Chapter 30
Avery Hunter’s Reporter Notebook: Research revenge ideas for best friend, who is now dead to me.
I stewed and fumed the whole way back to the Pleasure Point public parking lot.
I’d been handed the story of a lifetime, and there was one person I wanted to tell about it.
He was also the only person I could talk to about it.
But the man was thicker than a brick shithouse, and didn’t realize how much his words hurt.
Words were important to me. I spent a lifetime crafting them into engaging stories that informed and entertained. So, when someone’s words told me exactly who they were or how they felt about me, I believed them.
Believe.
I snorted.
Sonofabitch. I was an idiot.
I parked the car and got out, not waiting to see if Warren followed. For all I cared, he could rot in the parking lot with his beliefs. I wanted a shower with my hair products and special bath sponges. I wanted my clothes - especially my comfy granny undies - and I wanted to sleep in my own bed.
Alone.
I rubbed my sternum as I stomped down the sidewalk to the entrance to my apartment. I felt the tears welling up as I unlocked the door and hastily scrambled inside. The last thing I wanted to do was cry in public. I didn’t need that on the news.
I snorted again.
I was the news, but the Pleasure Point gossip circuit worked faster than my legit news network.
I tried to laugh, but a sob escaped, and I knew there would be no stopping the waterworks. The best thing to do was shower it off before collapsing into bed.
It was dark outside when I felt the edge of my bed dip. I blinked into the darkness, and my heart soared. “Warren?”
My mystery guest flicked on the nightstand lamp. “Sorry, Ave. Just me.”
Disappointment soured my stomach. I don’t know why I hoped it would be my husband.
He had already told me everything I needed to know.
He was the last person I should want to see.
The second-to-last person stared at me. I groaned.
“Thorn? What are you doing here? How did you get in? And get off my bed, weirdo.” I nudged him with my foot.
“This used to be Joy’s apartment, you know.” Thorn stood without answering.
“What is it with men not answering direct questions today?” I grumbled and got out of bed. Thankfully, I had slept in my soccer shorts and Pleasure Point Network: The Naked Truth T-shirt, otherwise Thorn would’ve gotten an eyeful of my kibbles and bits.
“Who else is avoiding your questions?” Thorn frowned.
I rolled my eyes and padded into the kitchen, where I poured myself a tall glass of water. I was so thirsty. My eyes were still crusty from crying myself to sleep, and my chest felt like someone had sat on it - and was still sitting on it.
“You’ve been crying.”
I shook my head and turned my back on my friend, refilling my glass. Finding out the truth behind a nudist colony and your fake husband was thirsty work. I gulped down half of that glass before I faced my best friend.
“So?” I raised an eyebrow.
Yeah. Really got him on the ropes there.
“What did Atwell do?” Thorn’s hands fisted on the island countertop.
I slammed down the glass, and it was a wonder it didn’t break. “You knew.”
Thorn glanced at the ceiling and relaxed his hands. “Yes.”
“Are Joy and Maxine in on it?”
“Maxine is one of the originators. She worked with Uma to fix me and Joy up.” He paused before saying, “Yes, Joy is in on it, too.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I yelled. “Meddling in people’s lives!”
Thorn tilted his head at me. “We may have meddled, but only to push you together. As I recall from only a few minutes ago, you thought it might be Warren sitting on your bed in the dark of night.”
I popped my hands on my hips. “What the hell does that mean?”
My best friend sank into the recliner and steepled his hands before his face, a maneuver he used while interviewing heads of state or hostile witnesses. It didn’t take a rocket surgeon to realize I was the hostile one today.
I sat on the couch. “Out with it.”
“All I ask is for you to listen before you bite my head off. And if you’re going to be mad at anyone, be mad at me. Joy had nothing to do with this,” Thorn said.
“I thought you just told me—”
“Well, she’s part of it, but she wants to be the Main Meddler in someone else’s life. I won the toss to go first.”
“It sounds like you’re speaking English, but I don’t understand the words coming out of your face,” I said.
Thorn paused to consider his following words. I’d seen this maneuver a few times, too. That was the problem with knowing someone for twenty-plus years. You knew all their tells. And this “tell” told me that Thorn was about to piss me off.
“Pleasure Point is in trouble,” Thorn began.
A sense of déjà vu settled over me, but I had to ask to keep up appearances. “What sort of trouble?”
“Fewer people are moving in to start or take over businesses, and when the seniors retire, there’s no one to keep the economy going.”
“There are plenty of people and second-generation Pointers here to run businesses,” I countered. “Where are you getting this ‘Pleasure Point is dying’ shit?”
“The numbers don’t play out,” Thorn insisted. “Becky, the owner of The Grinding, is a former CPA. That woman knows the numbers.”
“So?”
“The Seven had to do something drastic to lure people to the island. So, they came up with a matchmaking scheme.”
That tracked with what Ziggy told me, but after sitting with that information for a while, there was still a glaring hole in their logic.
“Why not try something like those towns that pay you to move there? Or offer fiber internet for digital creators to live here? There are a hundred different ways to entice people to live here without resorting to—” I waved around the room. “Whatever the hell this shit is.”
“That is true,” Thorn agreed. “But The Seven wanted it to be family. Even though the island is open to everyone, not everyone can be trusted with their secrets.”
There was that word again - secrets.
“What secrets?”
“You know about Joy’s mom and dad finding the pirate treasure,” Thorn began.
“Yes. And the supposed curse on the money that caused them to share it with friends,” I said.
He nodded. “But some of those friends were running from difficult situations. Dangerous situations. They needed to remain anonymous.”
“Even after all this time?”
“Even now.”
The last thing I wanted was to put someone in danger. Ziggy’s words about protecting the privacy of others now made more sense. I sighed. “They needed people they could trust.”
“Yes. That’s why they wanted to recruit their grown children.”
I considered the couples that Ziggy had mentioned.
Joy was a billionaire with international businesses.
She could live anywhere. Thorn had no ties to the island, although Maxine and Joy’s mother attended school together.
Former rock star Drake “Dangerthorne” Strickland was circling the drain and living like a hermit on the island before he was forced into proximity with Darby Daire, an off-islander, and they fell madly in love.
Drake’s brother Spencer lived on the island and pined after his true love, Vi, who had moved away after high school.
Their falling back in love brought her back to the island.
It also meant she re-opened a much-needed medical clinic here.
But then there was Kendra and Rowan. “Kendra and Rowan aren’t on the island anymore.”
Thorn shrugged. “They’ll be back. Kendra has been here her whole life. They deserved a trip around the world and a break from this nonsense. Besides, you’re not thinking of the ripple effect of their union. Rowan brought the cruise ship and its new captain. Fresh blood.”
I nodded at the logic, which probably made me about as batshit crazy as everyone else, then thought about my recent adventure to circus camp. “Warren and I make no sense, either. We’re both already here. We both already run businesses on the island.”
Thorn pressed his lips together.
I frowned. “What?”
Thorn shook his head. “Warren was considering leaving.”
“What the hell?” I hopped off the couch and began pacing. “He didn’t say a word about that.”
“His former boss reached out to him with a job offer. It would mean leaving the island.”
I skidded to a halt. “My dad offered him a job? How do you know that?”
He shrugged. “We have… helpers.”
I leaned into my best friend’s personal space. “Cheeses, Mary, and Joseph. Is Tatiana helping you spy on the citizens of Pleasure Point?”
Thorn would not meet my eye.
“That is a violation of about eleventy-million laws, Thorn. You had no right to delve into his privacy like that! Plus, there’s no way Warren would work for my dad again.”
“You seem awfully vested in his future,” Thorn replied. “What happened at camp?”
I shook my head and shuffled into the kitchen, opening cabinet doors and looking for something to fill the hole in my chest. “Nothing.”
“Doesn’t look or sound like nothing.”
I slowly turned to face my oldest friend, who had eased out of the recliner. “He doesn’t want me. And he deserves someone better.”
“That’s a lie.”
“What do you know about it?”
“There’s no one better than you,” Thorn said with a sad smile. “And if Warren Atwell is too much of a robot to realize that, you’re better off.”
“You shut your mouth!”
Thorn’s eyebrows rose.
“Do not call him a robot. It’s disrespectful and not true. And if you do it again, I’ll punch you in the face,” I warned.
“See? You’re perfect for each other,” Thorn laughed.
“Did you miss the part where he doesn’t want me?”
“Did he say that?”
“He—” I paused. What did he say exactly? “He said he ‘believed’ he was falling in love with me.”
Thorn clasped his hands together and batted his eyes. “That sounds dreamy!”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Maybe. And I’m also confused.”
I let out an exasperated breath. “He said he ‘believed’ he was falling in love with me. Not ‘I’m in love with you.’ Not ‘I have fallen in love with you.’ Just that he ‘believed’ he was falling in love with me. As if he would have to check his facts against an answer key later.”
“I think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” Thorn said.
“What would you know about it?”
“What would I know about having my head shoved so far up my ass I didn’t say the right things to the love of my life when I had the chance? Yeah. Wouldn’t know a thing about that,” Thorn laughed. “Seriously. And you wonder why we shoved you two together. All of this is for your own good.”
“My own good?” My voice went up an octave. “I was arrested for crying out loud.”
He winced. “Well—”
My jaw dropped. “That was fake?”
“Well—”
“Too far, Thorny. Too. Fucking. Far.” I paced, but the walls of my living room were closing in. I needed an outlet for my anger. Maybe I’d punch Thorn in the face just for shits and giggles. “We were thrown in jail. Oh my god! We got married!”
Thorn sucked his teeth. “Not exactly.”
I stopped pacing and stared at him. “What does that mean? Not exactly? Were we thrown in jail?”
He shrugged. “A type of jail, yes.”
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. “The wedding? The courthouse?”
“Yeah, about that.”