Chapter 9 #2
I've met her a handful of times. Last summer, she'd walked in to Erin's shop, called me an intern, and told me to go to the mall.
When I told her who I was, the blood drained from her face the second she connected the name Moreland.
She'd had her eye on Rome at the time, but Rome only ever had eyes for Erin, thank God.
It had been one of the more satisfying forty seconds of my life.
Now she spots our booth, smile slipping just a little before she puts it back in place. Her gaze sweeps across us all and lands on me with the kind of recognition that comes with a grudge she's clearly been polishing since last summer.
"Girls." She stops at our table, sweet and breezy, like we're all friends. "Love that you're out. Feels like high school, doesn't it? The little shopping bags, the diner. So cute."
Lord almighty. That fake smile must hurt. Poppy's face doesn't move. Erin takes a sip of her coffee.
"How's everything going, Lily?" Cherry tilts her head, voice dripping with condescension. "Settling in okay, honey? Must be such a big change, being away from school and all." The smile grows just a bit. "Not everyone can hack adulthood, but I'm sure you'll get the hang of it one day."
This woman is speaking to me like I'm a child at a family gathering. Like she needs to crouch down to make eye contact. And she knew to get me where it hurts the most these days.
I match her fake smile and raise it, turning my face up at her with my most innocent eyes. "Aww, Cheryl, I'm settling in great, thanks. How are you? How's..." I pause, pretending to search for the word. "Everything? At your age?"
Erin and Poppy don't even try to be subtle with their matched snorts. Cherry's smile falters, but she recovers quickly, I'll give her that.
"I'm wonderful. Just been so busy with the spring fundraiser. You know how it is when you're involved in the community." She gives a little laugh. "Well. You'll get there eventually."
"God, I just love small-town silver linings." I lean back in the booth, letting the words land exactly where I want them. "Harbor Hill is so lucky you can't get a man and have time enough to pour all that energy into the community. Really. Where would they be without you?"
That polished smile doesn't waver, but something behind her eyes recalculates. She's deciding whether I'm worth the effort. Whether whatever game she's playing is worth the risk of another round with a girl who could do so much worse.
And I would happily do it. This woman has tormented my girls all their lives, especially sweet Erin.
"Well." She straightens up, all warmth on the surface and venom underneath. "Enjoy your fries, ladies. Mind those calories now."
"Bless your heart. That means so much coming from someone with your experience."
She turns on her heel and walks out. The door slams behind her.
"Girl." Poppy raises her coffee mug like a toast. "That was surgical."
"I hate her so much," I mutter.
"You're just so good." Erin is grinning like a proud mama.
I shrug, but the adrenaline is still buzzing under my skin. I didn't go looking for fights, never had. But Rome didn't raise me to back down from one either.
I'd known women like Cherry since middle school. The kind who smiled while they cut you and expected you to thank them for the attention. I'd wanted real girlfriends my whole life. The kind who showed up and stayed and didn't keep score.
Growing up with absent parents and a rotating cast of international schools meant a lot of surface friendships and very few real ones. The mean girls, though? Those were universal. Every school had them. Every country, every language, same girl in a different outfit.
Cherry was just the Harbor Hill version, polished where others had been blunt, but the same underneath.
"She's going to be a problem, though." Poppy's voice is more serious now. "She's connected, knows everyone. Runs the spring fundraiser, sits on two committees. She's woven into this town."
"I'm not worried about Cherry."
"You should at least know," Erin tells me, sharing an apprehensive look with Poppy. "There's a rumor. From last year. Someone saw her leaving Cal's house early one morning. Like, dawn. Apparently half dressed."
Callahan could sleep with whoever he wanted. He was a grown man, of course he slept with people. And I was not his girlfriend. We were nothing, and that nothing hurt more each day he spent avoiding me.
But Cherry? That condescending, perfectly curled, committee-running woman who had just spoken to me like I was a child she was tolerating?
The thought of her in his house knocks the air out of me.
I can't bear it. The house I walk to almost every day.
The porch I'd started thinking of as mine.
The living room floor where I sat with Will.
The kitchen where I did the dishes while Callahan stood behind me close enough that I could feel him not touching me.
The hallway that smelled like wood and soap and him.
Maybe she had made Will laugh the way I made him laugh. Maybe Callahan had driven her home in that stupid car of his and waited until her light came on. Worse, maybe he'd stayed the night, let her sleep in his arms.
I pick up my mug and take a very long sip and tell myself the burning in my throat is the coffee.
"She lives off that rumor." Poppy watches me carefully. "Brings it up whenever she can, clings to him at every event. You need to be prepared to see that."
I set the mug down and face them both, struggling to use my brain instead of my feelings.
"Callahan lives with his father. He's the most private person I've ever met.
I can't picture him letting anyone into that house for a hookup, let alone Cherry walking out half naked where the whole town could see. "
"That's what we thought, too." Erin's voice lifts with hope.
"Exactly what we thought," Poppy agrees. "But the rumor stuck and Cherry has done nothing to correct it. If anything, she fans the flames."
"Just like she did with Ramsey all our lives." Poppy's voice goes cold.
"And Rome," Erin adds quietly. "Even though I was in the picture."
So Cherry Whatsherface collected unavailable men the way some people collected stamps. Noted.
"Have you ever just asked Callahan about it?"
They both stare at me, then at each other. The way they slump back against their seats tells me everything I need to know.
"No, we did not," Poppy admits, meekly.
"You don't just ask Cal something like that," Erin says in the same tone.
"Why not?"
"Because Cal is private and a question like that is very..."
I wait for her to finish. She doesn't.
"Okay, so while we're asking direct questions," Poppy cuts in, and I can feel it coming before she even finishes, "what is really going on with you and Cal?"
I could have dodged it. Almost did. But these are my girls, the real ones. The ones I'd been wanting my whole life. I was also extremely tired of not having someone to speak to about him.
"I like him." The words come out easier than I expected. "I'm attracted to him. I think about him more than I should and every time I'm in that house I feel like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be."
It felt good to say out loud. Terrifying, but good.
"And I think he feels something, too. He watches me when he thinks I'm not paying attention. He waits outside my building until my light comes on. His eyes just melt every time I catch him looking."
Poppy's listening with her whole body.
"But…" I turn a fry over in my fingers. "He does everything in his power to avoid me, even in his own house. He leaves rooms when I enter them. He looks away first every single time. He won't let a conversation last longer than two minutes before he finds an excuse to be somewhere else."
I drop the fry.
"And I'm starting to think that maybe he just doesn't want me. That whatever I'm reading into it is just me, projecting, because I want it to be there."
"He wants you." Poppy says, like a fact. "Trust me."
Erin is stirring her coffee in slow circles, choosing her next words like she's stepping over something fragile.
"Lil, I love that you're here. And I love watching you come alive in this town.
But maybe..." She trails off, stirs again.
"Maybe Cal isn't the right place to put all this energy into right now.
He's complicated. There's a lot going on with him that isn't about you.
And this town is small enough that if things go sideways, it affects everyone. "
It's said gently enough, but I hear what's underneath it. This isn't just Erin talking. This is Erin who goes home to my brother every night and knows things she isn't saying.
"You sound like you're warning me off."
"I'm not warning you off. I'm just saying maybe enjoy Harbor Hill for a while without making Cal the center of it."
I love her for being honest even when it isn't what I want to hear.
But I also know that whatever Rome has said to her, whatever concerns have been whispered in their apartment late at night, none of it changes what I feel when Callahan Holt looks at me like I'm the only thing in the room and then turns away like it burns.
"I hear you."
I mean it. I just don't agree with it.