Chapter 42
Marcus stood in his kitchen barefoot, half-dressed, and hungover enough to regret having taste buds. The plan was simple. Coffee. Then more coffee. Then silence. If the universe was generous, maybe a little peace about the woman who’d colonized his brain.
He had slipped his grand gesture into her Birkin last night.
A carefully clipped article, his truth wrapped in someone else’s words.
He’d left the bag on her porch because seeing her would have cracked him open.
If she liked it, she’d come. If she hated it, she’d come with a flamethrower. Either way, not a phone call.
His phone rang.
He ignored it.
It rang again.
He snatched it up. “Unless my house is on fire—”
“Oh, Babycakes, I hope it’s not,” purred an unfamiliar voice. “I want to see what that firm handshake can do in person.”
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t be shy, Maximilian the Hammer. I saw your ad in the Senior Citizen Gazette. I do love a man who appreciates a strong, mature woman.”
He pulled the phone away and stared at it as dread crawled up his spine. Grand gesture? Grand disaster. Revenge was still very much on.
His landline started bleating. A relic he’d assumed was for show, like a diner’s rotary phone or the moral compass he’d tried testing around Frankie. The message light.
“Hey there, Hammer. I’m Mildred. I’m ninety-two, but my spirit is young. Call me.”
Click.
“Marcus? It’s Betty from book club. Is this real? Are you actually—”
Click.
“Do you take couples?”
Click.
“Question. Condoms. True extra small or husky extra small? I have some leftovers from my late—”
Click
“No,” he said to his empty kitchen. “No. No-no-no-no—”
HONK.
He looked up. Through the trees, across the gravel, there it was. Ziggy’s pink Jeep. Frankie in the passenger seat, trunks stacked in the back like a glamorous crime scene from a reality TV finale.
His pulse spiked. She was leaving without a word. After what he’d given her.
His phone lit with her name. “Fuck that.” He charged outside.
Frankie saw him. The phone stopped ringing.
“Now!” she shouted over the thump of music.
Ziggy hit the gas. The Jeep fishtailed through a broad, shining puddle, sending a sheet of mud straight onto Marcus.
He stood there, dripping. Stunned. Coated in betrayal.
It hadn’t rained in a week.
She had made the puddle.
Specifically for him.
Frankie leaned out the window and gave him a lazy little wiggle of her fingers. Not a goodbye. A coronation wave. The most infuriatingly calm middle-finger in history.
They turned the corner and vanished.
His phone rang again. Unknown caller.
“You forgot your cat,” he snapped.
“Hammer? It’s Harriet. I’m intrigued by this ‘public acts of minor aggression’ Frankie exhibited while leaving town. Can we discuss?”
He saw red. Of course, Harriet had seen it. She probably had drone footage.
“No,” he growled, and hung up.
He stomped inside, tracking vengeance across the floors, and reached for his keys.
Empty hook.
He rifled drawers. Checked last night’s pants. Even the fruit bowl. Nothing.
She either had his Jeep keys or that damn cat had hidden them.
Out of options, he flung open the carriage-house doors and stared at the single remaining vehicle.
The bedazzled golf cart.
“Unbelievable,” he muttered, buckling the world’s most insulting seat belt.
The cart chirped to life. He floored it—twelve heroic miles per hour—and glided toward town.
If she’d stopped at the diner, he’d find her. If not, he would chase her to Manhattan in a golf cart to say what he wanted to say.
He slid into the square and immediately hit a wall of people. It was eight a.m. on a Sunday. Weren’t these folks supposed to be at church? Or Denny’s?
He nosed the cart to the curb, swung out, and a fringe of rhinestone beads along the canopy shivered to the ground. The crowd parted.
Frankie.
She stood by a lamppost like a queen accepting tribute. Her new friends leaned in, hungry for the story. Ziggy hovered beside her, proud and lethal.
Marcus, still mud-spattered, crossed the square at a clip. Frankie turned, saw him, and smiled.
Not an ounce of regret.
He stopped a few feet away, jaw tight. “Have you lost your ever-fucking mind?”
The crowd gasped. Poppy clutched her necklace.
Vivian pressed a hand to her sweater. “Oh my,” she whispered. “You’re right. He’s not a morning person.”
Ziggy beamed. “You have no idea how many nots he’s not.”
Marcus threw a hand in the air. “What does that even mean?”
“Do not yell at my friend,” Frankie said coolly. “He hasn’t done a thing to deserve your tantrum.”
He pointed at his shirt. “The mud suggests otherwise.”
“For a man who enjoys a little dirt,” she said, head tilted, “you’re awfully precious about wet soil.”
“I’m not here because of your artisanal puddle.”
“Oh?”
He stepped closer. Close enough to smell booze on her breath. He leaned in and whispered for her ears only. “I woke up to ninety-three voicemails from senior citizens about my firm handshake. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you had nothing to do with that.”
She laughed, low and satisfied. “Darling, I wasn’t aware we were on speaking terms.”