CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CASEY
It’s seven thirty on Thursday morning.
The wedding is in two days. I’ve been texting Claire a countdown for the past five days, featuring all the available bridal emojis and memes that modern technology has provided to us.
Griffin is in Cleveland, training and being amazing.
And I’m on the back porch, zoning out—something I now understand better than I used to, thanks to my therapist and the formal diagnosis I’m still getting used to.
This has been a very fast-paced August. It feels like everything is changing exponentially quickly.
Every day compounds on the last. The Chicago job offer is still on the table; we conducted the second interview over video call a few days ago, and now they want me to come in person to meet with them.
That’s supposed to happen on Monday, which is when I would slip back into the shell of my former life: prepaid apartment lease, ready-made friend group, a plan that made sense in May when I was gutted and desperate for something to cling to.
But the closer I get to Chicago, the more I know my answer.
That shell doesn’t fit anymore. This bookish hermit crab is ready for a new fit.
I want to fucking stay here.
In fact, I’ve already made my decision. I just haven’t embraced it until now.
My body vibrates with excitement and certainty as I sip the rest of my coffee.
This feels like both stepping off a cliff and opening a treasure chest. Is it insane?
Yes, because I don’t have a parachute. But I have gold doubloons waiting for me in the metaphorical ancient wooden chest of life, in the form of fulfillment and passion and a bright, unchecked future.
So…I’m doing it. I’m jumping. I’m trusting that the parachute will open.
I spend my morning doing what I normally do—reading, filming, brainstorming ideas for more content. In the quiet moments, I let myself fantasize about what comes next.
I know I want Griffin to be a part of it.
And I wonder if staying closer to his home base would change things for him.
I don’t expect him to let me live in this house long-term.
It was a temporary solution—a true summertime stopover.
I want to build from the ground up this time. My business. My home. My future.
CASEY: When are you getting back today? I have exciting news.
GRIFFIN: I’ll come as soon as I inhale my lunch. Be there around 1.
Every minute leading until one o’clock feels like an eternity. The more I pore over my new plan—the Stay in Bayshore, Actually, and Be a Full Time Badass Book Rec Bartender plan—I realize how well things are lining up.
Ryan has offered me a steady spot at the bar if I stay.
He says winter gets slow, but he can promise me some hours each week, which is better than nothing.
Between what I’ve made this summer and what I have in savings, I could last another year paying Bayshore-level rent, even if I make zero dollars.
And the real star of the show, the TikTok account, has been growing daily.
No, hourly. I’ve got over a hundred thousand followers already, and each video I post seems to unlock a new level of bookish wonder.
Publishers are reaching out, dying to send me ARCs. I have indie authors messaging left and right, asking for my address to send PR boxes. And that’s just on the book end of things. On the financial end? I’ve got brands wanting to partner already. Paychecks are waiting for me.
This thing is growing faster than anything I’ve ever done. And I built it in eight weeks while bartending four nights a week. No matter how hard I try to be practical and reasonable, there’s one thought that just keeps floating to the top:
What if this is the thing?
When the front door opens and Griffin comes into the house, I could crumple from how much I love him. How much I missed him. How much I just want to exist in this joyful bubble of potential for the rest of my life.
“Sup, Case?” His easy smile is the only thing I see. I’m bent at the knees, leaning against the back of the couch as he heads my way. He slides his hands along the back of the couch, bending slightly to meet me at my level. Our lips meet, a tender, hungry kiss emerging.
“Mmm. Needed that,” he says when we break apart.
“Me too.” I smile dreamily at him.
“What’s your news?”
I search his face, wondering how to begin. “I don’t think I’m moving back to Chicago.”
He pulls back a bit, surprise moving across his face. Then it hardens into something more neutral. “Yeah?”
“I’m getting paid collaboration offers left and right on TikTok,” I say.
“It’s growing by the minute, I swear. And Ryan said I could stay at Brews.
I know the money won’t be as good in the winter as it is during the summer, but I have savings.
I think between Brews and my savings and whatever I keep building on TikTok, I can get by without the day job. ”
I could add more, but I’m acutely aware that Griffin has gone fully expressionless. These are all practical reasons anyway. I haven’t even gone into the emotional reasons, one of which is standing in front of me in workout clothes looking like my dream man.
Griffin nods slowly, looking like he just heard a fifth grader explain their approach to world peace. “Yeah. I think that’s great.”
The words are right, but something’s off. “You do?”
“Bayshore is lucky to have you.”
I wait. The silence is heavy. Eternal. Because I want to see if he’ll say it. The thing that I’ve hinted at a hundred times. The prayer I whisper in every kiss. The hope I hold every time he scoops me up and claims me even though we’re “just friends.”
But he’s not going to say it. I decide to give him one more opening.
“It would be nice,” I say cheerily, “to not live three hundred miles away from you.”
Something shifts in him. His gaze grows warm as he says, with all the sweetness in the world, “It would be nice. Next summer, if you’re still around, we can do all this again.”
I swallow hard, trying not to let my face show the effect his words have. Next summer.
He still thinks this is ending, that it has to end. He squeezes my arms and brushes a quick kiss against my forehead.
“You got a good plan, Case. I’m glad the TikTok account is heating up.” He heads back toward the door. “I’m heading to my mom’s to help her look for the damn safe combination. Piper wrote down that combination on game night then lost the paper.”
I nod vehemently, clearing my throat. “Yeah. Great. Have fun. Let me know if you find it.”
The door slams shut a moment later, leaving me lost in my head, still pressed against the back of the couch with the taste of Griffin’s lips against mine.
He’s already assigned the end date in his head. It couldn’t be clearer. He’s packed our time together up, labeled it Summer Dalliance, and filed it somewhere he won’t have to look at it again until next year.
And here I am, staying in Bayshore, following my dreams, making all the space he’d ever need to permanently reside in my heart…and he has already closed the door on his way out.
Claire is radiant on her wedding day.
Not that I expected anything different. Claire has been radiant her entire life, but today, she is on a whole other level. She comes down the aisle in ivory silk. Paul cries like they do in the movies. I’m standing at her side with the bridal party, dabbing my tears and trying to keep it together.
The wedding is on Briggs Bay in late afternoon, and then the bridal party and family photos happen just at golden hour on the bay. Everything is magical, like where giant bumblebees are settling on flower petals and cardinals are resting on people’s shoulders-style magical.
All my loved ones are here. Every time I find Griffin in the crowd, he’s already looking at me.
Like he can’t keep his eyes off me. I make a decision as we transition to dinner: I’m going to slow down time as much as possible tonight.
I want to be here for every second of this event, try to savor it as much as possible.
Because this feels like the last night when everything was almost perfect.
The night when the final grains of sand slip from our hourglass and mark the end of the summer.
My last chance to see if Griffin and I are truly on the same page.
Griffin is at my side as we move beneath the string lights crisscrossing the patio.
He is the perfect, handsome date. Everyone knows him and loves him.
And I feel a special type of euphoria being on his arm.
He dances with my mother; he talks to my father about the marina expansion for a half hour straight.
My father doesn’t even talk to me for a half hour straight on a normal day, but he’ll open up to Griffin unprovoked.
I don’t get it, but I’ll take it. Griffin holds my hand to guide me when we move between tables, and he puts his hand on my lower back when he introduces me to someone that he happens to know from the hockey world.
I take it all in.
What if this was meant to be?
I’m savoring. Relishing. Basking.
This might be the last chance I’ll feel it. Griffin seems content to let all of this go. He won’t talk about hockey season and us in the same breath. They are two separate entities that cannot comingle.
Oil and water.
I’m not focusing on that now; not when there are toasts and speeches and a never-ending schedule of wedding delights. By the time everyone is moving to the dance floor at dusk, Griffin looks ready to join them.
“You coming with?” He holds out his hand.
“I can’t say no to you,” I tease, putting my hand in his big paw. I mean that in more ways than he meant it. But it’s true. As we’re crossing the venue to the dance floor, an older couple stops me—Paul’s aunt and uncle, I think.
“You two have been a dream tonight,” his aunt gushes, squeezing my wrist. “When’s your wedding?”
I run my tongue along the inside of my cheek, looking over at Griffin. I’ll let him answer this one.
“Right after I retire from hockey,” he says with an easy grin. His hands are on my arms, guiding me to the dance floor.
When we’re out of earshot of Paul’s aunt, I say, “What? Are you serious?”
“I panicked,” he says with a laugh. “I didn’t know what to say.”
I send him a look as he pulls me against him on the dance floor. We begin to move slowly to the music, our bodies pressed together.
“I don’t think you’re ever getting married.” I say it as a test.
“No?”
“You’ll be playing hockey for the rest of your life,” I remind him. “And if hockey can’t exist with marriage, then, well…”
“Maybe the right person changes the math,” he replies.
I look up at him. He’s looking over my shoulder, out toward the lake, like he said it without meaning to.
“Well, I hope you find her someday.” I don’t mean for it to come out as bitterly as it does, but my heart is breaking.
It has been for weeks. The song shifts, and he pulls me closer.
I let him. Because I’m savoring tonight, and he is part of the savoring, and goddammit, why does Griff Keegan fit so perfectly against me?
“Why do you think I haven’t found her?” he asks into the hollow of my neck. My eyes flutter shut. I can’t answer that. So we dance without talking, a silence between us that says way too much.
The night blurs on in the best way possible. Between dancing, champagne, photo ops, and having so many loved ones around us, I’m able to forget for pockets of time that my future with Griffin remains undecided.
But on the drive home, the truth returns.
I’m tipsy and getting mad. I’m tired of the hot and cold.
He’s had so many opportunities to try to prolong what has grown between us, and he’s chosen not to at every turn.
I stew in the quiet ride. He drives with one hand on the wheel and one resting on the console between us.
The dark Bayshore streets slide past, and I wonder what living here is going to be like once I’m decompressing from this love affair with my best friend.
Inside the house, we move through the routine: keys on the hook, shoes by the door, lights clicked on low. Griffin loosens his tie, and I set my clutch on the counter. But where I’d usually melt into him, I stay firm.
“Tonight was so beautiful,” I say with a tight smile. Just to say something.
“It was.” He pours himself a glass of water, looking extra tired.
“I’m heading to Chicago Monday morning,” I tell him. “I’m going to wrap up the final details there with transferring my lease, and then I’ll organize my storage unit before the moving company brings it all to Ohio. I’ll be there for a few days, then I can get my things from here when I get back.”
He nods, studying something inscrutable on the countertop.
Say something, Griffin. Fight for us.
Silence pounds between us. Just as I’m about to open my mouth and try to give a voice to all my doubts and curiosities, Griffin speaks.
“We should call it a night.”
“Yeah. I had so much champagne.” I laugh, but it sounds hollow.
He drains the water and sets the glass in the sink. Then he breezes past me with a soft “Night, Case” and disappears into the bathroom.
Once the door clicks shut behind him, everything inside me deflates.
Maybe I’m tired. Or maybe I’m tipsy.
But it seems like this man has already moved on.