Chapter Seven
Viviane’s knees cracked as she settled down on the bench next to the back door of her bookstore. The sun was setting behind the pine trees, casting an electric orange swirl in the sky. The brisk late-spring weather allowed the scent of pine to hang in the air mixed with the heavenly aroma of coffee wafting from next door. The low hum of cars driving on Main Street on the other side of the building created just enough white noise to feel private.
“Well hell, Dane, she’s adorable!” she said, plucking a joint from somewhere in her poof of hair and handing it to me before she dug into a pocket of her cardigan, presenting a lighter. This was our ritual: I’d start it and leave her the rest.
“I know. I’m so screwed,” I said through gritted teeth as I held the joint between my lips, cupping around the flame while I inhaled the distinctive earthy smoke.
“That sweet little accent. That petite figure of hers. Oh god, she’s cute! Those big brown eyes would make any man sign their fortune away with a bat of an eyelash.”
“You’re not wrong,” I said, taking another drag, grateful both of our shops were closed for the night so I didn’t have to worry about getting too high to literally operate heavy machinery.
Her bluish, drawn-on eyebrows scrunched as she wrapped the cardigan around herself. “What happened between you two?”
I blew out the smoke, watching it mix with the clouds streaking across the sunset. “You know I don’t kiss and tell.”
“I haven’t seen you with anyone else in a while. Have you been holding out for her?”
“I’m not sure. She’s just kind of taken up my mental space.”
Flickers of the engagement party dashed into my mind. Seeing her for the first time, laughing with Kaylee as they walked in with pure carefree confidence. Her little drawl as she said I’m Maisie right before she went in for a hug instead of a handshake. Her legs resting over my lap as we sat on a garden bench and talked for hours. The little noise breaking in the back of her throat while we kissed as I picked up her and laid us down on the forest floor as bright yellow autumn leaves lazily fell around us.
“Tortured. I get it. That’s how I was with William.” She pursed her thin lips, deep in thought. “But I can see why she’s hesitant. There would be a life here, ready to swallow her up.”
“Yeesh, well, when you put it like that.” I handed her the smoke.
“Oh, don’t take it personally, honey. You know what I mean.”
“I do.”
“Your mom would’ve loved her.”
A burning beyond the weed filled my throat. “Yeah, I’ve already thought of that too.”
Viviane had watched my mom grow up. My mom had been the hairdresser in town for decades. When she’d passed away, her nail tech, Ginger, had taken over. The salon was only three doors down from my shop and a constant reminder of what I’d lost.
“Is she close with her mom?” Viviane asked.
“Not really. From what I remember, her mom sounded kind of self-absorbed.”
“Poor thing,” she said reflectively before taking a drag.
Thinking of Maisie made my stomach churn. She had changed so much. Who knew nine months could do that to a person? Of course, she was still gorgeous. Her dark hair was beautiful against her warm skin, and her big doe eyes looking up at me made me want to cradle her face in my hands and promise her the world. She was still wearing funky clothes, just like the time before, even down to her denim jacket covered in patches from different places she must’ve visited. But looks weren’t everything. I worried more about what was haunting her. She was impatient, defensive, and detached, three things I hadn’t witnessed at all that first night.
I liked women who lived in their instincts, who went with the flow and bent so they didn’t break. Spontaneity was one of the sexiest things in a woman. With Maisie in front of me today, it was nothing but protocols, plans, and her guard up. I wanted to shake her, to help snap her out of whatever game she was playing. Even if I hurt her, which I didn’t mean to, I wanted to urge her to stop living small.
Even worse, she was in my cottage. In the house that once had my finger-painted pictures on the fridge and dings from baseball bats along the wall. When my dad had died after my mom and sister, I’d scrubbed the place of our life there together as a family. I’d needed to. It had been part of the healing process for me.
I’d needed everything gone.
Now, everything was a bit too far gone.
The only thing I couldn’t scrub away was my dad’s auto shop, which was mine now. I still used his tools and his old radio in the window above my tool chest. I even kept the cobwebs that had been there since before I was born. In some sick way, they felt like his. I even kept his crusty coffee mug from a fishing trip to Vermont we had gone on together. It had stains rimming the lip and remained by the sink in the breakroom still to this day. If it wasn’t for the shop and some good friends, like Harley and Noah, I wouldn’t stay here in Maine. God knew the winters were rough, the summers were short, and the town was quiet.
“Maybe you two should go for a drive,” Viviane said with a shrug, flicking some ash. “I remember when I was dating, it was always so fun to drive up and down Cumberland Avenue. That was when gas was twenty cents a gallon but still.”
The innocence of her suggestion tugged at my heart. I wished it were that simple. Not wanting to shut down her suggestion, I flashed her a grateful smile. “That’s a great idea, thank you. Oh, by the way, are you going to that class tomorrow? I really could give you a ride.”
“Nah, seeing her squirm was enough entertainment to last me a month.” She let out a dainty smoker’s cough. “Plus, I don’t need another vibrator. William refilled his Viagra for little willy.”
I blinked hard, wishing I were stoned enough to forget I’d just heard that.
The next day, I was at work, cursing at a beat-up Suburban. I was good at my job. It was either simple or complex, not too much in the middle. I’d realized that was how I like life, either straightforward or something that makes me work for it. Today, it was making me work for it.
Lennie was back on his bullshit, talking about how the earth was flat and no one had ever seen baby eels so that must mean we live in a simulation. I asked if he’d ever finished the movie The Matrix and he couldn’t remember. You see, Lennie had lost most of his long-term memory on his fourth acid trip. If I wasn’t an honest man, I could probably get by without giving him raises.
A diesel rumbling outside my bay along with a deep bark made me roll out from under the Suburban to see Harley hop out of his truck. His olive complexion was already darkening with the oncoming summer. His tan work shirt was untucked and unbuttoned at the top, his black hair longer than usual and a little disheveled.
I got up and wiped my hands, snatching a dog treat.
“Hey, man, what’s up?” I gave him a quick hug and walked to his back seat window to pet his work dog: a German Shepard named Storm. “Such a good boy! Yes, he is!” I said in my dopey dog voice, earning a low woof.
“I’m running around like crazy with all this wedding stuff. I want to give you Kaylee’s key before I forget.”
I grabbed the key from Harley, pocketing it. “So we’re cool to put the normal shit on her Jeep? Tin cans tied to the hitch, just married scrawled on the window, all that jazz?”
“Yep, have at it.” He scanned me up and down with a hazel, hawkish squint. He was the kind of man who already knew everything, so you rarely had to fill Harley in. “Why didn’t you tell me she booked your cottage?” he asked, silently referring to Maisie.
I shrugged, still petting Storm from where his head hung outside the window.
Harley raised a dark eyebrow. “Was it on purpose?”
I shrugged again. “I just saw her reservation and let it unfold. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. We had a thing. It’s over.” I tilted my head to the side, hearing my neck crack. For a split second, the sensation eased the knot of anxiety in my stomach. It had been there since the second I’d seen how fucking pretty she looked in the rocking chair on my porch, her little cowgirl boot dangling with how she crossed her legs. I’d immediately pictured myself sitting on the rocking chair next to her, all old and grizzled, just like all the hypothetical futures country singers crooned about. I tilted my head to the other side, letting the second crack snap me back to reality. “I promise we won’t ruin your wedding or anything. I already saw her, and we seem cool.”
“Cool?”
This was the part about Harley I didn’t like. Sometimes, I felt naked around him. He was a good friend, always loyal, didn’t judge me, and most importantly, the man was a vault. Any info I gave him would die with him. That was hard to come by, but I paid the cost by having almost zero privacy.
“We’re two grown-ass adults that will be civil with each other. You have my word.”
“I’m not worried about that. I’m worried that ever since you met her, you’ve been different. You clam up when Kaylee mentions her. You won’t tell me what happened between you two. I’ve just been assuming you guys had a one-night stand and it went wrong but—”
“We had a disagreement. Shit happens.”
Hell, even I could hear how evasive I was being. I felt like a worm dangling on a hook.
He crossed his arms to lean against his truck. “Does she know about your past? About Boston?”
“No, that didn’t really come up.” I stopped petting Storm to lock eyes with Harley, silently sparring. “I don’t think she needs to know. It doesn’t affect my life much nowadays.”
“Bullshit,” Harley said with an amused laugh.
“That’s what you’ve cooked up in your head? You think that’s why she’s mad at me?”
He extended his arms wide. “You’re not giving me anything else to work with. Plus, people always love you. I can’t think of why she would be avoiding you so much other than she found out—”
“We had a disagreement about something else,” I interjected.
“You should try to smooth it over with her.”
I puffed air out of my nose. “For Kaylee’s sake?”
“No, because she clearly struck a chord with you. If she can do that and keep up with a friend like Kaylee, she must be one hell of a woman. You’d be a fucking fool to let her prance out of town without some closure. Trust me, I know how painful it is to watch a woman leave.”
“That’s just it, Har. She’s going to prance out of Pine Bluff, just like the rest of them.”
“It might be different with her. She has Kaylee here, too.”
There was no way that was going to happen. When she’d stood in front of me at the cottage, I could see so much disdain in her eyes, it had gutted me. Each time I’d tried to help or compliment her, she’d walled up.
“We’re past the hook-up stage and she hates my fucking guts. If I make it out of your wedding with my nuts still intact, I’ll call it a success.”
“We’ll see.”
His doubt caused my blood to hum with a slow burn. I had to change the subject to ensure we weren’t fighting during his bachelor party tonight.
“Enough about my bullshit. Where are you off to now?”
He pointed to his head. “Haircut, then I have to get a bigger suitcase for our trip, and I’m supposed to track down mead for the ceremony. Did you know the term honeymoon comes from the honeyed wine they used in handfasting ceremonies in Europe? It’s like some ancient Viking shit where the bride’s family would provide mead to the couple during the first moon phase of their marriage.”
“The things we learn from your girl.”
“Right? I had no clue.”
“If it’s so important, why doesn’t the high priestess have any on tap in her yurt?” I teased.
Harley flashed me a smile. “That’s a good question!” He clapped a hand on my shoulder, squeezing it. “See ya in a couple hours?”
I scrubbed Storm’s head affectionately as a goodbye. “Sure thing.”