CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
R OBERT
For a moment, I wasn’t sure Keenan called my name. In fact, he had to call it twice before I understood that my team had won and we’d accomplished the goal we’d been working so hard toward these last few weeks. But it was true. Damn right, we’d done it. All the clapping, cheering, and enthusiasm was for us, and only us.
Hell yeah.
I led the team onto the small stage and strode toward Keenan, who had a clownish grin on his face and a couple of one-liners to deliver before Commissioner Simpson shoved a small trophy into my left hand and an envelope of prize money into the other. It was all happening so fast, in such a blur, and that stood out to me.
It wasn’t like this was the first thing I’d ever won, far from it. I did well in school and often got awards at the end of the year for excellence in English, Mathematics, or Science. The freshman soccer team I played on won a big trophy at the regional championship. During senior awards night, I racked up a couple of outstanding commendations for the Kiwanis Club and the Elks Lodge. All that continued in college and even in New York City, where I was named employee of the quarter a few times and made the New York Magazine “Thirty Under Thirty” list right before I turned twenty-six.
No, I wasn’t any stranger to getting awards.
But somehow, this moment felt so different. So... special. In fact, I relished it.
Maybe because I took such a risk moving back to New Burlington; doing so wasn’t at all what people expected from me, and I got plenty of skeptical pushback when I announced my plans to several friends. To them, moving back to Ohio was out of the question, to say nothing of willingly setting up shop in a tiny town on the outskirts of Cincinnati. Most of them confused Cincinnati with Cleveland and made chortled, choked remarks about how the winters would be even harder than what we faced in the city. Plenty of people looked down on my decision.
And now, there I was, grasping my prizes as Keenan made closing remarks about how much the judges enjoyed our float.
“They loved your creativity.” He directed his comments more to me than he should have. “Stood out.”
“Thanks.”
“You all have really set the bar high for next year.” Keenan angled toward the gathered crowd, still clapping and cheering. He raised his free hand, and the applause died. “Ladies and gentlemen, this settles it. I must be invited back next year so I can see what this town comes up with because this competition has truly made my Independence Day so memorable.”
The crowd murmured approval and affirmation, but I barely heard it as I scanned the crowd. Now that I was past the initial shock of the win, my thoughts were turning to Anya. She had to be somewhere in the group, still in the crowd. Earlier, she’d been with her friend, and they were in the back, almost late to the ceremony.
Now, she wasn’t there.
Surprised, I scoured the rest of the throng. She must be somewhere. She can’t have disappeared. But despite my frantic search, I didn’t see her anywhere.
Then my breath caught in my throat.
There Anya was, some distance away, marching from the ceremony and already in the far part of the parking lot, her shoulders hunched and her stride purposeful, almost as if she was marching herself away from the moment. Morgan trailed behind her. It didn’t take long for me to decide what to do next.
I broke.
With no regard for what was polite or accepted, I crossed the dais and bounded down the stairs. Then I pushed my way through the crowd, focused on one thing and one thing only.
Her.
“Anya,” I called, still gripping the trophy and the envelope of prize money. “Anya, wait.”
She kept walking as if she hadn’t heard me.
“Anya,” I spoke louder, picking up speed to close the space between us. I was a fast runner, and while my pace wasn’t a full-on sprint, it was swifter than a walk. “Anya, please.”
She didn’t stop walking until I caught up with her, until I was by her side, less than a half foot from the edge of the trailer bed that housed her float entry. “What do you want?” she snapped.
“I’m... I’m sorry.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“I know you wanted to win, and I’m sorry you didn’t.”
“That’s why you followed me?” She backed closer to the truck. “Just to say that?”
I nodded, my breath pushing hard through my lungs, and my heart rate elevated.
“Congratulations,” she said, but I heard insincerity in the word.
“I know this meant a lot to you,” I tried.
She shrugged one shoulder. “Sometimes you lose. I’m fine.”
There they were—the two most toxic words in the English language, especially when spoken by a woman in a context like this. I was a guy, but not a dumb guy. I knew what they meant. Whenever a woman said them, she meant the exact opposite. Anya wasn’t fine; she wasn’t okay.
She was pissed.
“It’s just a contest,” I said. “There will be other ones.”
She recoiled. Her expression contorted, and I knew that in the space of two sentences, I’d somehow ripped off a Band-Aid and exposed a place rawer and more sensitive than I realized. There was no turning back, no stopping what I’d just done.
“Just... leave,” she said.
I stopped short. “What?”
“You heard what I said.” Her voice grew stronger, putting power behind her words. “Go back to New York.”
“What?”
She braced her hand on the lip of metal curling around the back of the vehicle. “I’m not taking it back. Do you want me to go further?”
“Sure.”
“Well, um... just... um... eff you.”
I stared at her for a beat, biting back a laugh before deciding I’d remain the calm one. Normally, if someone said, “fuck you,” that should—and would—spark an instant fight. I’d thrown more than one punch at someone who made that kind of comment to me in the past. But I didn’t want to punch Anya. I didn’t want to attack her. I only wanted to know why —why she seemed like she hated me so much, why she wouldn’t allow herself to be nice to me even though some part of her obviously wanted to, and why she always acted so angry, so on edge, so bitter .
Besides, she hadn’t said the whole F-word. Just the first letter. And honestly, it was kind of cute, in an I-don’t-want-to-cuss-but-I’m-furious sort of way.
“Do you want to explain why you’d say that to me?” I asked.
Anya folded her arms and puffed her chest. “You just don’t get it, do you?”
I shook my head. I most certainly didn’t. “Nope.”
“That’s the problem with you,” she said, her words turning angry. “You’re so... entitled, so arrogant, and so annoying.”
“Am I?”
Her jaw hardened. “Yep. That’s exactly what you are. A mediocre, entitled man who thinks wherever he goes, people should bow down and worship him just for existing.”
I bit back a laugh and noticed a change in the air around us. A decent-sized number of people from the award ceremony had followed me to this section of the parking lot, and they fanned around us, gawking and staring as Anya and I argued. More than one had a cell phone out, and I knew that meant they were recording every bit of this exchange. I decided to pretend I didn’t see them.
“Quite a takedown,” I said instead.
“Goddamn it, that is the problem with someone like you. With all men.”
I laughed. Couldn’t help myself. What a ridiculous thing to say.
Still visibly ticked off, she uncrossed her arms and threw up her hands. “I’ll bet nobody has ever spoken to you this way and nobody has ever told you who you are and what you really do to people.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Guys like you think they can have anything they want.” She advanced a few steps. “You think you deserve anything you want.”
“It’s just a float.”
Anya’s eyes hardened, her frown deepened, her shoulders curled in a defensive hunch. “It’s not just a float. Why can’t you see that? It’s not just about the damn float.”
“Then what is this about?”
“Everything.” She raked a hand through her hair. “This is about the store, about your move back here, and about the way you think you can just show up and win.”
“Wasn’t aware this was a competition.”
“Why wouldn’t it be one?”
She was almost yelling now, her words strained, and anger all over her face. Still, she looked beautiful, even at this moment, and that was the paradox about her, the thing I noticed immediately when I saw her all those weeks ago. Anya was gorgeous, even in moments of stress and strain. She had an undeniable, fresh-faced beauty, the kind that made me sit up and take notice. And she didn’t have to try too hard, either. It was simply... there.
Too bad she clearly hated me.
“We were perfectly happy before you moved back here,” she added. “New Burlington was perfectly fine. We didn’t need you.”
I cocked my head. I was enjoying this a little, I had to admit it. She certainly had a flair for drama. I decided to push her buttons a little more. “We didn’t? The town didn’t? Or do you mean you didn’t?”
“Stop.” She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, she was still angry but seemed more in control, as if she’d managed to sweep something unruly and dangerous from her mind. “I wish you’d never come back.”
“That’s a shame,” I whispered.
Her shoulders relaxed. “Why?”
“Because if I hadn’t come back, I wouldn’t have had the chance to see you again. Our paths wouldn’t have crossed.”
“So what?”
“Plenty.”
I walked the final two steps toward her. We were face-to-face now, toe to toe, and I could reach out and touch her if I wanted. I could put my hands on her shoulders, embrace her, touch her hair, and let her lean on my shoulder. I could even feel her breathing if I wanted; she was that close to me.
“I’m not the enemy, Anya.”
“You’re the biggest threat to my business we’ve had in over forty years,” she said, almost struggling to get the words out of her mouth. “And when you open in a few weeks, we’re sunk. I know it. The Green Frog won’t make it against your bookstore-slash-bourbon-bar and all the... the...”
“You’re scared.”
She nodded. She looked so vulnerable, and I’d yet to see that side of her. It made me want to hold her, comfort her, take her in my arms...
Now.
“You shouldn’t be scared,” I said, still focused only on her. Through my peripheral vision, I knew the circle around us had grown tighter and that a group of people from our community hung on to every word spoken in this fight. I could almost smell the popcorn. “I wish you’d see what’s right in front of you.”
“Which is what?” she asked.
“This.”
And before I gave it another thought, before I gave myself time to back out, I leaned down, cupped the back of her neck, and kissed her.