I don’t blame Izzy one bit for taking off. Anyone who finds their almost spouse cheating on them just before the wedding deserves time away.
“She didn’t abandon you,” Noah says, rubbing her back comfortingly. “She’ll be back before the wedding.”
“I know, I know. But it’s not the same as having her here now, you know?” Odette shrugs. “Anyway, what are you doing here?”
“I, uh, I work here,” Summer says.
Noah’s brows inch closer together. “Since when?”
“My first day was Monday.”
“Ezra!” Noah calls.
I sigh, then step out of the shadows and fully into the bar. “I’m right here. I heard Odette screeching from the back office.”
The woman in question flips me off, and I almost chuckle.
I turn to Noah. “What’s up?”
“When did you hire Summer?”
I flick my gaze to her briefly, and I’m surprised to find she’s already looking back.
But I’m not surprised to see her glaring at me.
“It happened Saturday.”
“What? When? You didn’t even work on Saturday.”
I shrug, shoving my hands into my pockets. “It was a ... sudden decision.”
“Blackmail. It was blackmail.”
Noah snaps his head to Summer. “What?”
She jerks her thumb my way. “Ezra here was caught speeding by my dad, and I got into a little trouble myself, so my father cooked up this punishment for us both.”
Noah glares over at me. “Speeding, man? Again?”
“It’s my hip. My leg gets stiff, and the gas pedal gets stuck.”
It’s a crock of shit. He knows it as well as I do, but he’s not about to chew me out in front of Odette and Summer.
Odette gasps. “Oh my gosh! You’re the one who got arrested at the Mid-Summer Fling, aren’t you?” She laughs loudly. “Oh, man. This is gold. You always were a troublemaker. Gave your dad the runaround, that’s for sure.”
Summer looks a little proud of that, and I bet she is. She loves being bratty far too much not to be.
“So, are you living here now? What happened to Chicago?” Odette asks.
I stand up a little straighter, entirely too interested in hearing her answer.
“It, uh, it just didn’t work out. So I’m back in Port Harbor for a while.”
To my surprise, she begins to fidget. She tucks her hair behind her ear, then pinches her earlobe before dropping her hand to her necklace and swinging it back and forth.
There’s more to the story she’s not sharing, and I’m dying to know what it is, but I let her have her secret.
“Anyway,” she says, “if you want to fire me, you can. It won’t even be Ezra’s fault, so he can get out of whatever trouble he’s in with my dad.”
