15. Chapter 15
Chapter fifteen
Gina
Benji has been quiet since we got back to Happy Lake. I want to ask him what’s wrong, but he’s over by the chillers, cleaning fingerprints off the glass while I dutifully show Diana the wedding dress I found online but haven’t bought yet.
And I know what’s wrong. My mother’s last words— is it worth it?
I think he took it to mean was he worth it, which wasn’t what my mom was asking.
I’ve never told her Milo and I are just friends and our marriage will be one of convenience, but she might suspect.
Which isn’t good, but as long as she keeps her mouth shut and goes along with the whole second cousin thing—
The last person anyone in Havenwood can rely on is my mother. But maybe she has some of me somewhere in her if I have some of her in me. Maybe this time, she’ll come through.
The muscles of Benji’s arms flex and loosen as he washes the glass doors, the green Happy Lake shirt pulling tight across his broad shoulders. It’s a good color on him. It brings out the warm tones in his brown hair and turns his eyes luminous.
I want to feel his arms around me again, like when he held me in my mother’s kitchen, but this time, I want to hold him back. Just breathe him in and soak up his warmth.
I take a deep breath and let it out in a frustrated sigh. It’s just a summer crush, but my god, it feels heavy.
Happy Lake is worth the sacrifice. A crush, even a big one, doesn’t last forever.
“Just get the dress, Gina,” Diana says, moving to stand over my shoulder. “It’s pretty, and you want it.”
The shitty thing is that I do want this wedding dress. It’s simple, with capped sleeves and a hem that won’t trip me. There’s a pretty little beaded accent on the neckline. The dress is perfect, but it feels wrong for this sham of a wedding.
“Or you can wear my dress,” Diana says, “since your mother turned your grandmother’s wedding dress into an arts and crafts project.”
She made me try her dress on a few weeks ago. While it’s not really me, it’s pretty enough and in beautiful condition. But Diana married the love of her life in that dress. I would feel even more like a fraud if I wore it.
“I’ll get it,” I say, selecting my size and adding it to my cart.
“Here.” She sets her credit card on the desk next to me.
I push it back. “I can buy it.” It’s not expensive, and I’ve already checked my bank balance.
“Nonsense. I told you I’d cover the cost.”
We’re still politely arguing about it when the bell over the door rings.
I look up, and my stomach sinks. No. There’s no way—we only bumped into them today. It’s too soon, but apparently, there’s no such thing as too soon to give Autumn an opportunity for fun.
Jen walks into the lodge, her daughter trailing behind her. Autumn’s as stunning as the last time I saw her a few years ago, with the same long, perfectly styled chestnut brown hair and friendly smile as her mother.
Diana and Jen slide into easy conversation while Autumn spies Benji and quietly excuses herself. He looks up from cleaning the window on the last chiller and smiles at her as she approaches.
Just a crush, huh?
Surprisingly, taunting myself doesn’t ease the stabbing jealousy.
I take a step in their direction, but Jen asks me about the dress on the computer screen, and I’m immediately sucked into a conversation I don’t want to have about a wedding I also don’t want to have, preventing me from listening in on what Benji and Autumn are saying.
I steal glances anyway. He’s leaning against the chiller, and dammit, he looks interested.
And why wouldn’t he be? She’s got more in common with him than I do.
A little voice in the back of my head growls my husband .
Yeah, the husband who will be divorcing me in a couple of weeks because I asked him to .
I’m fortunate that Diana can carry on this conversation about my wedding without me because I’m not taking in a single word of it as Autumn and Benji join us. His eyes meet mine briefly before he looks away.
“Gina,” Autumn says, turning to me with a bright smile, “We’re going to grab a drink at Gallo’s tomorrow. You and Milo should come.”
“Sounds fun,” I say, trying to sound like I mean it.
Friday arrives and there is nothing fun about this cursed double date. I’m halfway drunk an hour in, peeling the label off my fourth beer bottle while my fiancé ignores me and my husband’s attention is on the gorgeous woman sitting next to him.
Benji laughs at something Autumn says about her high school days, and that little voice in my head snarls mine again. It’s impossible to tell if they’re flirting or if they are simply two high-energy people trying to make up for me and Milo. We, quite frankly, suck.
The town’s prodigal golden girl and the handsome new guy, sitting with the bad boy and the black sheep’s daughter. No wonder people are watching us. We’re so incredibly mismatched.
Gallo’s is a dive bar, with wood-paneled walls and vintage neon beer signs on the wall. Booths line the edge of the room, and high-top tables fill the floor space between the pool tables on one end and the small dance floor on the other.
Louisa Gallo owns the bar with her cousin Travis. Usually, when Lou’s here, the music is classic rock, and the vibes are fun. But tonight, Travis is running the bar, which means the vibes are Small Town Meth Sales in the Back. Not that it stops the locals from showing up for cheap beer and gossip.
I begged Milo to come. I foolishly thought imagining Benji and Autumn together would be worse than seeing them together, and I didn’t want to be a third wheel. But Milo’s too busy staring daggers at Travis to pay any attention to me.
Milo fell in with Travis and his friends back in high school, though he was more on the periphery of that group.
Still, when Rita Gallo’s house burned down, enough people whispered that Milo had been behind the blaze and not Travis, who was quick with a smile and a heap of bullshit.
After all, Milo had been caught stealing before and was already suspected of vandalism, so arson didn’t seem too big of a leap to the people of Havenwood. And Travis had an alibi.
While he’s never said as much, I’m pretty sure that’s why Milo left town all those years ago.
So it’s troubling when Benji’s friend Clay walks into the bar, talks to Travis, and heads back toward the office.
Under the table, I nudge Milo with my foot.
Milo puts his arm around my shoulders, drawing me in so he can lean down to whisper in my ear. “He’s up to something.”
I nod because Travis is always up to something. But Lou can handle him, and we can only warn Benji to warn his friend.
Milo relaxes his hold on me but keeps his arm in place, and I look up in time to watch Benji’s frown dissolve as he says something to Autumn.
She laughs and touches his arm, leaning into him.
Benji doesn’t look at me—it feels very obvious that he’s deliberately not looking at me—when he smiles back at her.
My chest feels like it’s crumpling in on itself.
This shouldn’t hurt—I barely know Benji, and I’m choosing Happy Lake.
This is good because even if I did something stupid like choose Benji, tell everyone the truth, and have Diana see me the same way she sees Milo and my mother, I still have nothing to offer an energetic twenty-five-year-old.
It’s for the best if he and Autumn hit it off.
Maybe he’ll sign the divorce papers, and I can stop wanting something I can’t have.
“I need another drink,” I say abruptly, sliding off my stool and out from Milo’s arm. I grab my empty beer bottle from the high-top table and walk to the bar before I realize I forgot to ask anyone else if they wanted one.
Dammit.
I don’t drink much—usually just a beer around a campfire with Milo once or twice a week. Vegas was an aberration.
Turns out, so is tonight.
“Give me a shot of whatever,” I say to Travis when he finally decides to serve me.
He looks me up and down, and my skin crawls. “Gina Carlson, finally letting out her wild side. I like it.” He pours a shot of cheap whiskey and sets it in front of me. “On the house.”
I did shots in Vegas, but I don’t remember doing them.
I pick this one up, hoping for the best. It doesn’t go down in a single gulp—it takes me three, and the burn nearly makes me give up halfway through.
But I set the empty glass on the bar, cough like I’m dying for twenty seconds, and calmly ask for another.
He laughs, already pouring another.
This one goes down easier, but my empty glass is barely on the bar when Milo’s hand closes on my arm, and he pulls me back. “What are you doing?” he asks.
Without us at the table, Autumn and Benji have turned to face each other as they talk, and she keeps touching him. He doesn’t seem to mind.
“It hurts.” I don’t think it’s the booze, but I have no idea why else I’d say that.
Milo rubs my back with one of his big hands. “Sorry.”
I’m sorry, too. Sorry for wanting Benji to stay for the summer. Sorry for the lies. Sorry for myself, mostly. “Take me home?”
He nods. “You head out to the truck. I’ll say our goodbyes.”
“Thank you,” I say, giving him a quick hug before I bolt out of the bar.
It’s dark outside. The lone functioning light outside Gallo’s doesn’t reach the shadows where we parked. Gravel crunches under my shoes as I walk to the truck, hugging my arms to myself despite the warm night.
Milo catches up to me. The drive back to Happy Lake is a quiet one.
Once upon a time, I loved the quiet that came with spending time with Milo.
He doesn’t intrude on my thoughts like my mother does, and I’ve never felt the pressure to make small talk like I do with everyone else.
But tonight, it crawls under my skin and festers.
“Tonight sucked,” I grumble as Milo flicks the high beams off for a car coming around a bend in the highway. It passes, and he flicks them back on.
“It’s for the best,” he says.