Chapter 1 #2
I shake my head. “Everything around here is booked until Friday.” It’s not so bad, I tell myself. The island isn’t that big. I can walk or hitch a ride with Madeline and Garrett. Mom will arrive in a few days, and maybe she can find a rental car in Newark.
“Well, I’m happy to drive you wherever you need to go.”
“That’s—” The last thing I want to happen. My plan was to see Ian exactly twice this week: at the rehearsal dinner and then at the wedding. “—so nice of you.”
Ian’s friend arrives a moment later to strap the rental car to his truck.
In Berkeley, where I live, it would have taken hours for AAA to send a tow.
I’m not sure if this super-fast service reflects the fact that Ian has the same kind of power and money that his dad did to get whatever he wants quickly, or that he has friends willing to show up to help him at a moment’s notice.
I know he’s a good guy. Garrett wouldn’t love him like a brother and Madeline wouldn’t speak so highly of him if he wasn’t. And I wouldn’t have fallen for him all those years ago. But that knowledge only makes this harder.
In fact, it would help if he’d act like a rich, entitled jerk so I could avoid him without guilt or the recollection that I once thought we might be together forever.
As if to highlight what a gentleman he is, Ian loads both my bags into the back of his truck and then runs around to open the front passenger-side door for me. Empty coffee cups and paperwork litter every surface and have even migrated to the floor.
“Sorry,” he mutters, his cheeks turning an appealing shade of pink. “This is what I get for using my truck as my office.” He grabs a handful of junk and tosses it into the back seat with Ellery. She giggles.
I slide into the now-empty seat and turn to look at the girl in the back.
“Hi. You must be Ellery.”
“Yep.” Her mouth is still red-rimmed and sticky, but from somewhere in the messy depths of the car, Ian seems to have unearthed a handful of baby wipes that are now pink-stained and crumpled in her clean-ish hands.
“I’m Josie.”
“I like your dress,” Ellery says. “My mom won’t let me have a white dress. She says it won’t stay white for ten minutes.”
It seems rude to point out that maybe her mom has a point, so I look to Ian, who is climbing into the driver’s seat, still sporting the red handprint in the center of his chest. “Well, your dad doesn’t seem to mind a little mess.”
“I don’t know my dad,” Ellery says matter-of-factly.
“Oh.” I look to Ian and then back. “Sorry, I assumed…”
Ian gives me a grin. “Ellery is Chloe’s daughter. And my surf buddy.” He turns around to give her a fist bump.
I put the pieces together. Chloe is the owner of Hudson’s Bar, where all the locals on the island hang out, and Madeline’s other bridesmaid. From what Madeline told me, Chloe’s a single mother, and Ian and Garrett have been helping out since Ellery was a baby. “You’re my sister’s flower girl.”
Ellery nods. “Yep, and I get to wear a fancy dress and throw flowers at everyone.”
“I’m not sure you’re supposed to throw them at the wedding guests,” Ian says. “It’s more like sprinkling them around on the ground.”
“That sounds boring,” Ellery grumbles. “What do you get to do, Josie?”
I think over my maid of honor duties. “Well, I’m mostly there to do whatever Madeline needs me to do, like tell her she looks pretty and make sure she doesn’t freak out if the caterer drops the cake.”
Ellery scoffs. “That doesn’t sound like much fun either.”
Ian laughs. “You’re leaving out the best part.”
“The bachelorette party?” I ask. Madeline’s not exactly the type of bride to want to bar-hop in a veil and “I’m the bride” T-shirt while handing out penis lollipops, so I flew her out to California this past spring and we had a spa weekend in Napa.
“No. I meant the part where you get to walk down the aisle on the arm of the best man.”
Before I can stop it, a memory drifts into my consciousness.
Ian and I walking slowly down the dock at the sailing club.
He reached for my hand, and my chest expanded with joy.
We had so much ahead of us. So much hope and possibility.
His gaze shifts to mine and his eyes darken as if the same memories are drifting through his mind.
And then Ellery’s voice cuts in, breaking the spell. “Why does Ian get to be the best man, but Josie doesn’t get to be the best woman?”
“Yeah.” I breathe out a laugh, grateful for the interruption. “That’s so lame.”
Ian shoots me one more glance before he starts the car and eases it toward the bridge connecting the island to the mainland.
I roll down the window, taking in the view of the bay sparkling in the late afternoon sun and the colorful houses lining the shore on both sides of the water.
The briny sea air blows in, tangling my hair.
I inhale the scent into my lungs and blow it out slowly.
“Looks like it’s good to be back,” Ian says with a half-smile.
In so many ways, it is good to be back. I loved living on this island.
Loved spending my days barefoot on the beach, running in and out of the water, my skin warm from the sun and hair smelling like the ocean long after I washed it.
I haven’t thought of those days in over a decade.
I intentionally pushed the memories aside because it was too painful to think about all I’d lost. Too painful to remember the way that hope and possibility turned to heartbreak and fear in one terrible, devastating moment.