13. “AND NOW I TELL YOU OPENLY, YOU HAVE MY HEART SO DON’T HURT ME” #2
“No, it is not.” She snatched her box up and smirked.
Esther reached over the counter and handed Cordelia a homemade dog biscuit from the jar, and off they went. “You be a good girl now.” Her words sounded as if they were for the dog, but her gaze lifted to Jocelyn’s.
The town was littered with hay bales, mums, and cornstalks.
Pumpkins dappled every doorstep. Storefront windows were painted with ghosts, witches, and a cornucopia of fall accents to complement each business.
Even Astrid had hung dried orange slices in the paned windows of the Wilde Kettle to catch the amber rays of sunlight.
She didn’t remember loving fall this much. The radiant colors, the cozy smells—it was all so warm and comforting. Each day, she fell more and more in love with the season until she finally realized it wasn’t the season at all.
“Oh, shit…” It hit her like a rogue gourd to the head and stopped her dead in her tracks.
This didn’t have anything to do with fall or the pumpkin-scented everything. This had to do with her. Her and her stupid heart. She’d written it a hundred times, but somehow didn’t recognize it happening right under her nose.
She was in…love.
Lock, stock, and barrel L-O-V-E, love.
She’d fallen, hook, line, and sinker for her childhood frenemy, and now they were smack dab in the middle of a messy old love pie.
“Oh my God,” she muttered.
Cordelia looked up at her, wondering why they stopped walking when it was well past her morning nap time.
“Mommy’s in trouble.”
She was in love. With Soren Hawthorne.
How had she gone from pigtail pulls on the playground to riding him like a sailor on leave? She had officially written her life into the laziest trope there had ever been.
“Your mommy’s a big, fat cliché.” Rubbing her head, she groaned and dropped onto a bench.
It didn’t matter if she avoided saying the word like the plague. The moment she formed the full thought in her head, it was there, setting up permanent residence in her heart.
Drifting like a fallen leaf down Main Street, she aimlessly retraced her steps, wondering how she got there. It wasn’t a bad thing. Just a really real thing.
Inhaling a shaky breath, she ripped open the pink box from Esther, going right for the cider donut. As soon as the apples and glaze hit her tongue, she shut her eyes and moaned, letting the sugar ground her.
Her panic settled. She finished the donut while giving herself an emotional pep talk with each nibble. Everything was fine. Nothing was different. She was already handling things like a champ, and there was no reason to…
Her eyes did a double-take on the kiosk in front of her.
“No,” she said over a mouth of crumbs.
Shoving the remainder of the donut back with the others, she pushed the box aside, and beelined to the newspaper rack, snatching up a copy of the newest issue of The Beacon.
Hideaway Bay’s Most Reliable Adversaries are Getting Especially Cozy this Autumn.
Jocelyn stared, unblinking, at a picture of her and Soren kissing. “Where the hell did they get this?” She angrily flipped to page six to find the full Lady Lovewatch column. Her eyes bulged when she saw the size of the Op-ed.
Spotted: our resident wordsmith and a certain maritime mogul, sharing far more than their usual barbs on Main Street. Hate, it seems, isn’t always a vicious passion, and sometimes, it leads to the sweetest romances of all.
Her gaze jumped a few paragraphs down.
Not all enemies fight to the bitter end. Others are lucky enough to fight their way into happiness just before the final round. Now is the time to pay attention, as this long overdue love story may be Hideaway Bay’s best fairytale yet.
Despite the winds shifting and cold fronts coming in, Lady Lovewatch predicts things to smolder this October as Hideaway’s strongest enemies, like the brightest leaves, finally fall.
What. The. Fuck.
Jocelyn’s gaze scanned Main Street, as if the whole town was hiding behind lampposts and curtains spying on her. No one knew who Lady Lovewatch was, and until now, Jocelyn always found her columns harmless, but she’d never been the topic of her articles either.
She grabbed the stack of papers from the metal rack and shoved them under her arm. The Beacon was a thin town rag that came out every Friday. The residents devotedly looked forward to Lady Lovewatch’s column every week, and would realize it was missing right away.
But she could not let this gossip about her and Soren stand.
“Come on, Deelie.” She collected her box of donuts and gathered up as many papers as she could on the way home.
Unfortunately, someone kept replenishing the racks.
By the end of the week, she’d worked herself into a paranoid tizzy, stealing every copy of The Beacon in existence, which only convinced the townspeople something extra juicy was printed inside.
Stacks of newspaper piled up beside her fireplace—too many to burn through in a day—and still, more kept showing up at the newsstand in town.
When she told Soren, he only laughed.
Wren, who had also been a topic of gossip when she and Grey finally got together, thought it was great.
But to Jocelyn, it only felt like pressure. Pressure to deliver. Pressure to meet expectations. Pressure not to fail publicly.
Her mind hadn’t stopped, and by Friday, she was wound up tighter than a top on a string.
Soren knew the article hit a nerve, but to him it was just harmless gossip. “You’re Jocelyn Collins. Of course people are going to talk about you. You’re a celebrity.”
“I’m not a celebrity.”
“Joce, you have an international following. You’ve been in the New York Times. To locals, that’s a big deal.”
“Almost as big as owning a billion-dollar global company.”
“Exactly. You don’t see me sweating this.”
She wished she could look at it with the same indifference, but now that they were under the town’s microscope, she feared being judged more than ever. “I like to maintain a more elusive status. Too much exposure kills the allure.”
“Is that what this is about?” He laughed. “You’re worried about your allure?” Pulling her close, he entwined his fingers behind her back, trapping her against him. “You’re worried you’ll lose your mystique?”
She knew he was teasing her, but he didn’t realize she was also dealing with a storm of emotions inside since admitting to herself that she was actually in love.
This had become the most casual-un-casual relationship of her life, and while he seemed to be handling it just fine, she was starting to freak out.
And, if she freaked out, the whole town would be watching.
She awkwardly disentangled herself from his grip, her stomach too upset to joke at the moment. “I’m not in the mood.”
He frowned when he realized she was actually upset. “Joce, it’s just a stupid opinion column. Let them have their fun. It’ll all blow over in a few days. Next week, Lady Lovewatch will find a new victim to obsess over, and people will completely forget about us.”
He might be right, but that wouldn’t dismiss the real issue.