Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Haven
Wedding guests mill around the pavilion.
It’s a gorgeous August day for my brother’s wedding, and I don’t have to rush around making sure it’s all going to plan.
Campbell’s adept at her job, and everything’s running smoothly.
Iverson and Jamison are making sure of it.
That leaves me with nothing to do. I’ve made idle chitchat for days, and I’m exhausted.
I can’t get lost in my work like normal. I have to be personable, professional, and, most of all, happy.
I’m not fucking happy.
Is Prescott gone? She must be by now. Did she go to my place to say goodbye to the kittens and Meadow? What does it mean if she didn’t?
We weren’t anything official. I made sure of it. Yet when she gently disappears out of my life, I’m rudderless. What the hell am I going to do with this giant hole in my chest ?
There’s nothing for me at the pavilion but more aimless questions that have no answers.
I cross the expansive lawn to the sprawling lodge, nodding at people from the community as I pass.
Ned and Isadora Blake from the gas station both wave at me while they chat with Nellie Huang from Wok and Roll.
Maya Reyes, one of the owners of the Mexican restaurant, approaches them.
We exchange smiles. If it’s a place that serves food in town, they’ll have connections with Campbell, thanks to the food fair she holds every other year.
Cruz pushes out the door and holds it open for Elodie.
She’s not in her usual baggy shirt and leggings, instead in a gauzy pale-blue dress and sandals.
Her long hair is braided with loose tendrils framing her face.
The appreciation in Cruz’s gaze deepens when his attention dips down to her ass.
He lets go of the door and trots to her side, cocking an elbow out. They both smile as they pass.
“Lookin’ good, Haven,” Cruz says.
“Thanks, man.” I’m in starched black jeans and a white shirt. The black suspenders are taking some getting used to, but it’s too hot for a sport coat and Campbell wanted something a step up from our normal dress wear. I look better than I feel.
When I step inside the lodge, I have to decide where I’m going. The wedding starts in an hour. Pictures are done, and that was torture. Smiling for a photographer who isn’t Prescott dulls the idea that I would’ve enjoyed my own senior pictures when I was a teen. She’s what I enjoyed about that day.
I take the hallway that leads to the bar. I’m not getting wasted, but maybe a drink will calm the churning in my head.
I’m rubbing between my eyes when I enter. Damn. It’s not a big space, so it doesn’t take many people to fill it up. More chatter sounds like the worst thing in the world right now. I’m about to turn when the middle Hawthorne sister spots me.
Avery snaps her fingers and beckons me to the table. Her brown hair is tied back, and she’s wearing her blush-colored bridesmaid dress. She and her partner, Thea, have a small bottle of the wedding favors in front of them.
When I get near, Avery points to the whiskey. “Good stuff. Durban said you made it.”
“I infused and double-aged it.”
Thea pushes out an old-fashioned half-back chair with her foot. She’s freshly shaved the sides of her dark hair and pushed the rest off her forehead. Her dress resembles Elodie’s, but it’s the color of iron-rich dirt—brownish red. “Sit. We have time.”
I don’t have an excuse other than I don’t want to talk to anyone. Dropping into the chair, I grab the extra unopened favor. The blush label on it has the yellow outline of the Foster House logo. Durban and Campbell and the date form a circle around it. I crack the top and down half of it.
The flavor only propels me back in time. I’m between Prescott’s legs in the rickhouse. Her moans are in my ear, and I finally have her.
“Fuck.” I slam the tiny bottle down.
Avery and Thea exchange a glance.
“So,” Avery says hesitantly, “I’m just going to be blunt.”
I bark out a laugh. “Avery, I’ve known you for years now. That’s your middle name.”
“It’s actually Marie, and I’m going to spare you the rant about how the middle kid got the generic middle name. ”
Thea’s brows pinch together. “I thought your mom said it was her grandma’s name.”
“That doesn’t sound as sad.” Avery pins me with her direct gaze. “You’ve been out of sorts all week, and I’ve heard about a Bootleg bartender that you’ve been seen with a lot.” She puts her hands up and looks around. “Yet…you’re alone.”
“She doesn’t like weddings,” I utter, empty, sick of repeating the excuse. Would she have made an exception for me? I didn’t give her a chance to decide. Besides, she would’ve been a guest. My plus-one.
“Fair.” Thea crosses her arms. “They aren’t all relaxed soirées like the Hawthorne girls’ weddings are.”
Avery punctuates the statement with a knowing nod. “So where is the mystery woman who’s got you all bound up?”
“Gone.” I stare at the table filled with wedding favors. The words pile on my tongue, and for once, I don’t want to keep them in. Avery and Thea are removed from the drama. It’s why I talked to Prescott about things like my mom.
No. That’s not why. It’s because I wanted to talk with her. Emotions weren’t crowded so fiercely inside me that I was ready to burst like now. I wanted Prescott, and I wanted her to want all of me.
“She left town,” I say. “Today.”
“Why?” Avery draws out the word.
I smack my lips. “Because she doesn’t want this kind of life with a guy like me.”
“Okay, a guy like you. But what about with you ?” Thea shrugs. “I know the Hennessys aren’t just normal dudes or Avery’s sisters wouldn’t keep marrying them. ”
“Well, no one’s marrying me,” I say.
“Did you ask?” Avery counters.
“Why would I? It wasn’t that serious.” She doesn’t want me.
Avery narrows her eyes at me. “You’ve been moping around for a week like your puppy kicked you, yet you’re all, ‘it wasn’t that serious?’” She makes her voice low when she mimics me. I scowl at her.
Thea fans herself. “Be still, my heart. A guy wants me, but doesn’t want to chase me and just lets me go. Oh my god. I’m never going to recover from the romance.”
I frown at each of them. Since they’re on either side of the table, I have to switch back and forth. “What the hell are you two getting at?”
My stomach cramps and starts to free-fall. Because I know.
Avery smacks my arm. “Iverson gave up his entire career for his Sunny. And he dragged you two with him to do it. Durban rode off with Campbell from someone else’s wedding.”
“And he’s doing it again tonight,” Thea says and thinks a moment. “I mean, it’s their wedding this time.”
“But the point stands,” Avery continues. “You want your woman, you’re gonna have to work for it.”
“What about her?”
“Again, the romance,” Thea says flatly. “It’s killing me.”
A ding sounds faintly from nearby.
Thea waves her phone in the air. “Avery, you’re on.” She squeezes my biceps. “That means you are too.” There’s concern in her eyes. “I really think that if you like this girl, you should put yourself out there. I get the feeling you didn’t.”
“She gets that because she was the same way.” Avery pats my other arm, the same worry in her eyes.
“I thought, whelp, this chick isn’t into me.
And then I planned to go on a big backpacking trip in Italy.
I was going to be gone for months, and when I came back, I’d find a new town to start over in again. ”
“What happened?” I ask as if they aren’t a united pair right in front of me.
“I packed my shit and went with her.” Thea smacks her teeth against her lips and shudders. She takes my wedding favor and downs the rest. “I hate hiking, bugs, and not showering every day. Yet I had the time of my life.”
They both give me a hug, sandwiching me for a second before disappearing.
I glower at the empty single-serving bottles of whiskey. Prescott didn’t throw herself at me. She tried to resist. And then she kept making plans for her future.
I didn’t ask her to stay. I couldn’t do that to her.
What if I went with her?
I stand up, like I’m ready to run, but I don’t know where to.
“Excuse me,” a growly voice says behind me. “Oh, Haven. Hi.” Silas takes the seat Thea was in. He sniffs and looks around. He’s got a Busch Light in his hand, condensation gathered around the outside. “Been wanting to see this place firsthand.”
“How’s Prescott?” I blurt it out like I don’t care about small talk. I don’t.
“Good. She’s probably taking off about now.”
I lean closer to him. “She didn’t leave this morning?”
He screws his face up. “Nope. Wanted to sleep in and take her time packing. She’s only going to get as far as Rapid City tonight, and it’s going to be late.”
She could still be here? She could still be in town? I scan the room as if she followed her dad to Hawthorne Ranch.
Silas sniffs, and a cloud passes over his features. I stop, ready to run, but caught by his expression. There’s a sadness in his eyes I’ve never seen before. Silas has only one setting—cantankerous.
“You miss her?”
His mustache twitches. “The heck. I think I do. Kind of nice having her close and seeing her at the bar. Makes a guy think about some things he should’ve done differently.”
Am I going to be that guy? Looking back and wishing I’d put myself out there? Because she’s become so important to me that I treasure each day I got with her.
No. I’m not going to be the guy telling old stories in the tasting room in thirty years. I want to create new ones—with Prescott. “Which route is she taking?”
He rolls a shoulder. “Probably through Billings. Roads are better.”
Probably. Good enough. I know she’s going to Chicago, and I know it’s a cat company. Without saying a word to Silas, I rush out the door.
Iverson and Durban are standing by the front door talking to Mae. They give me quizzical looks. I don’t want to stop, but they’re talking to Mae.
She smiles at me. “It’s almost time. I’d better go take my seat.”