Page 50 of Beautiful Place By the Sea

Shaking my head somberly, I hop off the floor and grab my bag. “Nope, but it’s never too late. I’m going to grab a shower, okay?”

“Sounds good. When you get out, we can start on your hair.”

I roll my eyes as I walk away. Is she serious? My hair is the least of our collective worries right now.

“Oh, and Ivy?” she calls after me.

“Yes?”

Laurel shoots me a genuine smile. “Thanks for being so eager to defend my honor. I know it’s not the same, but…sometimes I imagine this is what it would be like to have a sister.”

My face softens. “I think maybe this is exactly what it’s like.”

We leave Beach Haven at 9:05. Laurel couldn’t make up her mind about whether to curl or straighten her hair. She ultimately settled on the former, strongly urging me to do the same. I figured she’d had a pretty shitty day already, and it had been a while since I did anything fun with my own admittedly dull waves, so I decided to take her advice.

To her credit, when I looked in the mirror before we left, I was pretty pleased with the results. My hair shone a little more than usual, thanks to some sort of cream Laurel had glopped all through it, and the curls were soft around my face. I went a little darker than usual with my makeup, and I opted for a dark green midi dress that I thought would be especially perfect given all of the Gone with the Wind jokes getting tossed around today.

As we’re heading out the door, Laurel is kind enough to tell me that if I were hoping to pick up guys tonight, it wouldn’t be my looks that would keep them away. And even though she repeatedly tries to counsel me on appropriate bar conversation because she “knows how [I] am with men,” there’s only one person I’m thinking about.

When we arrive at Harbor Lights much more than fashionably late, Oliver is leaning against the building, reading a curled paperback.

“Do not even tell me he isn’t your ideal man,” Laurel mutters under her breath as we approach.

“Depends on which book it is,” I return.

Oliver looks up over his novel. “For a second there, I thought maybe you two stood me up.” He unrolls himself from the wall and tucks the book into his back pocket.

“We would never,” Laurel trills, leaning in to give him a hug that I’m pretty sure he was not anticipating.

I flash him a mischievous grin. “She wouldn’t. But maybe I would.”

“Oh, I know you would.” He’s smiling, too, but I notice his eyes sweep me up and down none too covertly. He swallows a little harder than usual. “Curtain dress?”

“Aw, you noticed.” I reach out and squeeze his forearm, which is delightfully warm under my fingers. “I like your outfit, too.”

He’s wearing the same thing he had on at work today.

He grins rakishly. “I thought you might.”

“Shall we?” Laurel is standing impatiently at the door, probably imagining all the men inside getting snapped up by lesser women with every passing second.

“Sucks to be kept waiting, doesn't it?” Oliver quips smugly as he strides past her.

I snicker.

“Your boyfriend,” Laurel whispers under her breath, “is a jerk.”

Heat creeps up my cheeks as I follow her into the building. “He is no such thing.”

Her eyebrows jump up her forehead. “Which part?”

“Either, I guess.” It hadn’t been my intention to defend Oliver against her name-calling, but he really doesn’t seem like a jerk to me anymore. Not even a little bit.

Oliver pays the bored woman sitting at the ticket counter for all three of us to enter.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I protest.

He shakes his head. “Word on the literal street has it that you may not have a job come fall. And this one—” he indicates Laurel, who has run off to claim a high-top table, “might lack the emotional stability to even hold a job.”