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Aspen sat in the other rocking chair. Lyric was propped against another beam. She wasn’t a teacher like Aspen and Kennedy, but she’d worked the weekend in the local clinic’s lab and had the day off.
The four of us looked like we could be a group voted least likely to hang out. I was in my standard jeans and sleeveless top. Lyric wore a plaid skirt with a button-down white shirt tied around her waist like she was trying out her Sexy Schoolgirl Halloween costume early. Kennedy had on linen shorts and a tank top and was barefoot. And Aspen was in a jumpsuit like she’d walked out of New York Fashion Week.
Lyric had put her red-tinted hair into a ponytail. Three earrings lined each ear. The one on her left side was a golden snake that wrapped around the shell of her ear. “So, he, like, just showed up? Out of the blue?”
“Wants to date again,” I said simply. “Just not me.” The knife twist in the chest was just as sharp as when he’d told me the day before yesterday. Yesterday, he hadn’t tried to contact me. I had slept shittily the last two nights and was perpetually hurt and confused.
Kennedy rocked her chair slowly and steadily. “If he wants to date so bad, why isn’t he knocking your door down to sign the papers?”
“Maybe he thinks giving me space will make me more likely to be compliant.” It was the only answer I could come up with.
“Do you have a picture?” Aspen curled one leg under her.
I dug out my phone. I wasn’t a picture taker, so the ones I had of Archer weren’t as far back as I wished they were. I scrolled to the photos of Vegas. Our wedding. Me in a white handkerchief dress and him in charcoal-gray trousers and a white shirt. I avoided looking too closely as I handed it to Lyric lest my heart fracture into a million pieces.
She accepted the phone and made a choking sound. “Holyfuck, Laney. This is him?”
Instead of grinning at her reaction, I succumbed to hopelessness. He really was the catch I thought he was. “Yup.”
“I mean…” She handed the phone off to Kennedy.
Kennedy’s brows lifted, but since she was the only one of us in a happy, healthy relationship, she wasn’t as speechless. “I can see the resemblance, but I thought he’d look more like Derek.”
Derek’s hair had been more brown than black, and he hadn’t been as tall as Archer. One of the things I cherished about our friendship was that Kennedy accepted that I was part of her first husband’s life. She didn’t try to erase my role as his ex or his friend. We could talk about him because he’d been important to both of us.
“It’s Archer’s mom. She died when Archer was a kid, so I never met her. But he said he gets his darker complexion and his dark hair from her.” I hadn’t met his dad either, but he probably looked like Bruce and Cameron.
Aspen stared at the photo. “You look happy.”
We had been so damn happy. “Yup.”
“This is your wedding photo, isn’t it?” She handed the phone back.
I shut the screen off without looking at it. “Yes.”
Kennedy frowned. “Why elope?”
That was one of the few questions about me and Archer I could actually answer. “He doesn’t have much to do with his dad, and he hardly talks to his brother. I was still salty toward Ma and didn’t want Coal Haven to know I’d stalked a Barron and married him. And his friends are assholes.”
Lyric wrinkled her nose. “Fuck his friends.”
“Right?” Of all of us, Lyric would understand how Archer’s friends made me feel. She was best friends with Cameron’s daughter, but as the science nerd with a punk streak, she hadn’t been Cameron’s or his wife Naomi’s idea of a good friend for their little princess.
Props to Isla. She was ride or die with Lyric. But since Lyric was friends with Kennedy—and therefore Isla’s estranged half brother, Liam—I didn’t see them hang out. Isla was never part of our little get-togethers.
“So.” Aspen switched which leg she had curled under her. “His friends are stupid rich, they want to hook him up with one of their other friends, and they encouraged him to get rid of you.”
“Basically,” I said.
“But he hasn’t tried to end the marriage before that?” she asked.
I shook my head. He hadn’t tried to save it either. “He tried to call the night I left. I didn’t answer, so he left a message asking if I was okay. All I sent back was that I was fine. Then he sent me a happy birthday message like he was testing the waters. I never answered his calls.”
Aspen glanced at Kennedy, then Lyric, before she said, “Then he might not want the marriage to end either.”
I wrinkled my nose. “What do you meaneither?”
“You would’ve answered and gotten the ball rolling.” Kennedy’s dark brows ticked up. “Do you want to stay married to him?”
