Chapter 18 Now
We can’t get into the house until Jen and Ethan are here, so while we wait, I soak up the ocean view with Mia, who’s happy digging in the sand while Alex does some self-admitted snooping around the property.
The moment Jen and Ethan pull in, Mia sprints toward their car.
Alex turns toward me. “What do you say we get out of here?”
I laugh. “A great way to kick off our ‘two-family’ vacation.”
“Mia’s happy,” he says, nodding toward the car, which Jen has just stepped out of, scooping Mia into her arms. “That’s what matters.”
Jen waves at us. We wave back.
“How about this, Ted.” Alex steps closer, smiling down at me. I turn my hands into fists so I won’t reach for him. “I’ll make up an excuse for us. We have to dash into town, grab groceries for dinner tonight.”
I glance over at the car again as Ethan steps out, in one of his preppy pink polos. Just the sight of him nauseates me. “I can work with that.”
“Great,” he says, already tugging me by the elbow around to the other side of the house.
“Where are we going? The car’s that way.”
“I thought,” Alex says, “we’d go for a little bike ride.”
I gasp. “Alex Bruscato, voluntarily street biking?”
He throws me that smile that’s just for me—annoyance tangled with affection. “Bethany Beach, I’ll have you know, is a very bike-friendly town.”
I thought I loved city biking. Now I know what I love best is beach-town biking.
A bracing sea breeze snaps through my hair, the sun pouring down on us.
“Look at us,” I call over my shoulder, “biking like pros!”
Alex grunts but says nothing else. He’s too busy white-knuckling his bike handles and glaring down every driver on the road.
“Alex,” I yell against the deliciously bracing wind, “relax! These bike lanes are wider than the roads back home! You can ride a bike without treating these cars like they’re assassins until proven innocent.”
Alex hollers, “There is not a strong-enough Xanax in the world for that to ever happen!” before he flips off the car passing us and yells a colorful Italian insult in its direction.
To be fair to Alex, the driver steered their car right to the edge of the bike lane. To be fair to the driver, they would have had to give us so much space they’d be driving into oncoming traffic to satisfy Alex, and even then, he still might have threatened to make meatballs out of them.
“This was your idea, remember!” I call over my shoulder.
“I thought,” he yells, “it wouldn’t still feel like we were gambling with our lives!”
We come to a pause at an intersection as opposing traffic cruises by, Alex rolling to a stop beside me. “I’m just teasing you,” I tell him. “We can turn back and get the car.”
He throws me an exasperated sidelong glance. “I’ll be fine, Ted. I can do hard things.”
“I know you can. But some things can feel too hard, and that’s okay. For instance, I cannot drive to a big-box, everything-under-one-roof store, you know, like the massive chains that stock your cookbooks that you refuse to look at and sign. It’s too hard.”
Alex mutters something under his breath as he reaches for his water bottle, then takes a long drink.
“Thank you for asking,” I tell him. “I would love to explain. So, to start, I acknowledge that, in plenty of ways, I am a weird woman.” I catch a small grin tugging at his mouth as he bends and shoves his water bottle back in its holder.
“But when it comes to shopping,” I tell him, “I’m as basic as it gets.
You know why I never drive Old Reliable when shopping? ”
Alex leans over his handlebars, placing his sweaty forearms right in front of me. “Because,” he says, “every ride in Old Reliable could be its last, and you’d sooner read a pirated e-book than say goodbye to your somehow-still-running 1997 Buick Regal.”
My eyes trail across his sun-goldened, sweaty skin.
He’s sweaty everywhere. Forearms, biceps, throat, all of it dripping.
Alex straightens, lifting his shirt at the collar, using it to wipe sweat from his eyes, which exposes at most two inches of tan, taut skin at his stomach, yet a bolt of heat crackles through me.
I tear my gaze away, squinting against the sun. Hopefully, it looks like I’m watching the traffic light instead of trying to briefly blind myself so I can’t ogle him anymore.
“First of all,” I say. My voice comes out a high-pitched squeak.
I clear my throat and try again. “I would never read a pirated e-book. I would read an e-galley provided by the publisher, or a legally borrowed library copy. Second of all, I no longer drive Old Reliable to go shopping because I learned the hard way that when I know I have four passenger seats’ and a trunk’s worth of space, I walk in for bodywash, seltzer, and a new pair of sunglasses, and walk out having bought half the store. ”
He tips his head. “What do you buy?”
“Yummy-smelling candles. More pajamas that I don’t need.
Cute-but-overpriced sweatshirts. And sweatpants.
And slippers. Nail polish that’s the slightest shade different from a color I already have but somehow cannot leave behind.
Sour Patch. More Sour Patch. Seasonally scented hand soaps.
Too many boxes of fruit tea. More toys that Argos will immediately destroy… Don’t make me keep going.”
Alex’s mouth tips into a grin. “Sounds fun.”
“It is not,” I tell him. “It’s chaos. And it’s terrifying to lose all grip on my self-control. Because after the thrill of impulse shopping, regret hits me like a receipt longer than my inseam. And I have long legs.”
His grin deepens. “I’m aware.” He wraps his finger around the handlebars and leans in, holding my eyes. “I still think, deep down, when you’ve let loose, you didn’t actually regret it, Ted. I think you just told yourself that you should.”
My heart thuds in my chest. I don’t know what we’re talking about anymore—the dicey times in our friendship I’ve gone Full Wild Thea, or my two hundred dollar impulse shopping sprees.
“Well.” I straighten my shoulders. “Regret it, I did!”
Why I said it like Yoda is beyond me. Alex bites his cheek, fighting a smile. He looks like he’s wondering the same thing.
Thankfully, the light turns green, giving me a swift exit from that land mine of a conversation.
“A shit liar, you are!” Alex calls.
“A flat tire?” I yell back. “Not me!”
Alex grabs a few groceries at the market in town to give our fib some backing, and then I drag him to where I really want to go—the local indie bookstore.
As the door falls shut behind us, Alex says, “Any word from Fern?”
I peer over at him. “She said we’d talk after I was back.”
He’s quiet for a moment as we wander around the table display of new releases. “You could follow up before that,” he says.
I straighten a crooked book on its stack. “That would be pushy.”
He shrugs. “Maybe she wants you to push.”
“Why would she want that when she told me we’d talk when I came back?” I hear the defensiveness creeping into my voice, but I can’t help it. Just giving her the proposal in the first place, I’ve already stepped so far out of my comfort zone. Now Alex wants me to go even further?
“Because maybe she’s testing you.” Alex picks up a book, skimming the back. “That’s what I would do when someone told me they wanted to buy into my business—I’d want to know that they were really invested, that they were hungry for it.”
I frown. “You would?”
Alex sets the book down and meets my eyes. “When it comes to relationships, passionate people want to see passion in others.”
I blink, my heart starting to beat double time. “Professionally?”
“Of course. And personally,” he adds, drifting toward the kids’ section. “Before you ask, I’m not going down the cookbook aisle.”
I catch up to him, spin around, and give him sad-puppy eyes. “But I’m passionate about my best friend seeing his cookbooks in person.”
He comes to a stop, eyebrow arched, and says, unmoved. “No.”
“Pleeeease.” I lean in, hands clasped, and throw in a hearty bottom-lip-out pout. “I just want to walk by and look at them. If you do that much, I’ll consider calling Fern while we’re on vacation to follow up on my business proposal.”
He hesitates for a second, the sighs heavily. “Fine.”
I beeline to the cookbook aisle, find Alex’s books on an eye-level shelf, and silently scream. “It never gets old.”
He rakes a hand through his hair and tugs. “Okay, we saw them. Let’s go.”
“Just give me a minute.” I straighten out the copies, making sure they look their best.
“Ted.” He sounds exasperated. And also, just a little endeared by my antics. It makes me smile. This is Alex and Thea solid ground.
“One last adjustment,” I tell him, scooching his second cookbook half an inch to the right. “All set.”
“Great,” he says, gripping me by the hand, “Now let’s go—”
“Alex?” a voice calls from the other end of the aisle.
We both spin around, facing a woman in a sage-green romper and coordinated Birkenstocks walking briskly toward us. Long brown hair streaked with subtle sun-kissed highlights, a heart-shaped face, kind blue-green eyes. The closer she gets, the prettier she is.
Alex drops my hand. It shouldn’t sting, but it does.
“Andi?” he says, sounding genuinely surprised. Pleasantly surprised. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here with the kids! Our annual beach vacation. What about you?”
“Same,” Alex says. “On vacation with Mia.” He’s conveniently left out being here with Ethan and Jen. And me.
“What a small world.” Andi flashes Alex a megawatt smile. Alex smiles back.
My gaze snaps to her bare ring finger, the trace of a tan line where a ring used to live. Fear wriggles through my heart. There’s a warmth, a familiarity between them. And with Andi’s ring-free finger, there’s nothing stopping it from becoming more.
Their conversation seems to fade as my heart pounds in my ears. The chiding voice of reason in my head reminds me, This was inevitable. He’s never been yours to keep.