He nodded eagerly—or at least as eager as Rhett Briggs could be, the man who was as unreadable as a brick wall until a certaincopper-headed girl came around. “There are some people at the shop who want to meet the potter.”
Georgie unsuccessfully fought off a smile. I briefly wondered how he managed to get any work done on hisownbusiness. The man was truly an enigma.
“Go,” I told her, not bothering with a fake grin she’d see right through. “I’m going to go on a walk and clear my head.”
She gave me a tight hug and a promise to text me before practically skipping across the street with Rhett. My chest felt particularly hollow while I ventured back up Main Street, eyes glued to the ground. The buzz of chatter and increasingly frigid bluster seemed dampened to my ears as I retrieved my coat from the cafe and found myself wandering down Harbor Street.
Seaglass Beach was emptier than I expected, no doubt because of the bite in the air and freezing expanse of shoreline. I stayed on the sidewalk, boots scraping against the sand that stretched its long arms across the cobblestone and made a home in the joints. My trench coat, although one of my favorites, did little to keep the wind from chilling me to the bone.
Still, I listened intently to the distant roar of the waves until it was all I heard.
I was so preoccupied, in fact, that the sight of dirty sneakers in my line of vision made me jump.
Teddy grinned, hair thoroughly mussed in a particularly devil-may-care manner. “I knew you didn’t like these shoes, but I didn’t think they werethatbad.”
He was unfairly handsome in a cable knit sweater and that same old, tired denim jacket.
I drew back my shoulders and unsuccessfully smoothed my hair. “You’re in my way,” I replied, motioning to the sidewalk he currently occupied with a set of annoyingly wide shoulders.
His smile faltered. He didn’t move.
“Is something wrong?”
I threw my hands up in exasperation. “What’s wrong is that you’re ruining a perfectly good walk.”
“So you’re mad,” Teddy concluded. “I knew you were acting weird yesterday.”
“Actually, you don’t know anything about me anymore,” I snapped, edging around him and charging away.
“Care to inform me then?” His thundering footsteps followed me. “Because I thought maybe we would pick up where we left off, y’know? We’ve known each other most of our lives, M.”
I crossed toward Main Street and scoffed over my shoulder. “And where did we leave off, Teddy?”
“Margot, maybe we should just—” He reached for my wrist, but I wrenched it away.
Distantly, I registered the increasingly violent flurries of amber leaves and the walkway that seemed to have emptied out in the last thirty minutes. I had no ideawhereI was headed as I stormed past the diner, then the cafe, and even further from home. A plan of action was the least of my worries.
I turned on him at the corner of Bluebell Lane. “I don’t know what you want from me. It’s been seven years, okay? People grow apart—that’s normal.”
“But you and Georgie seem exactly the same as you were at eighteen.” His eyebrows knitted together in that infuriatingly adorable way, whenever his rose-colored glasses fogged up and blinded him.
“You weren’t here a month ago,” I cut back. “It wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies.”
Teddy searched my face—I didn’t know for what—so I blew past him, apparently deciding on a stroll through the Cove’s most affluent neighborhood. Maybe it wasn’t exactly ideal weather for a walk, but I was a New Yorker by choice. I could endure a chill.
“Tell me what to do,” he said as he caught up to me. “Honestly, I just miss you.”
The words were like a squeeze of barbed wire around my heart.
I snorted. “Funny, because you have my phone number.”
“You’re right. But the last time we saw each other, you wouldn’t even look at me.”
Marigold’s funeral.
Yeah, I could’ve acted with a shred of decorum.
When I breezed back into town, dressed in an impeccably tailored suit and dripping in designer, I thought he couldn’tpossiblybring me down. The last he’d seen me, I was weak. Aching for his love. I’d been determined to prove that Margot didn’t exist anymore—she’d been stomped out and replaced by someone stronger.
