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After reactivating my Facebook last night, I’d done another stupid thing this morning and Googled Drew Maddox.
I’d been doing it periodically to see if any stories about his nighttime escapades would include pictures of him with Emmett. I knew they had to be out together. Drew was Emmett’s fellow party animal before I moved into his summer home, and there was no way in hell they hadn’t resumed their late-night lifestyle in the past three weeks.
So all I needed to send myself in a tizzy this morning was a headline that screamed MADDOX SCORES SWIMSUIT MODEL DURING BOYS’ NIGHT ON THE TOWN!
The only picture included was one of Drew leaving a club with some gorgeous brunette, but the article did mention that he had “three buddies in tow” and now I couldn’t stop imagining another girl’s hands running down Emmett’s washboard abs. I couldn’t stop imagining those low, sexy groans of his when he got his hands on a pair of tits, and that resulted in me taking a break in the office by 2PM – which meant ten minutes of me resting my head in my arms on the desk while begging myself to stop thinking about him.
I was halfway through my break when Hannah knocked on the door.
“Aly?”
I lifted my head. “Yes?”
“There’s a lady at the raw bar who asked if you were working today – she said she’s an old friend from high school?”
I sat straight up. “What?”
“She said – ”
“Sorry! You don’t have to keep talking through the door, I’m coming out!”
I knew I looked as confused as possible when I came out because Hannah kind of giggled and said, “Breathe. She seems nice,” as she walked with me through the kitchen and then out to the dining room.
All I needed was one glance at the bar to know who I was looking at.
My instinct was to grin.
“Kelsey?” I said, my eyes wide as I watched that head of bright red hair turn around.
“Holy shit! You look so different!” she gasped right away, clasping both hands to her mouth.
“You do too!”
The next few minutes was comprised of squealing and hugging and pulling back from our hugs in shock to note another different thing about each other’s appearances. After introducing Kelsey to Evie as my best friend from high school, I finally thought to ask why the heck she’d decided to show up this morning.
“Well, I saw you back on Facebook for the first time in forever!” Kelsey laughed as Evie and I rounded the bar to talk to her from the other side. “You liked a picture of my cat!”
“I did?”
“Yeah! But maybe you didn’t realize it was me? I changed my name to initials so my employers can’t find me,” she snorted. “But yeah, I saw that notification and was like, ‘whoa. Blast from the past.’ And your profile didn’t have any new info on it so I may or may not have Googled you and found a bunch of articles about this place – which is amazing by the way. Holy shit, woman! What’s this about the lobster roll and the Blood Mary?”
“The Hail Mary, and I’m going to make you one now – you’re gonna love it,” Evie said with a grin that grew to a hearty laugh when a few minutes later, Kelsey took her first sip.
“Holy crap. This is strong. It’s a good thing you include a meal with it so I don’t get immediately shitfaced,” she said, popping the poached shrimp into her mouth while plucking the lobster claw off the side of the glass.
“But do you like it?” Evie asked.
“Oh, I’m definitely gonna need another one in two minutes.”
Evie grinned at me with a thumb pointed at Kelsey. “I like her,” she declared shortly before the lunch rush rolled in.
And for the rest of the afternoon – between managing the restaurant, solving server dramas and making sure tables were happy – I checked in on Kelsey, catching up with her a minute or two at a time.
Apparently, she lived on Long Island now with her husband and her deeply spoiled cat. She worked in insurance but got to do so from home, so much of her time was also spent selling homemade jewelry on Etsy, and she still kept in touch with some of our old friends from high school, but mostly not.
“I actually cut out some friends by senior year because of how shitty they were about the thing with you and… that asshole,” she said, finishing her sentence with a grimace as she eyed me. “Sorry. Should I not be talking about that?”
“Mr. Scott?” I asked. “Oh, I don’t care. He’s not really a big deal to me,” I said truthfully. In all honesty, I barely thought of my old English teacher. Whenever my mind visited that part of my past, it thought mostly of Emmett, and judging from the way Kelsey went quiet, she could tell.
