AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m so sorry,” Lu repeats as she chugs the water. “I’m okay, really.”
“This is an introduction you’ll never forget.” Coop glances at me. “We’ll definitely be telling this story to our grandbabies.”
“I sincerely hope you won’t,” Lu says.
Goldie pats her friend’s shoulder. “Let’s try that again, shall we? Louise, this is DR. That’s what we call him, anyway. His real name is Riley Dixon, but after a weekend gone wrong to the Dominican Republic—”
“I swear to God, those coconuts weren’t mine,” Coop says.
“RD became DR,” Goldie finishes. “He’s my favorite of Coop’s friends. I’m so excited y’all finally get to meet.”
I glance at Lu. How do we play this? Do we pretend we’ve never met? If not, how much of our story do we share?
Her eyes flicker. If the puke didn’t tip me off, the rapid rise and fall of her chest does. She’s a nervous wreck too.
I don’t want to overstep. I also don’t want to put the burden of figuring out how to address this shitshow solely on her.
Lu looks at me. I look back. Somehow manage to paste a dumbass smile on my face as I wait with my heart in my throat for her to say something. Anything that might give me a clue as to where she wants this to go.
Part of me hopes she tears me a new one. Hopes she lets the truth spill out. At least then I’d know she may have changed her hair, but she didn’t let the world fuck with her no-bullshit attitude.
But Lu doesn’t miss a beat. Screwing the top on her water bottle, she offers me a tight grin. “Riley! How funny—small world, right? It’s good to see you again.”
Polite. Kind.
Fake.
Sadness unfolds inside my chest. The Lu I knew was truthful and fierce and authentic in every sense of the word.
But this woman who insists on being called Louise? Not so much. Why’d she change? What happened to that fierceness? The bravery I adored?
My smile must falter, because her eyes do that thing again where they flicker.
“Y’all know each other?” Goldie furrows her brow.
I nod, wondering if I should hold out my hand to Lu. She doesn’t move, so neither do I. “My mom worked for her grandparents back in the day.”
“We crossed paths over the summer.” Lu drops her arm, her water bottle dangling by her leg. Its condensation drips down her skin, making my own feel two sizes too tight. “That was, what, ten years ago?”
“Something like that.”
“Small world is right,” Cooper says. “How great y’all are already acquainted. Makes all our jobs that much easier.”
Goldie gives Lu pointed look. “Does it?”
“Of course,” Lu replies. “This week is going to be great. Right, Riley?”
“Right. Best week ever celebrating these two fornicators.”
Her face lights up as she lets out a bark of genuine laughter.
That laugh. Fuck me. It’s like a shot to the chest. I feel my sadness leak out of the bullet hole, replaced by something that feels like soaring.
Coop laughs too. “Guilty.”
“Very guilty.” Goldie holds up a hand.
“Good to know we can send y’all off together to get shit done if need be,” Cooper says. “We really are going to have a good time, aren’t we? We’ll be the fab four.”
Lu’s smile disappears. She opens her water and takes a long, slow sip.
Green about the gills again. Shit.
I turn around and find Marianne patiently waiting to resume the meeting a few steps behind us.
“Speaking of getting shit done. Marianne—”
“You know Marianne too?” Lu asks.
Turning back around, I tug at the collar of my shirt. “Yep.”
Cooper rolls his eyes. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Pretending like you don’t own the place.”
Lu’s eyes bulge. “You own—wait, this—the club—the Ocean Club? Riley, you own it?”
I put my hands on my hips and squint up at the sky, doing anything I can to avoid looking at Cooper lest I punch him in the face. “I don’t own the club. But I do, ah, own some land around it.”
“All the land,” Cooper says with a smile.
“That’s—wow, Riley, I . . . don’t know what to say.”
Goldie is looking at Lu and me, her eyes knowing as they zip between us.
“How do you not know any of this? I feel like your family has been coming to Bald Head forever,” Cooper asks.
Lu does that tight smiling thing I hate. “I haven’t been back in a long time.”
I can tell Cooper wants to follow that line of questioning, but Marianne is politely clearing her throat, notebook at the ready.
“Thanks for your patience,” Goldie says. “Let’s get back to it.”
Lu looks as relieved as I am at the change of subject. She positions herself on the other side of Goldie, putting as much distance between us as possible. My body still rings with awareness at her presence. How she shifts her weight from one leg to the other, the hem of her sundress lifting to reveal more thigh as she moves.
