Tomorrow, we leave to drive home to Georgia. Monday, I go back to work. He starts at a summer camp that my boss swears his wife loves for their kids.
And we won’t have Ellie with us.
For the majority of my life, that was just fine with me. She was irritating, obnoxious, and a general pain in the ass.
Now?
Either I need to see my doctor for an issue with sudden flaming indigestion, or I’m going to fucking miss her.
Because maybe the problem was never that she was irritating, obnoxious, and a general pain in the ass.
Maybe the problem was that she was everything I wanted to be, and then everything I wanted, and nothing I thought I could have, or deserved to have.
Working hard to make something of myself in a career and being the best father I know how to be isn’t always enough to erase the seeds planted in my subconscious in my early childhood that I was nothing but a pest.
“Work going well?” Mr. Ryder asks.
I tell him about my current project, an upgrade to radar sensors on the newest fighter platform, and he tells me about a windmill farm project their company’s been doing for a cloud-based server complex south of the city, closer to where Davis lives.
“Still looking to get out in a year?” he asks me.
“I’m ready.” I’d stay in until retirement if I could—I like knowing my job supports my country and ultimately helps protect my friends and neighbors, and the work is challenging and rewarding—but the odds of being able to get stationed and stay stationed at the base just north of Copper Valley, and therefore close to Tucker, are slim. “Just waiting for the clock to tick down or a waiver to come through.”
“You want a job, you know where to find us.”
“Appreciate that, sir.”
Not that I plan on taking him up on any offer without knowing I’ve earned it. It was hard enough letting them pay for me to take my SATs so I could apply to college.
Which is exactly the sort of thing that family does, and one more reason I need to not fuck around with Ellie.
Her family means too much to me.
Hell, they’re why I applied for an ROTC scholarship the minute I hit campus.
So they wouldn’t feel like they needed to help me through.
That was before Beck and the guys hit it big with Bro Code, and before Ellie landed herself a full ride.
And if I fuck things up with her, I’ll never again hear the chatter in the back of the car with the way they’ve adopted Tucker as a surrogate grandkid. I won’t feel like I still deserve to be treated like one of their own.
If Ellie and I were both in this for the long haul, that would be one thing.
But she doesn’t even want to touch me for fear the world will crumple around her.
So I’ll keep my feelings to myself, and Tucker will keep his second set of grandparents, and life will go on, just as it always has.
Except different.
We park once again in the field at the far end of Shipwreck and head down Blackbeard Avenue into town. Mr. Ryder scans the street. “Where do you suppose Ellie is?”
Spotting the bridal party isn’t easy this morning—no bright parrot costumes for the wedding day, apparently—but then I notice the English colonists.
And the woman who looks like Kiera Knightly in that pirate movie.
“Ah, there, I’d guess,” I tell Mr. Ryder. I don’t see Ellie, but Monica, Jason, Sloane, and the parents are in full colonial regalia. It appears Pop Rock is spending the day playing the role of a governor with the powdered white wig.
This town.
I wave to Monica down the block when she glances our way, and her face lights up as she waves back.
“Oh my heavens,” Mrs. Ryder murmurs with a smile. “I can only imagine what her bridal gown will look like.”
We meet up with them two shops down from Anchovies. Ellie’s still not with them.
Neither is the Blond Caveman.
A slither of unease works its way down my spine. Not because I’m worried Ellie still has feelings for him, but because I don’t trust him.
Especially when Mrs. Dixon’s face lights up at the sight of the Ryders. “Michelle! Christopher! How lovely to see you both again.”
She leans in for cheek kisses with Mrs. Ryder and to embrace Mr. Ryder.
Behind her back, Monica rolls her eyes so hard her tongue sticks out, and I realize maybe I’m not so bad.
All I want is a little love and acceptance.
These people, though—they’re in it for the social status.
“How is the environmental business?” Mr. Dixon asks, engaged for the first time all week.
Mr. Ryder shakes his hand. “Good, good.”
“You know our bank will be more than happy to help you out anytime you want to get out of that old neighborhood you’re still living in. Upstanding family like yours should be in a house fitting your station.”
Jason sighs.
Even Sloane seems surprised.
“We could never leave our home, but thank you,” Mrs. Ryder informs them. She easily executes a side-step to hug Monica. “You look beautiful, sweetie. We’re so happy for you two.”
“I’m so glad you came,” she replies.
When Mrs. Ryder turns to Monica’s mom, I lean closer to the bride. “Where’s Ellie?”
She points to a bench at the edge of the park, then frowns. “I think we pushed her too hard this week. She’s limping. I told her to stay there, but—”
“Is she okay?” I ask at the same time Mr. Ryder asks, “But where is she now?”
“Miss Ellie kissed my daddy,” Tucker announces.
Festival-goers keep passing by, a band of pirates leaps out into the middle of the street for an impromptu swordfight, and complete silence descends inside our group while the Ryders turn to look at me.
It’s not that I didn’t know this was coming.
Ever since the moment Ellie informed me that I owed her for ruining her wedding date, I’ve known I’d have to face her parents.
Her brother.
Our friends.
Explain it to Tucker.
“Oh, Wyatt!” Suddenly, Mrs. Ryder is squeezing me tight. “Oh, this is wonderful.”
Mr. Ryder’s grinning at me, and I’ve never felt so loved while hating myself quite so much at the same time, because soon enough we’ll have to stage a break-up, and I don’t know the next time I’ll be able to look any of them in the eye.
“We should go find her,” I say gruffly.
“Absolutely,” Mr. Ryder agrees. He pulls his phone out and dials, and we all listen while the ringing rolls to voicemail.
Ellie’s safe here. She can take care of herself, and the locals know her well enough that if she gets into trouble, or gets hurt, they’ll be right at her side. She probably had to find a bathroom.
Or she went for banana pudding.
But the Blond Caveman is missing too.
I scan the square with its upturned dirt and more festival-goers digging for gold, the benches around it, up and down the sidewalk, but I don’t spot her.
“Tucker, you want to hang with me?” Monica asks him, like she knows I’m about to head off to find her.
“Is that your real hair?” Tucker asks.
She nods and squats in her huge colonial princess dress, tilting her ringlets at him. “It sure is. Want to touch it?”
I don’t want to leave him here. I have no idea what the Ryders will think of me when this week’s over, and so I’m clinging to the one thing I know I’ll still have.
But he drops my hand to inspect Monica’s hair, and somebody needs to find Ellie.
Mr. Ryder inclines his head back toward the Crusty Nut. I nod and take off into the dug-up square and toward the bench Ellie was last seen sitting on.
I’ve barely passed the back edge of the building to my left when I hear voices.
Familiar voices.
“Why are you doing this to me?” the Blond Caveman demands.
“It’s not about you, Patrick. This week is about Jason. And Monica.”
“I meant shoving that asshole in my face.”
There’s a beat of silence before Ellie asks, “What are you talking about?”
“You, all over that jerkoff friend of your brother’s.”
I turn the corner and spot them. He’s blocking her against a dumpster, and I’m about to say something when Ellie speaks.
“Your insecurities and delusions are not my problem. You don’t get an opinion here. Now move.”
“You’re not listening to me—”
“And I don’t have to. We’re done. We’ve been done. Your opinion has no bearing on my life. Shut up and let me go.”
“I’d do what she’s asking,” I interrupt. “She has a mean right hook.”
I don’t add so do I, because I don’t actually make a habit of punching people, so all I have are gut instincts and the overwhelming desire to protect and defend what’s mine.
And by mine, I mean my family.
And no, I don’t want to talk about the way my heart is pounding or my muscles tensing to leap, because I will move fucking heaven and earth and travel to the depths of hell to make sure Ellie’s safe—physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, all of it.
Safe. Sound. In one piece.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I’m in love with Ellie Ryder.
The Blond Caveman has four inches on me, but I will flatten him if I have to. And based on the curled-lip scowl under his powdered wig and the way he’s flexing his arms under his vintage navy uniform, he’s thinking he’d be happy to take me out too.
His lips part. “Shut your—”
“Your parents are here,” I tell Ellie.
She smiles, and fuck, she’s pretty.
It’s not the colonial dress or the funny wig with long black curls either. It’s the way she doesn’t hold back on letting the smile spread cheek-to-cheek. The warmth in her eyes. The stubborn set of her shoulders.
Pretty?
No.
She’s fucking everything. The whole package.