Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Mia
After two watermelon shooters a piece, we were off to dinner. I could smell burgers and other bar food well before we got to the restaurant attached to the lodge. It smelled glorious. Even if my friends weren’t impressed, I was going to enjoy some fried food.
I walked arm in arm with Ruby, the other three girls walking together behind us.
It was like I was back in my classroom, leading the line down the hallway.
They screamed as a chipmunk ran across the path in front of them, then laughed at each other’s reactions.
Ruby rolled her eyes. I glanced back, hoping the other girls couldn’t read my sister’s body language.
I didn’t need anything getting back to Archer.
I’d worn heeled booties and a soft spandex dress with a camisole and bike shorts underneath, with my hair pulled back into a low French twist and the diamond studs Archer had given me sitting in my earlobes.
He was right—they did make me look more mature, like a woman instead of a girl.
I’d let my freckles fly free this weekend.
Usually I covered them up with powder, the way Archer preferred, but the minerals irritated my skin.
The freckles across my nose and cheeks made me look younger—not how I wanted to be seen, but I was on vacation. It’d be fine.
The musty smell and neon lights of the restaurant welcomed us in. I stepped into the bar area, immediately noticing that my feet didn’t stick to the floor like they had previously. It didn’t smell like spilled liquor either.
A five-top table near the bar had a laminated Reserved sign with Bachelorette Party written on it with a dry-erase marker.
The sign matched the scratchy bachelorette sash the girls had made me wear.
They’d also insisted on a rhinestone-incrusted tiara with fluffy feathers lining the bottom band that sat on top of my hair.
I’d been trying to ignore the stiff plastic combs that dug into my scalp, keeping the tiara on top of my head the whole walk over.
We took our seats while Rachel flitted around the table, giving everyone feather boas and tiny crowns that they could clip into their hair. She also threw a plastic penis straw into each of our water glasses. Public fellatio—fantastic.
I looked over the menu that had been stuck between the plastic mustard and ketchup bottles at the table. To be honest I was more excited about eating some of the resort’s fantastic apps than I was about any silly bachelorette-party antics.
“What can I get you ladies to drink?” A server came from around the bar to take our order.
“Do you have any specials?” Laura asked.
“We’ve got tap beer, bottled beer, and liquor,” the man answered.
Laura looked disappointed. I was sure she wanted something with floating herbs that smoked because of the dry ice added to it.
“Dean?” Ruby asked suddenly.
My eyes shot to our server. It was Dean. His mop of curly brown hair was cut short and styled. He looked good. Older, more filled out.
“Ah, shit. Ruby?” His neck went red. He placed his hands on the table and leaned in. “I haven’t talked to you since…”
“The summer it all went to shit,” Ruby finished his sentence. Ever since that summer, Dean had made himself scarce during our family’s week up here.
He looked a little taken aback as he glanced around the table, finally landing on me. “Mia? Is that you?” A huge smile came across his face. He glanced down at my sash and back up at my crown. “You’re the bachelorette?”
“Guilty,” I said, giving a shy smile.
“You know who’d love to see you…” Dean looked over his shoulder at the bar.
I followed his gaze and felt my heart stop inside my chest.
Every muscle in my body squeezed.
Static filled my ears.
Bower.
He couldn’t see me from where he stood behind the bar, pouring a beer into a pint glass.
His arms were bigger than I remembered. Bower pulled the tap handle, the veins in his arms bulging out from his skin as he smiled at the patron at the bar, obviously shooting shit with him.
He looked good. His hair was shorter than when we’d been young.
He wore a baseball hat on his head—backward—and had tattoos on his arms now. A lot of them.
It had been nine years since I’d seen him being taken away by the cops on that beach.
I remembered it all, probably remembered it too well.
How I’d sat in the back of the boat watching as he was taken farther and farther away from me.
How I’d looked for him the next year only to find him gone, without so much as a goodbye.
I looked away as quickly as I had looked at him. “I’ll take a margarita, please,” I said.
Dean paused for a moment, looking at me before writing my order on a pad of paper.
After Dean got everyone’s drink orders and went back to the bar, I felt a hand on my thigh. I looked over at Ruby. She gave me a sad smile before letting go. She knew.
“Oh my god, everything they have here is fried,” Mindi said.
“Have they ever heard of a vegetable?” Rachel asked.
“They have fried pickles,” Ruby suggested.
“I’m going to be so bloated,” Laura said.
“Booking an extra Pilates class now,” Mindi said, pulling her phone from her purse.
“I’m going to order for the table!” Ruby shouted.
The girls stopped squabbling for a moment. My sister headed over to the bar, where Dean was taking a long time to punch our complicated drink order into the POS system.
When he’d been taking our drink orders, Rachel had asked if the bar had blow-job shots. I’d cringed while Dean had laughed, telling her they didn’t have them on the menu but they could improvise something. Rachel had giggled, brushing her hand down his arm, and ordered a round for the table.
I tried to listen to the conversation happening at the table, but I was too busy trying to keep tabs on Ruby and Dean. She leaned in close to talk to him. Occasionally they both glanced back at the table, making eye contact with me before I could turn away and pretend that I wasn’t watching them.
Ruby returned to the table and plopped back into her seat. “I got fried vegetables for the table.”
A few minutes later, Dean brought over our drinks. I took a sip of the margarita right before making the biggest mistake of my life.
I glanced over at the bar. He was looking at our table. At me. His eyes met mine, and I stiffened, salt from the margarita still on my lips. His face froze, his stare endless.
I broke eye contact, turning back to the table and adjusting the crown on my head. The bottom of the crown had little white feathers that kept falling on my face. I brushed one off my nose, letting it fall to the ground.
I hadn’t seen Bower since the night I’d left him at the beach. I hadn’t talked to his grandparents since they’d shooed me away, carefully avoiding them whenever we’d come here since. What was he doing here? He was supposed to be gone, out of my life. He hadn’t been a part of it for nine years.
I shifted in my seat, making sure I was sitting up straight. Why was I letting him affect me like this?
Needing a distraction, I took the blow-job shot, licking the whipped cream from my top lip.
“You’re supposed to take the shot without the whipped cream touching your lips!” Mindi screeched. “Like a blow job, swallow it all…”
I set down the shot glass, confused. The girls looked at me funny before they started laughing.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never given a blow job before,” Mindi said.
My face turned red. I could feel the capillaries on my skin expanding, warming my cheeks.
“Oh my god. She hasn’t.”
“Archer proposed to you without ever getting a blow job?” Laura asked. I had her full attention and the complete attention of the table.
“Shut up!” I whispered, much louder than I’d intended.
“Oh my god. Are you a virgin?” Rachel slammed down her drink, waiting for my answer.
Was my hair turning red? It felt like it should be from all the heat radiating off my face.
“She is!” Rachel yelled.
I pushed back from the table, my chair falling over behind me and clattering against the floor. The entire bar looked over at our table. I smoothed my dress before I bent down to pick up the chair.
Ruby met me on the floor, our hands grazing each other’s as we reached for the chair. “Take a minute,” she whispered.
I nodded and stood up. My eyes felt wet, and I tried to breathe normally but couldn’t. I walked toward the bathrooms, trying to act poised and normal, but it was hard on heels.
The bathrooms were next to the bar, down a short hallway. I kept my eyes on my boots, making sure I didn’t trip and make an even bigger fool of myself. This hallway had horrible lighting, and the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling flickered.
“Let’s not pretend like we don’t know each other.”
In an instant, I stumbled, catching my back against the wall. I sucked in a breath, my eyes shut tight.
His voice was several octaves lower than I’d remembered.
I lifted my head and opened my eyes.
Bower.
He was standing right in front of me. His eyes were the same as I had remembered them, although there was a depth I hadn’t seen before. His skin was tan, his hair bleached from the sun. I closed my eyes as I inhaled. He smelled the same. Like cedar. Like outside. Like home.
With one hand, he lifted the crown from atop my head. The combs that’d been pushing into my scalp released, and I let out an involuntary sigh. With a flick of his wrist, he threw it to the ground. I turned and watched the crown bounce a couple of times before hitting the wall.
What was he doing? I looked back up at him, our eyes locking. His had that twinkle I remembered, the one that dared me to look away.
Stop.
I made my eyes close, breaking the spell.
I put my hands on his chest—his chest now filled out with muscle—and pushed.
He made it easy, backing up far enough that I was able to turn and walk across the hallway to the women’s bathroom. I set the lock as soon as it closed, leaning my back against the door. I breathed like I had run a 5K, my lungs begging for air.
At the single sink, I turned on the cold faucet and splashed cold water onto my face. The mirror had one of those horrible fluorescent lights, just like the hallway. I looked like a wreck—red face, red eyes, freckles everywhere.
I pulled a couple of paper towels from the dispenser and dried my face, willing it to pale.
The fucking sash was rubbing on my neck again.
I pulled it out in front of me, hearing the cheap fabric tear.
It dangled in my hand, reading Bachelorette!
in pink glitter letters. I pushed it into the trash can, pulling brown paper towels from the dispenser to cover it up.
Fuck feeling uncomfortable. I’d had enough of it tonight already.
I looked down, smoothing my dress. It had ridden up my thighs, exposing my bike shorts underneath.
Why was I such a mess? It was just a boy—a man I knew from nine years ago.
Why was I letting him get to me like this?
Why was I letting my friends get to me? So what if I was a virgin, at pretty much everything.
Archer was a gentleman. He didn’t push me to go further than I was comfortable with.
This was my bachelorette party. I was supposed to be having the best time.
I smoothed my hair against the side of my head before unlocking the door.
As I slipped out into the hallway, my eyes met a pair of tan work boots crossed over each other.
I followed up the legs they were attached to.
Blue jeans, faded and worn. Black Henley T-shirt.
Tattooed arms crossed. Bower’s blue eyes.
I stopped, the door to the bathroom swinging closed behind me, pushing me out into the hallway.
“Those girls out there,” Bower said. “They’re your friends?” He uncrossed his arms and legs to take a step closer to me. I felt small next to him. My view from the bar hadn’t done him any justice. He had packed on a lot of muscle in the last nine years.
“Yeah.” They were my friends. Probably. Kind of. Although they were more friends by proxy. The start of this weekend was already a reminder that I’d only spent a handful of dinners and attended the occasional get-togethers at their houses—we weren’t close.
They were obnoxious. I knew they were. Bower had probably already heard offhand criticism from their big mouths about the resort.
But I wasn’t close with anyone from the school I worked at, and I hadn’t exchanged more than a couple of texts with any of my friends who lived nearby since I’d started dating Archer.
My close friends from college were halfway across the country.
Even though I hadn’t seen them in a long time, not since I’d met Archer, I wasn’t going to ask them to fly out for a single weekend.
They’d promised they would come for the wedding. That was enough.
Rachel, Laura, and Mindi weren’t my first choice of bachelorette guests, but they were the partners of Archer’s good friends, the women I’d be seeing regularly once Archer and I were married.
“If those are your friends, then maybe I don’t know you as well as I thought I did.” Bower reached out his hand toward my face.
Without meaning to, I flinched.
He paused, his arm extended in the air between us. His eyes were the same blue I remembered. He’d always had those kind eyes. Bower’s thumb contacted my lower lip, sweeping along the outer edge, before he pulled away to swipe at the whipped cream he’d just removed from my face with his tongue.
I brought my left hand to my lip, tingling after his touch. Bower’s eyes widened when he saw what perched on my finger. It felt heavier than ever.
“Wait, you’re the bachelorette?” He backed up several steps, his back hitting the wall in the narrow hallway.
I motioned to the crown that he’d thrown onto the floor. “What did you think that was?”
“I didn’t think—all of you are wearing feathers and shit.”
Forcing myself to look into his eyes, I confirmed, “I’m the bachelorette.”
Bower’s nostrils flared before he tore his eyes from mine and headed back toward the bar. Leaving me to watch him walk away.