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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
JAMIE
August falls into the first week of September, and the weather cools on the East Coast. I don’t like the seasons changing without her around like they did last year. I’ve had this house on the Maine coast for a bit, but now that she’s been here, it’s stained. I smell her on my sheets, in my shower. I taste her on the rims of my coffee cups. Sometimes, I watch the storms roll in and see a quick flash of her in the darkness of my living room.
It shouldn’t be this way. We barely know each other. But it makes me wonder if soulmates are more than just a romantic idea. Because it’s not normal to miss someone I barely know so badly I see visions of them through the foggy shower door.
It’s a relief when I have to travel for work again. I have some business in Canada early in the month. It takes me through the airport in New York, and I stand at the luggage claim, holding my bag, but not leaving, because this is where she stood when she flew to see me in Maine.
A hundred people go by. A thousand, maybe.
A thousand people who aren’t her.
Someone lays on their horn outside, and it rouses me. There’s no point waiting here all day. If I stay moving, I won’t pick up my phone and call her, asking for just one more night. One more morning with her sleeping beside me.
I sit in the back of the Uber, numb to the world.
This isn’t a crush. It’s not a normal way to feel about someone who was supposed to be a hookup.
No, I have a big fucking problem, and its name is Serena Maxwell.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
SERENA
It’s getting cold in Wyoming. I wear the clothes he bought me almost every day, washing them at night so I can put them on again come morning. It’s pathetic. But it’s warmer than my other clothes. I like to think it smells a little bit like the windswept, salty cliffs in Maine. Some nights, I wonder whether he’s up there now, walking around that big, dim house all alone. Or worse, with someone else. Someone a lot less complicated than I am.
Sabrina and I work on planning the wedding. It’ll be in the spring, in the yard, beneath the two oak trees to the west of the house. She says she wants a small wedding, but Coen has a handful of friends and acquaintances he’d like to be included. It all adds up to about thirty people in total. Of course, one of them is Jamie. There’s no world where his best friend, agent, and basically brother isn’t invited to his wedding.
“Are you okay with that?” she asks.
We’re at the table, scrapbooks laid out and coffee cups steaming.
“What?”
She frowns. “Being my maid of honor. You know Coen will want Jamie as his best man.”
I didn’t actually think about that, but she’s right. Looking down quickly, I shrug, like it doesn’t bother me.
Oh, it bothers me. Right to my bones.
“I’m an adult. I don’t care,” I say primly.
“There won’t be a weird vibe?” She doesn’t take her eyes off me.
“Nope, I chose to come back,” I say, getting up and pretending I need a warm-up. It’s giving me a chance to face the microwave, not Sabrina. “I’m over him; it just never worked out.”
She doesn’t say anything, but Sabrina knows me better than to believe me. I know that. I do appreciate that she doesn’t pursue it, though.
Later that night, I’m going down the hall with a cup of tea and my nightly chocolate bar and hear concerned whispers from behind their bedroom door.
Rolling my eyes, I walk on by.
I’m fine, really, I am.
The next morning, I dress in my same old pink sweatsuit and pull on a flannel coat, jamming my feet into my boots. Not exactly a fashion statement, but functional. From the kitchen, I gather a handful of apples and put them into my pockets. The sun is just peeking through the trees, casting blue light through the windows. Sabrina used to get up around this time, then came Coen. Now she stays in her room with him until chore time. I can’t blame her, I’d do the same thing if I wasn’t single.
It’s quiet. I pop a cup in the coffee maker and hit the button, cringing at the squeal. Then, mug in hand, I slip out the back door and walk across the frosty lawn.
