Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
LARK
“ Y ou brought me to Main Street?” I squeal excitedly. July is the absolute best month in Echo Cove. Main Street always has touristy shops, a huge arcade, and several rides, but starting in July it turns into one big party after dark. Everything stays open until well after midnight and extra lights have been put up all over the town so you never have to worry about walking in the dark.
In short, it’s magical. I haven’t experienced it in two years, and I didn’t realize how much I missed it until now. Turning towards my companion for the evening, I find him watching me with a soft smile that sends butterflies cascading through my belly.
His deep baritone voice is easy to hear over the music, but I still lean in closer anyway. “I thought we could use a night of fun. No responsibilities, no worries, no crazy exes,” he says with a laugh. “We can do whatever you want.”
Something about this time of year brings out the kid in me, and I can’t help but bounce on my toes while I consider all the possibilities. “Okay, well do you want to do rides or food first? Do you get motion sick?”
He grimaces. “I wish I could say no, but…”
I nod in understanding. “It’s okay, my mom and Keely do too. Let’s do the rides first, but if you start feeling sick we can stop by this place I love and grab a couple pairs of sea legs to settle your stomach.”
Liam is staring at me like I just spoke gibberish, but nods in agreement anyway. I think a night out with my handsome fake boyfriend may be exactly what I need after living through my own personal hell this morning.
His big, tattooed hand in mine feels oddly comfortable as we make our way downtown towards the open-air play center. One thing I love about Echo Cove is how much every day feels like summer. Sure, some things shut down in the winter when it snows, but most of the year Main Street is geared for fun and I loved growing up in this tiny town.
We make it to Playland and I pull us to a stop briefly so I can take it all in. The air smells like corn dogs with a sweet hint of elephant ears from the shop down the street, plus the underlying smell of sugar from the dozen or so candy shops dotted along Main.
The fingers of Liam’s free hand curl under my chin, tilting my head up until our gazes collide with a bolt of electricity that I feel down to my toes. I watch as sweet concern fills his warm brown eyes, rooting me to the spot. The color of his irises pulls me in every time we’re in close proximity like this. They’re the glossy brown of freshly harvested buckwheat honey, and I’ve never seen anything more captivating.
“You alright, Red?” he murmurs softly. Well, as softly as he can with the din echoing around us from the crowd. Any words I had been prepared to say get stuck in my throat the longer his hand lingers on my skin .
“Lark?” His tone has taken on an air of amusement now, and it’s enough to shake the fog loose from my poor, confused brain. It doesn’t matter how hot he is, or how sexy I find his tattoos. Liam Blackwell is firmly off limits and in the friend’s only category.
I shake off his concern with a smirk and tug on the hand still tightly wrapped around mine like some sort of painted anaconda. “Come on, I’m feeling the urge to kick some ass at bumper cars.”
Liam’s amusement only grows at my declaration, but he follows me anyway like the dutiful friend he’s proving to be.
The man at the ticket booth is actually a guy I graduated high school with, and he smiles in surprise when we get to the front of the line.
“Holy shit, Lark Monroe? I haven’t seen you in years!”
Smiling back, I squeeze Liam’s hand when I feel him tense. “Carlos, hey! How are you? Last I saw, you were headed off to USC.”
His smile gets bigger and he exits the little booth to give me a quick hug. I try not to stiffen as he does, but it’s kind of odd. We were never close friends or anything. I mean I haven’t even spoken to him since grad night a decade ago.
Patting him on the back, I pray I don’t look too awkward. Liam’s hand tugs mine as he moves into my line of sight and I discreetly flip him off when I see he’s fighting to hold back laughter at my expense. He hasn’t let go of my hand since we left the house, and it might weird me out if I didn’t like it so much.
“That’s right! I actually ended up transferring to NYU my sophomore year and finishing up my Bachelor’s and then my Master’s in business admin before moving back here and buying this place off the old owners.”
My jaw drops at this new information. “You own Playland now?”
Carlos nods proudly. “She’s my pride and joy.” He looks around conspiratorially before leaning down to whisper in my ear. “ Just don’t tell my fiancé.”
A quick glance at Liam nearly has me stuttering my next words. His entire expression has shut down and he looks visibly irritated. I laugh awkwardly and mime zipping my lips at Carlos as he moves away. “Can we get two for the bumper cars please? Liam here has never been.”
“Oh-ho-ho! We’ve got a bumper virgin, folks! Well in that case, the tickets are on me. Enjoy the ride, you two.”
Liam’s shaking his head when I lead us to the short line for the ride, and I grin up at him. “What?”
“You’re a very popular woman, it seems.”
There’s something in his tone I can’t quite read, but it almost sounds like jealousy. But that would be ridiculous, right? Even though we’re fake dating now, that’s all it is. Just two friends getting revenge on one awful ex.
Shrugging, I bump his bicep with my shoulder. “You have to remember I grew up here. My graduating class was like, twenty kids. When I tell you I know everybody, I mean it. My family has lived here since my great-grandparents were little, so sometimes it feels like my soul is woven into the very fabric of this town.”
His face finally relaxes. Sighing, he hooks an arm over my shoulder and pulls me close to his chest. “That sounds kind of nice, honestly. My dad was in the military when I was growing up, so we moved around a lot, never staying in one place more than a year at a time. That made it hard for me to make friends outside of my older sister, Anna. It took me until I was twenty-two to settle down in California, and even that was only out of necessity for my apprenticeship. ”
I squeeze him around the waist as tight as I can. “That sounds lonely. But at least you had your sister. Are you two close?”
“We were,” Liam says quietly. He glances to me with a sad smile on his face and hugs me just a little tighter. “My dad passed in a fatal car accident two years ago, and my sister was in the car with him. She still blames herself for his death.”
A horrified gasp slips past my parted lips. “Jesus, Liam. I’m so sorry, I had no idea.”
He shrugs. “It’s alright. Not something I really talk about much outside of therapy because my dad and I didn’t always get along the best. Anna had quit a high-paying job to open up her own bookstore, and because that didn’t align with our father’s rigid views on adulthood, he was busy berating her when a huge deer ran into the road in front of their car. They spun out and hit a grove of trees. Dad died on impact, and Anna had to go through intense physical therapy for over a year before she could walk again.”
With a heavy sigh, he shrugs it off. “Anna and her husband come out to visit when they can, but I look a lot like my dad, and I know the reminder can be hard for her to deal with.”
I can’t imagine losing my dad like that, especially if I wasn’t on good terms with him at the time. My heart breaks for the kind man next to me, and for Carol as well. Liam lost his dad, but Carol lost her husband and almost lost her daughter. No wonder she still tries to connect with him by doing things like the picnic on the beach and paddle boarding.
With the worst timing possible, the attendant for the bumper cars calls us forward. There are only a few people behind us, so I place a hand on Liam’s arm and pull him out of line briefly. “We can go home if you aren’t feeling this tonight. I didn’t mean to bring up hard memories for you.”
He shakes his head vigorously with a bright smile that only seems slightly forced. “No way, I brought us out here tonight to have fun, and that’s what we’re going to do. I’m all in little cactus. Let’s do this.”
“Good god, Lark,” Liam groans pitifully. “You’re a fucking sadist. Or maybe a psychopath. I’ll let you know when the world stops spinning and I’m no longer at risk of losing my dinner.”
It takes a gargantuan effort to keep my face looking contrite as I listen to Liam’s complaining, but I manage. Barely. Twining our fingers back together, I lead us away from the Tilt-a-Whirl with determined steps. “Come on, plant boy. I know just what you need.”
An irritated groan reaches my ears, and I finally let loose the laughter I’ve been holding back. Keelan has mostly grown out of it by now, which is a good thing with how much he travels for work, but it seems my fake boyfriend wasn’t lying about having motion sickness.
I told him he shouldn’t ride the Tilt-a-Whirl with me, but he flat out rejected the idea of me going alone and forced himself into the seat next to me and pulled the bar across our laps so he couldn’t get back out until the ride stopped.
The Tilt-a-Whirl is essentially a giant booth seat that spins in violent circles for a good five minutes before stopping. When I was a kid my dad would go on the ride with me while Mom and Keelan ate corndogs, and we’d throw our bodyweight side to side to make the chair spin faster.
Needless to say, with how green Liam got after the first couple of rotations, I did not bring up the trick to make it spin faster.
“ The Salty Siren ? You’re not seriously suggesting a bar is the cure for my motion sickness are you?”
Choosing to ignore his lack of faith in me, I soldier on and march us through the sea-foam green doors with a wide smile on my face. The all-too-familiar smell of cheap tequila and old grease invades my nostrils. Memories of family birthdays and nights out with Kelsey race through my mind on a nostalgic loop.
I couldn’t count on two hands the number of times my friends and I came in here to drink back in high school. We thought we were smart as hell sneaking in here with our awful fake ID’s and too-short shorts, when really everyone knew who we were and let us get away with it.
“Well slap my ass and call me Sally, has my favorite little hen finally come home to roost?” The boisterous voice of Jackson Graves Sr. echoes over the din of the early-2000’s alternative music blasting through the bar.
My smile widens so much my cheeks feel as though they may split, and I pull a wobbly Liam with me to the bar. The poor guy still looks pretty green, so I bat my lashes at Jackson and dig a ten dollar bill out of my purse, slapping it down on the sticky bar top.
“Two Sea Legs please.” I glance back at Liam and grimace when I see the sweat beading at his temples. “Might wanna toss some extra ginger in one of them.”
The man’s smile is knowing as he takes us in, but for once he doesn’t say a word in jest. Jackson Sr. is one of my father’s best friends and has been running this bar for as long as I’ve been alive. He moved to Washington from Alabama for college at only eighteen years old and landed Dad as his roommate. They roomed together all four years until Dad convinced him to make Echo Cove home after graduation, and the rest is history. Jackson has been a fixture here ever since.
When his son Jackson Junior, JJ , was dropped on his doorstep at only a few days old, Mom and Dad helped him get into the swing of being a father. The two men have always been family to me, and seeing him makes being home feel that much more real.
“When did you get back in town, little lady? John didn’t say a word at poker night last weekend.”
My heart, that had been steadily thumping along in my chest, stops dead. Jackson watches my reaction closely, his green eyes widening when he notices my expression. “Lark Joy Monroe,” he says sternly, his southern twang slipping through like it does when he gets worked up.
Two large, scarred hands hit the bar top in front of me as he leans down to meet my eyes. “You didn’t tell your parents you were coming home, and then you have the audacity to show up in my bar holding hands with the transplant?”
He says transplant like it’s a dirty word, but with the way his eyes sparkle under the light of the neon siren sign behind him, I’m positive he’s just trying to get under my skin and probably scare Liam a little. “In my defense, a lot has happened in the last week. I haven’t worked up the courage to tell Mom and Dad yet.”
His normally light hazel eyes darken with concern as he sets our drinks down in front of us with a sigh. “Set a spell and tell me who I need to bury.”