas somewhere just for Georgie—she slumped into the seat opposite me.

“Well,” she said, blue eyes sparkling. “I have news.”

The knots in my stomach undid themselves. At least I’d survive another day avoiding the subject of him.

“Care to divulge?” I replied after she’d been silent for a while.

A blush swept across her cheeks as she pulled the sleeves of her cardigan down and dropped her chin in her hands. “Rhett told me that he loved me.”

I blinked at her. “Just now?”

Georgie rolled her eyes. “This might be one of those times you need to pretend for me.”

“Sorry, I just—” I threw a hand up and laughed. “Wasn’t it obvious? He’s only ever had eyes for you.”

She replied with what could only be described as a wistful noise.

I stared at her. “Wait, who’s at the shop?”

“Rhett.”

“The guy who just told you that he loves you?”

“Well I had to tell you.” Georgie looked at me like I’d just declared the sky was purple.

No response could possibly rival that. Instead, I sipped my cortado and silently thanked Rhett for getting me off the hook.

“We should talk about the Fallfest, though.” She paused to take a long swig of her drink that was more sugar than coffee. “Since you just volunteered to help me again, and all.”

Right. Amidst the rest of the events that morning, I’d forgotten that very tiny, very crucial detail.

The Fallfest was one of Bluebell Cove’s biggest events of the year, and normally, I’d jump at the chance to avoid my mother’s attempts at mothering.

But it also happened to be the festival that he was returning to cover.

“You know, ah—” I paused and wracked my brain. “About that…”

Whatever pathetic excuse I decided to rattle off died in my throat.

Because the bell chimed, and Teddy Bowman appeared, swept in like the tide.

And I was instantly eighteen and heartbroken again.