Sheri tilted her head. “Says the woman who married the big-time surfing champ and is now shacking up with the baseball star.”
Emmy threw back her head and laughed. “Well, Cooper wasn’t a baseball star when we started hooking up. I honestly don’t even think of him that way. But I do think guys like Nash got overlooked when we were in high school. That’s my point.”
“Hmmm.” Delilah slid me a speculative glance. “I thinksomeoneisn’t overlooking Nash Sampson these days.”
I arched one eyebrow. “What isthatsupposed to mean?”
“It means that this morning, when I was in the lobby, I just happened to glance out the window and see you with Nash, strolling back from the beach. At least, that’s where I assumed you’d been. And the two of you seemed pretty chummy!”
“We just happened to run into each other down there.” I shrugged. “No big deal. Like I said, we were friends back in the day. We were catching up this morning.”
“Oh, really? Looked to me like Nash wanted to do more than that.” Delilah waggled her brows. “But then, I’m pretty sure he had a crush on you back then. Maybe he still has one now.”
This topic was making me uncomfortable. I’d just this morning won Nash’s forgiveness for my actions thirty-five years ago. While I couldn’t deny that the cute boy I’d liked so much had grown into a very attractive man, the idea of him still being interested in me after everything that had—and hadn’t—gone down between us felt very unlikely.
“Hey.” I forced a bright smile as I changed the subject. “What happened to that bottle of Prosecco that Emmy brought down here? Isn’t it time to pop that baby open?”
Emmy chuckled. “Well, it’s not quite noon yet, but if we mix it with OJ, we can call it a mimosa, and then we’re all right.”
“I’m game.” Sheri sat up a little. “And while Emmy’s opening the bubbly, I have a little surprise for you all.” She leaned over to the bedside table and retrieved an ancient-looking white envelope. “I’ve been clearing things out lately—you know, I don’t want my brother to have the job of going through all my things once I’m gone.”
She spoke matter-of-factly, but nonetheless, a lump rose in my throat.
“And when I was sorting through an old box, look what I found!” She opened the envelope and held up a photograph. “I found the pics from my party—and as long as you all promise not to get mad at me all over again, I’ll let you look at them.”
“Oh, myGod.” Delilah jumped up to snatch one of the photos from Sheri’s hand. “You were supposed to burn these, Sheri. But look at what babies we were. We were so young.” She bit her lip as an expression somewhere between pain and nostalgia drifted over her face.
As we poured over the old pictures, Emmy passed around plastic hotel cups filled with orange juice and Prosecco.
“A toast.” She lifted her cup, pausing to look at each of us in turn. “To friends—and to friendship that transcends time, space, life and death.”
There was a moment of silence, and I wondered if we were thinking the same thing I was, seeing these fifty-something women as the girls we’d been once upon a time, remembering the bonds that had linked us together and that were still here, even after over three decades apart.
“To forever friendship.” I lifted my cup, too. “To my friends.”
Sheri and Delilah echoed the toast, and we all took healthy sips of our drinks. All of us except Delilah. I noticed her cut a glance at Emmy first and wait for our friend to give her a clipped nod before she took a sip. I knew Delilah was living back here in the Cove again, so I imagined she and Emmy were closer now.
I thought of my past, of the Cove, of my parents and my family . . . of every part of my history that I had spent thirty-five years pretending didn’t matter to me. I’d cut off part of my very self and acted as though it no longer existed.
But here in the Cove, surrounded by the women who had been such an integral part of my past, I knew that I could no longer go on denying that I’d missed this. Something deep within me shifted imperceptibly and yet dramatically . . . and no matter what happened next, I was never going to be the same.
Chapter Seven
Nash
Back in high school, I used to spend a lot of time imagining what it would be like to be Peyton Rivers’ boyfriend.
Well, let’s be honest: being a raging hormone-filled red-blooded teenaged male, I was imagining a lot more than justthat. My fantasies about Peyton got pretty hot back in the day . . .
But anyway, the point is, I could picture all of the details when it came to dating my dream girl, including walking up to her front door to pick her up for an evening out. I imagined standing in her living room, making awkward small talk with her parents, shaking her dad’s hand as I promised I’d take care of his daughter while she was with me.
I remembered all of those hours spent wishfully thinking as I closed the door of my hotel room behind me and headed for Peyton’s room. We’d exchanged phone numbers this morning on our walk back to the hotel from the beach, and then she’d texted me this afternoon with her room number.
I didn’t want to make more of our karaoke evening than it was, but it sure felt as though I was finally getting that first date with Peyton Rivers all these years later. As I stepped out of the elevator and approached her door, I actually pinched my wrist, just to make sure this wasn’t a dream that felt like real life.
Honestly, this entire day had felt a little surreal. Walking on the beach with Peyton, finally finding out what had happened back in 1989 and letting go of that pain and anger had felt incredibly freeing. I’d known how much her sudden departure had hurt me at the time, but I hadn’t realized fully how much resentment and bitterness had surrounded that wound, like scar tissue around an old cut.
Feeling so much lighter had made the prospect of spending the day in the Cove easier. Right after Peyton and I had parted ways in the hotel lobby, I’d run into a couple of guys who I remembered from calculus in our senior year. While we’d never been close friends, we had studied together and chatted regularly before and after class. Like me, Scott and Tommy had existed in that in-between space back in our high school days, neither popular nor total losers. We liked math, and we didn’t dress like the guys who typically got the pretty girls. We weren’t invited to the wild parties, and I don’t think any of the three of us had a single date throughout our four years at Crystal Cove High.
