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The man sitting next to Laura at her picnic table barks out a laugh, and Laura quickly hushes him with a smack to his arm. I don’t even know why I’m covering for this jerk. I should be screaming at everyone, “This asshole cheats on his girlfriend! I repeat, this asshole is a cheater!”
“Well, then, Danica Brewster, this is Ryan Hutton. Ryan, this is Danica,” Laura introduces, and my goddamn stomach drops right into my feet. “Although I believe she said her first name is actually Tinsley, but she goes by her middle name. It definitely suits her better, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Oh, fuck,” I mutter. “You’reRyan Hutton?”
No, no, no! This cannot be happening right now. Someone freaking kill me!
“You’reTinsley Brewster?” he replies, quickly starting to back away from me, tripping over the leg of one of the picnic tables in the process.
He’s acting like I have cooties.
I will end him.
Wait, what am I saying? I need to endmyselfat this point. I made out with one of my brother’s friends. Who has a goddamn girlfriend. And who I’m supposed to be moving in with in an hour!
Oh, God. I think I’m gonna be sick.
Before I can shout something after Ryan, like“You’re a piece of shit, and I will cut your dick off!”, he’s already out from under the picnic table awning and taking off down the street, practically sprinting away. Like the cheating coward he is.
Arms are suddenly wrapped around me, and I realize Laura got up from the table and pulled me into one of her mom hugs.
“Come on. Let’s go stow my beautiful painting inside the stand.” Laura pulls away from me and grabs my hand. As she tugs me with her to the back of the building, I follow blindly behind her, wondering why my luck just keeps turning to shit.
Handing her the painting as soon as we’re inside the building, surrounded by shelves of Styrofoam cups, bowls, and plastic spoons, I momentarily forget all about the fact that Ryan is a jerk, when Laura’s eyes light up as soon as she sees the painting again.
“I almost forgot how much I love this.” Her eyes fill with tears as she reverently runs her fingertips over the silhouette of the two girls on the swing. “I have two daughters, and this reminds me of them when they were little. Well, four daughters actually, since I took on a few strays. Thinking about adding a fifth one….”
Laura laughs softly as she looks up from the painting at me, and I smile right along with her, even though I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“So, you and Ryan…?”
Butterflies start flapping around in my stomach, and I wave her away. “It’s nothing, really. Just a… just a mix-up. I don’t want to cause any problems.”
The last thing I need right now is for everyone to find out the new girl on the island is a homewrecker. I just got here. I like it here. I really don’t want to have to leave already.
“Oh, sweetie.” Laura just laughs. Gently setting the painting down on a counter next to her, she reaches out and rubs her hand up and down the side of my arm. “You’re definitely not going to cause any problems. From what I saw, you’re going to cause nothing but fun.”
Once again, I have no idea what she’s talking about. She obviously missed the part where Ryan told her I amnothis girlfriend.
Fucking Ryan Hutton is the nerd who kissed me senseless, who I’ve been texting with the last couple of days. How is this even happening to me right now? Why can’t I just catch a break for once?
All I know is I need to get the hell out of here and figure out what I’m going to do next. It’s not like I can move in with himnow.
Shit! Where the hell am I going to live?
Laura reaches up and readjusts a white flower tucked behind her ear, and for the first time since I got here, I take a good look at her. She’s wearing a very pretty and sexy, short white dress. With her long blonde hair laying loose and wavy all around her shoulders, and what definitely looks like professional makeup applied to her face, she looks absolutely stunning. And the man she was sitting next to out at the picnic table was wearing a dress shirt and a tie and looked pretty damn handsome for a guy in his late fifties. Remembering I saw a Harley in the parking lot in between all the golf carts, with a sign on the back that saidJust Married, makes all the pieces click together in my brain.
“Oh my God, I crashed your wedding,” I mutter.
I look down in disgust at my tattered jean shorts with some old paint spatters on them that never came out in the wash, my oversized, racerback tank top I threw on over a lace bralette, and the scuffed and dirty Doc Martens on my feet. At least the trucker hat I’m wearing on my head with a picture of a tow truck and the wordsCamel Towingon it is turned backward.
“No, you didn’t!” Laura chuckles. “I invited you, remember?”
A bubble of laughter comes out of me, and once it starts, I can’t stop. The last wedding I attended was for the mayor of Chicago. The dress I wore to that event cost as much as most people’s yearly salary. And now I’m at a wedding wearing dirty jean shorts and scuffed boots with my bra showing.
“I’m sorry!” I tell Laura in between my laughter. “I’m just…. If my mother saw me right now, wearingthisto a wedding, she would have a coronary.”
“Danny, my husband wore jeans to our wedding, and we had a twenty-minute argument about whether or not he needed to wash them for today. My daughter is wearing flip-flops. And we’re going to eat ice cream for dessert right out of the cartons, because fuck wasting Styrofoam bowls. Believe me, you’re fine. You fitrightin.” Wrapping her arm around my shoulders, she starts guiding me back toward the door. “Come on. Let’s go get you some food, and I’ll introduce you around.”
