Chapter 15
NAUDI
Taking a step back, I stare at the display of a peacock blue peignoir set I’ve rearranged three times already. The flow is off, and for the life of me, I can’t make it work.
That seems to be my theme lately. Nothing is working. The cash register went dark in the middle of a transaction earlier. Everything I tried didn’t faze it one bit. I finally had to take my customer over to Poppy’s side of the store and check her out under books.
When Poppy got back from nursing her baby, she’d pushed one damn button and it started working again.
I hear the tap of platform shoes on the tile floor coming my way but don’t turn around. I know who it is.
“Don’t even think about changing that again,” Poppy scolds.
“I’m not.” Mostly because nothing I’ve tried looks right. Even if I change it, I’ll still hate it.
“You are.”
“Fine. I’m considering it.”
“That counts.”
I sigh, folding my arms as I glower at the display like it personally offends me. I’d designed it and cut it out the day my parents left to go back to India.
It’s beautiful silk and I’d been lucky to find a delicate lace to match. But something… “It’s wrong.”
“It’s not wrong,” she says, walking up beside me. “You’re wrong.”
“That’s helpful.”
“I try.”
She bumps her shoulder against mine, then leans in slightly. “You’ve been off all morning. More off than normal. What’s up?”
I shrug and instantly regret it because it brings someone else’s shrugs to mind. “I’ve been busy.”
“You’ve been distracted for three weeks.” She arches one brow and looks at me pointedly, waiting for me to put that timeframe together with the day I left Walker’s home. I don’t need reminding. I relive that day every night in my dreams.
Instead of arguing, I turn and move toward the counter, reaching for the stack of invoices I’ve already gone through twice.
“Did you eat?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“You’re lying.”
“I do it so well.” The snapback jumps from my mouth.
Then I feel guilty. Had I eaten? I run back through my disaster day.
Oh right, my straightening iron blew up and I had to wear my hair in a braid which didn’t make me late opening the shop, but the time I spent looking for a hair tie and dragging everything out from under the sink did.
I didn’t find the one I was looking for, my favorite. “I had coffee.”
“That’s not food.”
“Surely it satisfies one food group?”
“You’re being difficult.”
“I’ll eat extra for dinner.” My lonely, one-person dinner that really doesn’t feel worth making.
“What did he send this time?”
My hand stills before picking up another receipt.
Exhaling slowly, I turn and reach beneath the counter where I’d tucked it out of sight.
The glass jar is small with a Colley Point label.
There’s the image of a pirate ship on the left side with an open treasure chest on the sand holding jars and jars of honey.
His marketing is brilliant.
Poppy studies the jar. “Well, that’s new.”
“It’s creamed honey.” My fingertips trace the top of the lid. “It’s my favorite. Do you know it takes twice as long to process as regular honey?”
“Hmmm, no. I didn’t know that. Was there a note this time?”
“No. No note. Just the honey.”
Her lips press together like she’s holding back something she very much wants to say. “That’s annoying.”
I glance up at her. “What is?”
“The fact that’s ridiculously thoughtful and he wasted an opportunity to profess his love for you.”
“Can you go milk-crazy from nursing?” I ask and she gives me a death glare.
The bell above the bookstore door rings, saving me from more of her nosiness. Or maybe not, since she makes no move to go to her side of the store. She means well, but there isn’t anything she can do to make it better.
The honey jar taunts me from the counter. I’ll have some with toast for dinner tonight. Or not.
The gifts started the week after I moved back home. I’d left work and climbed the stairs to my apartment and found a brown paper bag. The kind you get at the grocery store when they ask if you want paper or plastic.
Inside I’d found the blanket that I loved to curl up with at his house. I couldn’t find any tags. It had to be the same one. I told myself I wouldn’t use it. It sat folded on the edge of my bed for two days before I gave in. Now I sleep with it every night.
It’s a shame he doesn’t know that it wasn’t just the blanket I loved. It was also his front porch and the view that made it so special. Those aren’t giftable.
Three days later, David, the town’s sheriff, came into the shop and handed me a small box. David and his wife, Shyanne, are my friends, but he wouldn’t say anything other than he was only the delivery guy.
He didn’t need to tell me who it was from.
I knew the moment I opened the box and saw a delicate silver chain with a tiny glass vial hanging from it.
Inside are sand and the smallest shells I’ve ever seen.
I’m not a betting woman, but if I were, I’d bet big money that the sand and shells came from the same beach where we’d shared a kiss.
I didn’t put it on. I couldn’t. Currently, it resides in my bedside drawer where I have easy access to stick it beneath my pillow before I go to sleep.
And now the honey. A simple gift but packed with special memories. Memories that only the two of us know the story behind. “Shouldn’t you go help your customer?”
“It’s Mrs. Parker. She came for the latest book club release, but she likes to peruse the spicy romance in secret.
She pretends she’s looking at the cookbooks on the opposite side of the aisle.
When no one is looking, she grabs one of the novels.
You know, I laid the bookstore out with just that in mind. ”
Poppy on a tangent is a thing of confusion and chaos. There’s nothing to do but sit back and hang on until she finishes.
“Have you ever wondered why romance is the highest-selling genre yet nobody admits to reading it? I find that funny and sad.”
She leans against the counter and takes a much-needed breath. “He’s not letting you forget him.”
“I’m not trying to forget him.”
Her forehead puckers. “No?”
“No,” I say, a little too quickly. “I’m just…moving on.”
She points a finger at me and then waves it all around me. “That’s not what moving on looks like.”
I close my eyes. “I don’t want to do this today.”
“Today, tomorrow, yesterday, it doesn’t matter. You never want to talk about it. Too bad,” she says gently. “We’re doing it anyway.”
I stand up and brace my hands on the old wooden counter, staring at nothing. “It wasn’t real, Poppy.”
That’s the truth I’ve been clinging to, the one that makes everything easier. Simpler. Safer.
Taking a peek at my best friend, I can tell she’s going to call me out. Where is my fight or flight instinct? Oddly missing.
“You can say that as many times as you need to. That doesn’t make it true.”
“It started as a lie. How could a relationship based on a lie survive for the long run?”
“Yeah,” she agrees with a nod. “It did.”
“And it ended the same way.”
“Did it?”
I meet her eyes. She knows me. I’m lying to myself, but I’m not ready to admit that. “Yes.”
She studies me for a long moment. “Did it feel like a lie when he kissed you? Any of the four times?”
My breath hitches. I look away first. “That’s not fair.”
“It’s a question.”
“You know the answer.”
“I want you to say it.”
I swallow, trying to push it down. It doesn’t work. “No,” I reply quietly. “It didn’t.”
She grins. “Then maybe that’s the part you should be paying attention to.”
I let out a breath that feels heavier than it should. “That doesn’t change anything.”
She snorts a laugh. “It changes everything, missy.”
“No, it complicates everything.”
“Life is complicated. You don’t get to run away from the tough stuff just because it scares you.”
I stare at her. “You think I’m scared?”
“I think you’re terrified because, for the first time in a long time, something mattered enough that losing it actually hurt.”
Hit successful. Right in the bullseye. Poppy has known me a long time. She was the first real friend I made in America right after I moved here. She’s always had my back. Always. I look over at the jar of honey. “He let me go,” I say the thing that shouldn’t bother me, but it does.
“Yeah, he did. Damn the man for respecting you enough to let you walk away when you said you needed to.”
Yeah, he did do that. I pushed and he accepted my terms. I know I asked for space. Why am I disappointed he gave me exactly what I asked for? “If it were real, he would have fought for me.”
Poppy’s expression shifts. “Do you even hear yourself? Isn’t that what he’s doing now? With all the thoughtful gifts.”
I don’t respond, but I’m thinking that maybe he is making a move. I pick up the jar and hold it in my hands, the weight of it grounding me. “He remembers everything.”
“Yeah,” Poppy replies. “He does.”
I close my eyes and imagine myself back on that porch.
Wrapped in the blanket that’s still on my bed upstairs, listening to the sound of his voice as he tells me about bees.
I can feel the salty ocean breeze on my face, and I can feel the warmth of his body beside me. That was real. That actually happened.
When I open my eyes again, nothing around me has changed. And somehow everything has. “I don’t know what to do,” I admit.
Poppy smiles, not because it’s funny, but because it’s honest.
“Good, that means you’re finally being real about it. You’re ready to receive whatever he’s going to offer, if you know what I mean.” She waggles her brows and that makes me laugh.
I set the jar back down with a lot more hope and anticipation for the future than I’d had since I made the wrong decision to leave Colley Point.