Page 40 of Back for Seconds

“Are you joking?” My voice rose an octave. “If you wanted to have a mature, one-on-one conversation, you knew exactly where to find me. But you didn’t, Brian. You wanted this.” I gestured at the room, now packed with wide-eyed, otherwise very bored Shore residents. “I did not vandalize your car. I don’t even know where you live or what your fucking car looks like—and I would never do something like that. Don’t you know me at all?”

“Then who else could it have been?”

I scoffed, throwing my hands into the air. “Geez, Brian, I don’t know. Maybe someone who feels bad for me? Maybe someone who sees how ridiculous it is that you moved back here? Maybe someone who watched you explode my life?”

There were a few murmurs through the audience. I swear it sounded like someone had even said that’s a really good point.

The muscle in his jaw twitched. “I’m allowed to live here. You don’t own this town. And no matter what you do, you can’t stop me.”

“Ok, sure. No one can stop you, but they can…they can stand up for me.” I took a step away from the wall, rolling my shoulders backward and standing up to my full height. “The fact of the matter is your car says cheater in big, fat letters because you are a cheater.”

Brian stayed completely, totally still.

“And honestly,” I continued, my tone turning to pure ice. “I’d like to find whoever did it and kiss them on the fucking mouth. No—actually, I think we should make a fucking brass statue in their honor. Put it right in the middle of the boardwalk. Because unlike most people, who assume that we got divorced because of me, that person sees you for exactly what you are. An enormous, steaming pile of human shi—”

A hand came to rest gently on my shoulder. Then a deep, calm voice was in my ear. “Easy, tiger.”

My voice stalled in my throat.

I snapped out of my fugue state.

I’d been yelling, hadn’t I?

Everyone was staring at me. Eyes wide, lips parted. One person even had their cell phone out, recording me.

And then, here was Joey. Watching me yell at another man. Again.

Fuck.

I stared up at him. Up and into his hazelnut-chocolate-vegan-moussetorte-colored eyes. Amusement caught in those eyes, along with a reflection of the harsh overhead lighting, pulling them upward into a smile. His lips pulled into a sideways purse. He was trying not to laugh.

“Hey, Junie,” he breathed. Soft and sweet. Safe. “Where you been?”

“Um.” I swallowed, running my tongue over my bottom lip. “Um, sorry. I—”

He gave my shoulder a squeeze and pulled me back into his chest, lifting his chin toward Brian. “Question for you, pal. When do you think this happened?”

“Uh, well…” His eyes cut back and forth between Joey and Joey’s hand on my shoulder, like the Kit-Cat Klock counting off the seconds. “Last night, sometime after eleven and maybe before five in the morning.”

“Cool. Ok.” Joey nodded—once, twice. Then his other hand came to rest on my other shoulder, fingers resting over my clavicle, the pad of his thumb grazing across the sensitive exposed skin on the side of my neck. Something deep in my belly rumbled to life. For a moment, I was back in his kitchen, up on the edge of his island. “Then it couldn’t have been June. She was with me.”

Suddenly, the crowd sprung back to life. Papers shuffling, legs crossing, murmurs passing from lips to ear. Eyeballs swiveled every which way. The top of Bruce’s head turned pink.

“For…the whole night?” Brian’s voice cracked a bit on the word night.

“Yeah.” Joey looked down at me. His curls were out, loose around his face. He looked handsome and dangerous and delicious. It was like all those years of lusting after animated Tarzan had really netted something. I tried not to smile. “It was definitely all night. You ready to go, JB?”

All I could do was keep staring, dumbfounded, up at my savior. Fucking JoeyDaVegan.

Finally, I got my vocal cords working again. “Yeah, I am.”

With that he slipped his arm around my shoulders and led me out of the room.

***

“Holy shit!”

I collapsed forward, bringing my palms to my eyes and my forehead to my knees. Around us, Evergreen was quiet except for the howling of a fierce ocean wind, kicking up Joey’s hair and making my nose sting with cold. “Holy fuck! Joey, that was incredible! Holy shit.” I stood up straight and jabbed my thumb over my shoulder, back at the rec center. “Did you see how shocked he looked!?”