Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
AVERY
The second I stepped through the diner doors, Addison greeted me with a warm hug.
She squealed into my ear, her arms banded tight around me. “I’m so happy you’re here! Even if I only get to see you for a couple hours.”
“Me, too. I can’t believe it’s been four years since I’ve gotten one of your boa constrictor hugs.” I returned it, squeezing her as tight as I dared, though I knew she could withstand nearly anything. She might’ve been pint-size, but she was the toughest woman I knew.
We’d met during freshman orientation at the University of Maine, and we quickly became inseparable.
Her mom had just died, and she was dealing with some boy bullshit, and I was still reeling from the shock of a lifetime, so we’d naturally gravitated toward each other.
Then we’d pledged the same sorority and became roommates and lifelong sisters.
Growing together—healing together—forged a bond I’d yet to be able to replicate.
Even with Willow, who’d been one of my very best friends the past few years.
She didn’t even know the parts of me I kept hidden, the secrets I kept buried deep, though Addison did.
With a grin, Addison pulled away and dragged me to a booth tucked in the back corner. “Tell me everything I’ve missed.”
I tossed my bag onto the bench before sliding in across from her with a laugh. “You already know everything. I talk to you at least once a week.”
“Yeah, but this is different! I can see your face clearly. FaceTime just doesn’t cut it.”
“I know, but now that I’ll be only a few hours away, we can get together more. Maybe meet in the middle once a month.”
“Or…” she said with a gleam in her eye. “Maybe I can talk your mom into moving to Starlight Cove, and you can just stay here with me forever.”
I rolled my eyes. “Nice try. You know I’m not a stick around forever kind of girl.”
She released a heavy sigh. “I do know, and I love you anyway. And now with this new job, flying all over the world? You really are going to be my precious little hummingbird, always flitting away.”
“You stole that from my mom.”
“Guilty.”
With a laugh, I grabbed the menu and scanned it quickly. “What’s good here?”
“Everything. But if you don’t see something you like, you can order whatever you want. Beck can make you anything.”
“Addison,” a man snapped from behind the counter.
Wearing a backward baseball cap and a scowl, he was tall with an imposing presence that probably intimidated most people.
“In case you didn’t notice, there are other people in here besides you, so your made-to-order dishes will have to wait for your personal chef. ”
That had to be one of her infamous pain-in-the-ass brothers.
Despite Addison’s and my closeness, I had yet to meet any of her siblings.
She’d said she’d grown up with them constantly all up in her business, so her college life was just for her.
But she knew my mom well enough that the two of them still talked every month or so.
“Oh, relax, Beck.” She rolled her eyes, then leaned forward, bracing her arms on the table. On a whisper, she said, “But seriously…anything you want.”
A sharp smack sounded from Beck’s direction, and I turned to find him pointing a spatula at Addison. “I mean it, or you’re going to be opening the diner for the next week.”
“And what would you be doing?”
“Enjoying some extra time between Everly’s—”
“Okay!” she yelled, holding up a hand as she cut him off.
Then she turned to me with a shudder. “I’m happy for them.
I really am. But I’ve learned more about my brothers’ sex lives in the past six months than I ever wanted to know in my entire life.
And they’re falling like dominoes. First Brady, then that grumpy asshole”—she pointed a thumb over her shoulder in Beck’s direction—“and now Ford. Who’s next?
Aiden?” She snorted into her coffee and shook her head.
After putting in our orders—everything from the menu, thanks to an intense stare down from Beck—I sipped my coffee and raised a brow in her direction. “So what happened last night? I can’t believe you stood me up.”
“God, I’m so sorry!”
“I should let you sweat it longer, but I can’t. I’m not even a little bit mad because I got my world absolutely rocked by the hottest man I’ve ever seen. I’ve never come so hard in my life.”
Her mouth dropped open as she stared at me. “Seriously? I’ve lived here my whole fucking life, and my world has never been rocked. You’re here for, what, twelve hours, and it happens? Unfair. I demand you tell me everything so I can live vicariously through you. Who was he?”
I blew out a sigh and shook my head. “I don’t know, actually. I don’t know his name, so I’ve been calling him BB in my mind.”
“BB?”
“Book boyfriend. I swear, it was like he stepped straight out of the pages of one of my filthiest books.” I leaned toward her, dropping my voice to barely above a whisper. “He made me come six times in like an hour.”
She slammed her hand down on the table, drawing the attention of the other patrons. “Shut. Up.”
I held up a hand. “Swear it.”
“God, you suck. Meanwhile, instead of getting railed into next week, I had to clean up my brother’s fuckup.”
“Which one?”
“Aiden.” She spat his name like a curse word at church.
“What did he fuck up?”
“What didn’t he fuck up?” Frustration seeped into every word.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on with him, but it’s been one mistake after another.
For months. Things keep falling through the cracks, and that’s completely unlike him.
This is the guy who’s so buttoned-up, I wouldn’t be surprised if he slept in his dress shirts. ”
I laughed. “He sounds like a lot of fun.”
“I just don’t know what his issue is. The resort has been a lot busier, so our workload has increased, but that’s been going on for months.”
“Have you guys hired anyone yet?”
“Nope, even though I’ve brought it up a dozen times.
He keeps vetoing it because he can’t stand the idea of anyone else’s hands in his shit.
” She took a sip of her coffee and shook her head.
“I swear, I’m about ready to hire someone behind his back because I can’t keep doing my job and his.
Not now, when the resort is booked solid and we’ve got that documentary filming here for the next two months.
It’s already taking up more of my time than I can give. ”
I hummed. “And how do you think Mr. Buttoned-Up would take it if you did that?”
“Oh, he’d lose his shit, for sure,” she said on a laugh.
“And yet you sound absolutely delighted at the thought.” I raised a brow at her over my mug. “I see fucking with your brothers is still your favorite pastime…”
She grinned. “It’s the best.”
“Well, you know my motto… Better to beg forgiveness than ask for permission.”
Beck dropped off our meals with a glare at his sister and a slightly less grumpy expression shot my way. “Let me know if you need anything else,” he said, tapping his knuckles next to my plate.
“What about me?” Addison called after him.
“Get it yourself,” he said without glancing back.
“Are all your brothers this charismatic?”
“If by charismatic, you mean grumpy assholes, then yes, pretty much. Ford’s the only nice one, but he’s at a tournament for the Little League team he coaches with Aiden, so you won’t get to meet either of them. And I won’t subject you to Brady or Levi.”
Before I could respond, my phone rang.
“One sec.” I riffled through my bag until I found it, a picture of my mom and me on the beach flashing on the screen. I glanced at the time with a raised brow. As a rule, she didn’t wake up before 10 a.m. And considering it was barely 8, this was unheard of.
“It’s my mom.” I held up the phone between us, pointing the screen toward Addison.
Her brows lifted the same as mine. “Before 10? You better answer. Maybe she needs bail money.”
That should’ve been something that would garner a laugh, because it obviously wouldn’t be true.
But my mom had, in fact, called me for bail money.
It was during sophomore year, and she’d gotten picked up for trespassing—ie, sunbathing—on a yacht in the harbor.
Of course, she hadn’t needed us after all because by the time we’d gotten there with the cash, the yacht’s owner had not only bailed her out but had taken her back to the scene of the crime, where she stayed for a month as his guest.
“Mom?” I asked after accepting the call. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
She giggled on the other end of the line. “My sweet girl, always looking out for me.”
“That’s not an answer…”
“I’m fine,” she said. “And I’m a grown woman, by the way, so even if I weren’t, you don’t have to worry about me.”
“Well, how can I not when it’s 8 o’clock in the morning, and you told me explicitly if I call you before 10, I better either be bleeding out in a ditch or about to elope in Vegas. Otherwise, you’d disown me.”
“And I mean that, too. But this flight is eleven hours, and I knew you’d already be on the road by the time we landed, so I wanted to catch you before that.”
“Catch me for what?” I asked before the rest of her sentence caught up to me. “And what do you mean, flight?”
As soon as I was done with breakfast, I was jumping in my car and hitting the road for the three-hour drive to my hometown…where I was supposed to be staying with my mother.
“I have good news and bad news,” she said. “Which do you want first?”
“Bad.”
She breathed out a long sigh. “Well, it’s a funny story, really. It turns out I heard Stewart wrong, and he can’t get you into flight attendant training quite yet.”
“What does ‘quite yet’ mean?” I asked with barely restrained patience.
Prior to my coming home, my mom had promised me that her boyfriend of the month was able to pull some strings and get me started on the path of my dream job, but I needed to come immediately.
It was the entire reason I’d quit my job in Havenbrook and moved halfway across the country in the blink of an eye.
“The next opening is in January.”
“January?”
Addison’s brows flew up at my tone, but I couldn’t tamp down my reaction. January was three months away. Not to mention that I’d just quit my job to move home for this supposedly immediate opportunity, and now the opportunity wasn’t happening for months.
“Yes,” she said. “But just think of how great it will be! You can stay at the house—rent free, of course—so you can take a few months off, relax, enjoy yourself… And Stewart is always happy to give you money if you need it.”
“I’m not gonna take some random guy’s money, Mom.”
“He’s not some random guy. I just told you his name is Stewart, and he’s been very good to me.”
“Good to you for how long?”
She huffed out a laugh. “You know that doesn’t matter to me.”
I scrubbed a hand across my forehead and blew out a long sigh. “And the good news?”
“Oh! Stewart is taking me to Greece with him, so you’ll have the house to yourself for the rest of the month.”
I sat there in silence for so long, my mouth hanging open, that Addison lifted a single brow in my direction.
But I could only shake my head at her. After a lifetime of growing up with my mom, I shouldn’t have been surprised by this.
This was her MO, after all. It was one of the many reasons people loved her.
One of the reasons I loved her. She was spontaneous and charismatic and effervescent—the very epitome of a free spirit.
And someone I’d looked up to my entire life.
The only trouble was, she was that person with everyone, not just me. I’d been feeling disconnected for a while now, and I was looking forward to this time with my mom to anchor me again. But it looked like that was going to have to wait.
“The key’s under the mat, so you just enjoy yourself while I’m gone.”
I huffed out a disbelieving laugh. “It’s not that easy, Mom. I’ve gotta find a job now. Not all of us have sugar daddies to cover the bills.”
“That was one time.”
“Yeah? And what do you call this?”
“Having fun,” she said, the shrug clear in her tone. “Now, you have some while I’m gone. I’ll let you know when we land. Love you!”
Before I could respond, the line went dead.
I stared down at my phone, my mind whirring through all the different possibilities of what was in front of me now that my plan had been pushed back.
I no longer had a reason to get to Rosewood today…
or this week. Hell, even this whole month.
And if I knew my mom—and I did—I wouldn’t be surprised if she was gone for months, plural.
Especially if she had a chance to avoid a New England winter.
“Well,” I said, tucking my phone back into my purse. “It seems I’m no longer in a rush to get home because my mom is flitting off to Greece with her boyfriend of the week. So, what are you doing tonight?”
Addison leaned over the table toward me, her eyes alight with excitement. It was the same look she used to get on her face before suggesting some insane scheme in college. One I always, always went along with.
“I have a better question,” she said. “What are you doing for the next three months?”