“They must be disappointed,” the Blond Caveman sneers.
“That I’m happier without you? Not really.” She leans toward me, and I wrap an arm around her shoulders while she slips away from him. Her pulse is fluttering fast in her neck, and I want to lay him out just on principle.
And then I want to carry her to the nearest dark corner and inspect every inch of her to make sure she’s okay.
And then I want to kiss her. Fuck, I want to kiss her.
“Let’s go,” she says to me.
“Your girlfriend know what you’re doing?” I ask the Blond Caveman while I twist so I’m between him and Ellie.
“She knows I defend helpless women, and she thinks it’s hot.”
Ellie chokes on air. I’m suddenly unable to stop a snicker.
“What the fuck are you laughing at?” he snarls.
“We better go quick,” I mutter to Ellie. “You okay?”
She leans on me while we hasten back into view of the street, and it’s going to hurt like hell when I can’t touch her anymore.
“I was such an idiot,” she sighs.
She’s limping more than usual. Not good.
“How heavy is your wig?” I ask her. “Is that what I smell?”
“You’re probably smelling your own armpits,” she says, but she looks up at me and smiles with none of the old you irritate the shit out of me that’s always been there.
No, this is I love flirting with you.
It’s fucked-up flirting, but that’s what it is, isn’t it?
Flirting.
That’s what it’s always been.
We were just too stubborn to see it.
Or to admit it.
And no small part of me wishes we could go back to that.
Because leaving Ellie Ryder?
This is going to suck.
Twenty-Two
Ellie
By the time we’re doing our last-minute hair and makeup fixes in a small tent just down the hill from the gazebo at the far end of Blackbeard Avenue where Monica and Jason will take their vows, I can’t decide whose mother is happier—Monica’s, or mine.
Definitely not Mrs. Dixon. She’s getting an artsy-fartsy daughter-in-law from her black sheep son while her favorite son’s girlfriend has been giving him the cold shoulder all afternoon.
But mine?
She’s in utter heaven over me and Wyatt dating.
Next week just might kill her.
This isn’t good.
“Jeez, Mom, maybe you should’ve adopted Wyatt and kicked me and Beck to the curb,” I tell her while she fusses over my short curls. Any minute now, Pop’s going to call us up for the wedding.
She swats my arm. “You hush. You know I love all my children equally. Wyatt just needed me more than you, Beck, and the rest of the boys and girls.”
I’d be offended, but we were raised by a village. I was just as likely to get grounded by Mrs. Rivers as I was by my own mom. “He’s lucky he had you,” I tell her, and crap.
Now she’s crying, and it’s going to make me cry too, but not out of happiness and joy.
No, my tears will be all guilt.
And possibly grief, because Wyatt isn’t an asshole, and he isn’t a thorn in my side, and I don’t know what to call him, but the fake part of fake boyfriend feels more wrong than the boyfriend part.
Which is impossible, because we really would die, and Tucker deserves to grow up with a good father.
“Stop, stop,” Monica says, bustling over to hug her. She’s changed from her colonial gown to a pirate wedding gown, an eclectic mix of formal and buccaneer, with pirate boots under her lacy hoop skirt and a leather corset embroidered with skulls and crossbones for her bodice. She has a bandana over her ringlets and giant hoop earrings dangle to her shoulders. “No crying until you hear the vows. They’re beautiful. Ellie, how’s your leg? Do you want me to send one of the Rock boys for a chair?”
“I’m fine,” I tell her.
Okay, maybe I’m not quite as fine as that, but I can make it through the wedding before I need to lay myself up for a week to recover.
Alone.
Probably here in Shipwreck, because even without a dishwasher, Beck’s house is still super comfortable, and it has internet, and I can borrow the laptop Mom brought to telework for a week.
The house will be weirdly empty, but it’ll be nice to be alone again.
All alone.
With no one to talk to.
No one to poke. No one to share banana pudding with.
No little voices shrieking with laughter over bubbles or drawings of pirates or parrots, or asking to share a donut.
No one to kiss and cause the house to collapse around us with.
Dammit, I can’t stop this weepy-eyed stuff.
“Monica, honey, it’s time,” her mom whispers.
Monica squeals, and her eyes go shiny too. “Oh my god, I’m marrying Jason,” she whispers.
I squeeze her in a hug. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Go on, go walk the plank—I mean, walk the aisle so I can get hitched.”
My mom scurries to join Dad, Wyatt, and Tucker in a row of seats near the gazebo. The list of invited guests is small—a few friends and coworkers from Copper Valley, and a few aunts, uncles, and cousins on both sides—but the people of Shipwreck have turned out in force to watch.
And participate, though most of the guests and tourists who are also gathered beyond the reserved seating don’t know that yet.
Mr. Dixon escorts Mrs. Dixon down the plank—I mean, aisle. Then Grady Rock escorts Monica’s mom. And then it’s time for Patrick, fully costumed as a member of the English Royal Guard, to walk me down the aisle.
I tuck my hand into his elbow, but while his powdered wig amuses me, I keep as much distance as physically possible while smiling at Jason, who’s standing with Pop on the gazebo steps.
“We don’t have to be like this,” Patrick mutters.
I keep smiling. “There’s no we, and if you don’t shut up, I’m telling your girlfriend you dumped me, since I know she thinks it was the other way around.”
He blanches.
We reach the gazebo and I gladly drop his arm. Wyatt’s scowling. My dad doesn’t look very pleased either.
But then the pirate band—yes, the pirate band—strikes up “Here Comes the Bride,” and everyone rises as Monica emerges from the tent.
“Oh, god, she’s gorgeous,” Jason says hoarsely.
He’s utterly adorable in his first mate getup. We all know who’s going to captain the ship of our life, he told Monica when they were discussing formal wedding wear. I’m wearing the first mate outfit.
Monica’s mom is already crying. Mine’s dabbing her eyes in the next row back.
I wonder what Wyatt’s thinking about while he watches my best friend walk down the aisle.
His own wedding?
Or maybe Tripp’s, which was utterly gorgeous and completely opposite of this small-town pirate affair, because when a former boy bander marries a Hollywood A-lister, you’re damn right it’s spectacular.
But he glances back at me, and I’m suddenly quite certain he’s not thinking about weddings at all.
There’s something raw and unguarded and beautiful in his gray eyes. Regret mixed with hope.
My belly dips to my toes, adding an extra shiver to my bones along the way.
I like Wyatt Morgan.
I like Wyatt Morgan.
He’s loyal. He’s protective. He’s smart. He’s brave.
He adores that perfect, sweet, happy little boy fidgeting next to him.
He’s a survivor.
Wounded in his soul, but still here. A good friend to my brother. The son my mother would’ve added to her household in a heartbeat.
The man who pushed me to be better since he got his own footing in the neighborhood.
Jason kisses Monica’s cheek as she joins him on the gazebo steps. “Now, now, save that for marriage, boy,” Pop says, and everyone laughs.
I take her bouquet—a red rose, a black rose, and a purple rose, tied together with a Jolly Roger ribbon and stuck in a rum bottle—and step back to let the wedding begin.
I might get a little teary-eyed too. The way Jason’s just watching Monica, like he’s the luckiest first mate to ever board a ship, like the only thing he needs in his life is her… Just swoon.
Thank you for finding me my missing puzzle piece, Monica told me once not long after I introduced them. But these two, I’m certain, would’ve found each other one way or another.
They were meant to be.
Wyatt’s watching me. I can feel his gaze.
And it’s not annoying, or haughty, or critical.
It’s hot.
And not just he wants to see me naked hot. But he feels it too hot.
Monica and Jason say their vows. Monica’s mom cries. My mom cries. I cry.
Tucker cries, because, “Dad, I don’t like it when people cry.”
Everyone laughs, and I wish I could hug Tucker the way Wyatt is now, just scooping him up and patting his back. “It’s happy tears,” I hear him murmur.
“I don’t like it when you cry either,” Jason tells Monica.
She wipes her eyes as she laughs. “It’s joy leaking out my soul.”
Joy.
They have joy.
I’ve always had plans. Calendars. Deadlines. Tasks. Life events to check off.
Maybe what I really need is joy.
Laughing with someone when the dishwasher leaks. When he accidentally sits on a squirt bottle of French dressing. When we knock heads in the middle of an orgasm.
I glance at Wyatt again.
Joy.
Oh my god.
He’s my joy.
My laughter.
My strength.
My challenge.
My motivation.
My rock.
My joy.
His eyes are misty too, but he doesn’t look away.
I suddenly don’t care if I can never get pregnant or give birth.
I don’t care if I never have a big wedding.
I don’t care if nothing on the outside looks perfect.
I just don’t want Wyatt to leave tomorrow.