Chapter Eleven
“Hi, Georgie.”
I slowly looked up from the floor, still clutching the leg of my chair. “Hey, Rhett.”
Where was the sand when I needed to bury my head in it?
Cameron announced an espresso at the bar. Before I could open my mouth, Margot wiggled her eyebrows at me and stood, marching away to retrieve her drink. I didn’t want to know what I looked like, hunched beside the furniture, frozen and red-faced.
The wet soles of his boots squeaked as he took a few steps toward me. His head cocked to the side and the corner of his lips curled up. “Do you need some help?”
“No,” I said automatically, broken out of my stupor. My knees wobbled unpleasantly as I rose. I really needed to start working out. “So, uh… what brings you here?”
Really, Georgie?
Rhett glanced around us. “Coffee. Is there another reason I should have come?”
“No, I—” My cheeks flushed as his words registered, even though I knew he meant nothing by it. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Margot spent the morning helping me with the festival, so we needed a pick-me-up. I’d be helpless without her.”
She rolled her eyes as she returned and handed me my latte. “Don’t be ridiculous. You already had everything done.” Margot squinted at Rhett for a second, as if to appraise him, before tapping her tiny espresso cup and leaving me for our table.
“And that was Margot,” I said with an unconvincing laugh.
“You already introduced me,” Rhett replied matter-of-factly and crossed his arms. “You know, thanks to your help yesterday, I should have the booths done well before the festival.”
My stomach twisted even though it was a compliment. “Even with the interruption of Yellow-Paint-Gate?” I returned.
His expression changed. Warmer, but still entirely inscrutable. “I don’t know how you finished all those signs. It would have taken me an entire week,” he said.
I ducked under his gaze and tried to focus on the heat of my drink against my palms. “I bet you’re happy to get back to the West coast even faster, huh?” My pulse did that annoying thing again, like I’d had too much caffeine and not enough food.
“Oh, no. My return flight stays the same,” he replied. “Someone’s gotta transport all the booths and make sure they’re set up properly.”
Something warm bloomed in my chest. “You know, I could do that,” I quipped and met his eyes.
“With what truck?” he returned, brow raised.
I smiled. “Well, you have to pay me for my sign-making services somehow.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Rhett drawled with a teasing grin. “But it turns out the truck’s unavailable. Maybe there’s another way?”
The air around us seemed to thicken as I looked back at him and fought the urge to fan my face. Rhett Briggs had a knack for leaving me uncharacteristically speechless and even more frazzled than normal.
“Hey, man. Are you going to order?” Cameron interrupted from the register.
Suddenly I remembered that I was half-soaked from the rain and standing in the middle of the very public cafe. I straightened my shoulders and tucked any loose curls behind my ears.
“Can I text you?” Rhett asked, entirely ignoring Cameron’s question.
“Yes,” I replied, flattening my lips before the “please” tumbled out. “He’ll have a black coffee, Cameron,” I added without breaking eye contact, enraptured by the disappearing tilt of his lips as he turned to the register.
It felt like all the bones had been sucked from my body as I slumped into the chair opposite Margot.
“I knew it,” she said in a sing-song voice.
I waited eagerly for Rhett’s final goodbye as he waved over his shoulder and exited out onto the sidewalk. “What are you talking about?” I hissed, trying not to be too obvious as I watched him cross the road and into Marigold’s.
“Seriously?” Margot perched her chin on her hand and sighed. “Don’t lie to me, Georgette. Good grief, it was like watching you with your sixth grade crush all over again.”
“Rhett and I are friends, that’s all,” I asserted with a long sip of my mocha. “He’s saving my skin with Marigold’s, after all. How could we not be?”
That was it—friends. That was all it could be.
“I mean, have you really dated since—”
“Harrison? No,” I interrupted quickly. It had been difficult to focus on anything after my grandmother’s passing, let alone a relationship. “The past four years have been busy,” I lied.
“Okay, well, what about now?” Margot tapped her fingertip on the lid of her empty cup. “You’re single, he’s… single?”
My heart lodged in my throat. The thought had never even occurred to me—someone was probably waiting for him back home. Someone with a shiny career and even shinier hair. Meanwhile, I was pathetically unraveling any time he smiled at me, or rolled up his sleeves, or—
Oh, never mind.
“I actually don’t know if he’s single,” I responded, attempting to appear aloof, but sounding like I was choking on a bagel again. “And that doesn’t matter, anyway. He’s leaving after the festival. All we can be is friends.” Had I convinced myself yet?
Margot swallowed and adjusted her parka like it was a designer fur coat. “Speaking of that, Georgie, I—”
The bell chimed.
In tumbled Janice, leopard print umbrella in tow, uncharacteristically devoid of her husband’s presence. She wrapped her dark brown jacket closer to her dainty frame, a mist of raindrops across her hair making the silver shine.
“Oh, Georgie! I’m so glad you’re here,” Janice started, shuffling toward us. “Why haven’t you been picking up your phone?”
I slipped my phone from my back pocket as she pulled up a chair. Four missed calls.
“I’m sorry, I must not have felt it vibrate. Are you okay? Where’s Frank?”
Janice swiped the air with her hand. “You know Frank. Always puttering from one project to the next. When I told him we needed to find you, he said he needed ten more minutes under the hood of his truck. Well, here I am.” She paused and pointed to my cup. “Is there anything left in there?”
I bit back the smile and slid it over. “You can have it.”
Letting out a long breath, she took a sip and sent me a grateful wink.
“Anyway, as I was saying—it turns out some of the vendors still have me as their contact for the festival.” She stopped, seemingly realized Margot was there, and reached over to pat her hand.
“Good to see you, darling. It’s about time you visited your poor mother. ”
Margot sent her a tight-lipped smile.
“You really didn’t need to come all the way down here for that—”
“I wasn’t done, dear!” Janice cut me off. “Have you looked at the weather forecast?”
My stomach clenched. “No…”
“It’s just terrible—another storm’s due to hit in fourteen days. The exact night of Summer’s End.” She clucked her tongue, eyes softening. “I’m so sorry, Georgie. The carnival rental company says it nullifies their contract.”
I pressed my palms to my temples, groaning.
Margot leaned forward. “Their equipment can’t handle a little water?”
“They said something about lightning and metal structures,” Janice responded with an eye roll.
They fell into an outraged conversation over the audacity of the weather, and safety regulations, and everything in between, while I turned to the window. As the day stretched on, the sky had grown increasingly dark, signaling another night of heavy rain.
I swallowed, staring past my own reflection in the rain-streaked window.
Without the Ferris wheel, Summer’s End would lose what made it magical.
People came for the food, the games, the booths, sure—but they stayed for that wheel lighting up the night sky.
Whole families planned their trips around it.
And without that, without the carnival company…
Bluebell Cove would lose more than money. We’d lose what made us, us.
“I can call a few other places,” I said slowly, pulling my hands down my face. My voice came out muffled. “Maybe someone can deliver on short notice?”
Janice clucked again. “I thought of that already, dear. But they’re all booked. You’d have better luck finding a chain restaurant on Main Street.”
“Let’s not add that to our list of problems,” Margot muttered, glaring at the storm outside.
I sat back in my chair, thoughts careening into each other at a breakneck pace. The signs, the booths, the vendors—years of repetition to make everything seamless. And now, one measly lightning storm could undo it all.
“Hey.” Margot leaned across the table and nudged my wrist. “Don’t spiral. We’ll figure this out. If it comes down to it, we can set up the booths inside the gymnasium. It won’t be the same, but… it’ll work.”
“Inside?” I repeated weakly.
She lifted a brow. “Better than getting struck by lightning.” She tilted her head mischievously and whispered, “Hey, maybe Rhett can help us…”
“Margot!” I hissed, cheeks flaring.
Janice blinked innocently. “Everett, huh?”
“I’m going home,” I announced, standing so quickly my chair legs squealed against the floor.
“Sit down,” Margot ordered, tugging my sleeve until I collapsed again. “We’re not done strategizing.”
Janice hid her smirk behind my cup. “Oh, don’t mind me. Frank and I always thought Rhett was a sweet boy. He’s been such a help already. And it’s nice to see that beautiful smile of yours more often, Georgie.”
I pressed my lips together. I didn’t want to examine that too closely.
By the time Janice bustled out with promises to “talk sense into the carnival company one last time,” Margot and I had scribbled a handful of half-baked backup plans on napkins. My stomach growled as I stuffed them into my jacket pocket.
“You’re quiet,” Margot observed as we stepped into the drizzle.
“I’m thinking.”
“You’re brooding,” she corrected with an astute arch of her brow. “And not just about the weather.”
Huffing, I ignored her and slipped my hood up. I hoped she didn’t notice the dumb smile threatening to spread across my mouth.
We cut across the road toward Marigold’s. The brown paper still covered the windows, but light spilled around the edges of the door. The low rumble of machinery hummed inside. I pressed my hand to the glass, shook my head and pulled it back.
Margot followed my gaze, then gave me a shove. “Go on, knock.”
“Absolutely not,” I said, turning and quickening my pace.
Her laugh trailed after me. “I swear, Georgette, I’m going to lock you in there with him until you either kiss or kill each other.”
“Don’t you dare.” But my pulse jumped at the thought, and I had to focus hard on the puddles at my feet.
???
That night, after Margot left, I curled on my couch with a blanket and a mug of hot chocolate. The rain battered the windows, relentless. Napkins peeked out of my jacket hanging by the door like ghosts of problems unsolved.
I tried reading, then sketching in my pottery notebook, but every few minutes my eyes flicked to my phone on the coffee table.
Ridiculous, really—he had no reason to text me.
Maybe he needed to discuss something about the shop.
After all, that’s the only thing we’d ever texted about. Just because he’d asked didn’t mean—
It buzzed and lit up. I nearly spilled my hot cocoa lunging for it.
Rhett Briggs: Thanks for the sign-making crash course yesterday. Still finding yellow paint under my fingernails.
A laugh burst out of me, startling in the quiet room. Easton jumped and cocked his head at me. I swiftly typed back before I could talk myself out of it.
Me: Occupational hazard. At least you didn’t cause a near-fatal fall.
His reply came faster than my breath would calm.
Rhett: Give me time.
I set the phone down, face burning, and buried myself deeper under the blanket.
The storm outside roared and rattled the shutters even though I’d taken the time to lock them closed.
Music on the television swelled as Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman finally kissed, and I groaned loudly and launched myself into the mountain of pillows beside me.
One thought needled the back of my mind: Rhett was just my friend. That’s all he could ever be.