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This was real life.
Her grandmother’s alleged words popped into her head.
She doesn’t think you should settle.
Well, that was all fine and good coming from a woman who’d never left Beaver Bend for more than four days straight in her life.
Edwina accepted the arm Nigel was offering her. “Let’s go up and I’ll jump in the shower. We should just go back to New York tonight. This town isn’t really your vibe.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. “I just want you to be happy.”
“I’m happy.”
Or some proximity of that.
“We should at least shag while we’re here,” he said with a grin. “I’ve missed you.”
Now he wanted to have sex? The horrible irony didn’t escape her.
“I have a headache.” She did. A big one, and it wasn’t just because of the margaritas.
It felt like an alternative future, one with fishing and hockey and babies, was walking down the driveway.
And she was letting it, because she was afraid if she didn’t, she’d lose the other future, the guaranteed one.
Chapter14
Sullivan paced back and forth at Tap That, his phone to his ear. He was talking to Brandon, who was in Minneapolis. He’d been telling him about Nigel, who had stopped in at the bar to hang out and wait while Eddie was packing her suitcases to fly back to New York.
Nigel had gone to the restroom right when Brandon had called and Sullivan had rapidly been trying to explain how annoying it was to be bartender to Eddie’s rich boyfriend.
“How do you know he’s rich?” Brandon asked.
“Of course he’s rich. Everyone in New York is rich. Or at least everyone in New York who wears shoes like that guy does,” he said, watching the door to the restroom. Sullivan gnawed on his fingernail as he leaned against the back counter. Then realized he was biting his fingernail and dropped his hand in disgust. He was spiraling. But it was taking everything inside him to not ask Nigel why he didn’t want to have sex with Eddie every single day, because if she was Sullivan’s woman, that’s precisely what he would do.
“Not every woman is interested in a man for his money,” Brandon said.
“You should see his head, though. Perfect skull. I mean, seriously, perfectly smooth, no imperfections. Who knows what’s hiding under my hair? What if I wake up at forty, shave my head because of a thinning hairline and it’s a mess? Rockier than the surface of Mars?”
“You think Eddie chose Nigel because he has a well-shaped skull? You have really lost your mind.”
“I just mean that she knows what she’s getting with him. I’m a gamble, and she doesn’t like to gamble. I know that about her.”
“How are you a gamble?” Brandon scoffed. “You’re the same guy you’ve always been. You work hard, you play harder, you’re a great dad, a great friend. A mediocre hockey player, but a team player.”
Sullivan snorted. “Thanks, man.”
“What is it about her? What makes her different? I remember her just being a regular girl. Tall. Competitive. But those are just middle school memories. What’s she like now?”
He wasn’t even sure how to sum it up, everything that he thought was amazing about Eddie. “She’s so damn sweet and caring. She’s a nurturer. She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s athletic. And she’s the first woman I’ve ever felt like I could totally be myself with, that I could talk to her about anything. Everything.”
“If you’re sure, you should go for it. Nigel, be damned.”
The man in question emerged from the restroom. “He seems like a nice guy. He thanked me for bringing Eddie home when she got drunk. The poor guy has no idea I’m picturing his girlfriend naked literally every second of every day.”
Nigel slid back into his stool with a nod and picked up his whiskey.
“How is Grace, by the way? Has the doctor said anything?” Brandon’s wife was due to have their baby any day now.
