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“Studying boys, maybe,” Annabelle said. “My grades definitely would have been a whole lot better if we’d actually studied our books more often back then.”
And yet even though Reese and Sierra had been good friends in high school, because of the age gap between them and Trent, it wasn’t until the summer after Reese had graduated, when Trent had come back to the island after finishing law school, that she’d finally met him. Just thinking about the first time she’d seen him jogging toward the steps on the dune made her pulse quicken. At twenty-six he’d been broad-chested and ripped, and from the very moment his iridescent blue eyes had met hers, the sexual tension between them had been inescapable.
At nineteen, raised by parents who were a decade older than the parents of all her friends, she’d spent more quiet evenings at home with her close-knit family than out partying. So when Trent introduced himself and his voice alone sucked the air from her lungs, it was so foreign a feeling, and so incredibly intense, that it had intrigued and embarrassed her at once. Trent’s eyes had gone dark and serious when he’d seen the picture she was painting, and they’d ended up spending two hours talking about her love of art and his love of literature.
By the end of the night, they’d both fallen head over heels in love.
“I can’t imagine what it must have been like to grow up here,” Shelley said, breaking Reese out of her Trent trance. “Everyone is so close, and you can always get out on the beach or a boat.”
“And the men,” Jocelyn said as she lifted her glass. “Don’t forget the men. Let’s just say that summers on Rockwell Island have always been really easy on the eyes.”
Reese could all but hear the other women’s questions—especially Sierra’s—even though everyone had been careful not to say a word. But she refused to let anything come between her and her friends. Not when they’d been the ones to pick her up and put her back together after her marriage had failed.
Taking a deep breath, she made herself say, “I ran into Trent last night when I dropped off your basket, Shelley. Just literally smacked right into his bare chest.”
At first Sierra looked surprised by the way Reese had brought up her brother to the group. Quickly, however, Sierra’s surprise turned to curiosity, her brow rising as if to say, And?
Trent had been an elephant in the room between them for way too long. Besides, he had made his priorities clear long ago, and no matter how much she had wanted them to be different, they weren’t.
After her divorce, she’d quickly learned that she couldn’t draw strength from the bottom of a bottle or a heavily frosted piece of chocolate cake. But she could draw strength from the bond of friendship surrounding her. Even Shelley, whom she’d only recently met, seemed to care deeply about what Reese had to say. There was no judgment around this table, no pity, only unconditional support and love. And right now, when Reese was battling old wounds, she needed their support more than she needed oxygen.
“I’m not going to lie to you guys,” Reese said, putting a hand on Jocelyn’s arm to let her know everything was okay. Even though it wasn’t. “It felt really good—and even more confusing—to be in his arms again and to hear him say my name in that way that always made my knees go weak.”
“I get it every time Quinn calls me Shell,” Shelley said.
“I wish I knew that feeling,” Sierra said with a laugh. But then her eyes sobered. “Is it hard seeing him again, Reese?”
“Harder than I thought it would be,” Reese admitted.
“I remember the day you met him.” Jocelyn leaned across the table. “I’d never seen you so caught up in anyone before in my life. You said he breathed new life into you, remember?”
“I was nineteen. How much old life could I have had at that point?” Reese laughed, but the truth was that he’d sparked desires and wonder in her that were too enticing to ignore. Before meeting Trent, she’d acted like she’d understood when the girls talked about how certain guys made them so hot. But she had never truly felt anything like that until she’d met Trent.
“At nineteen?” Shelley frowned. “I was full of rebellion against my cold, stuffy parents.”
“By the time I hit nineteen and was finally away at college and out from under my brothers’ thumbs, I barely knew what to do with myself,” Sierra told them. “I was thrilled and lost at the same time. I had to trust myself and my decisions for the first time ever. Because, suddenly, there was no one there to keep me from making mistakes.”
“Your brothers would always be there for you no matter how many miles separated you,” Reese assured her friend.
