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“I heard she’s moving away. Art school in New York.” Tessa leans in the way she does when she’s been privy to a particularly juicy piece of gossip. “Maeve Winters talked her into it.”
I slide another glance toward Bailey, who seems oblivious to the way half the room is watching her, the same way they watched me moments ago.
“Who’s Maeve Winters?”
“Hope, seriously?” Tessa looks at me as if I’ve been living under a rock. “Maeve. The woman who moved into the abandoned cottage by Lake Olam. The one hosting parties under full moons and pretending to be too good for running water.”
When I don’t react, Tessa rolls her eyes. “Literally everyone has been talking about her nonstop for the last three months. You know, it hasn’t rained since the day she arrived in town. She’s bad news and creepy AF, if you ask me.”
“She’s new in town—that doesn’t instantly make her creepy. Maybe she helped Bailey figure out what she really wanted. Would you want to marry Rory Lefner?”
Tessa fights a smile. “He’s not that bad.”
We both know he is.
“This town needs a hobby. Preferably one that doesn’t involve rumors and other people’s love lives.”
“No, what this town needs is a new coffee place.”
Logan’s wedding is not the setting for Tessa’s twenty-minute-long Kingsette-needs-another-coffee-place tirade. “Have you ever gone to the lake to meet Maeve for yourself?”
“No!” Heads turn in our direction, and Tessa lowers her voice. “And you aren’t either. Anyone going down to the lake to see Maeve is a fool. The last thing you need is—”
The sound of her phone trilling interrupts her.
Tessa reaches into her purse and shows me the screen. She furrows her brow, glancing from me to the phone and back to me. She makes no move to answer or to silence the sound, though a muscle twitches in her jaw with each ring. After a few tense seconds, the phone stops. Almost instantly, it starts again. Her knuckles go white around the phone. “I’msorry. He wasn’t supposed to call unless it was an emergency with one of the girls.”
“You’re my plus-one, not my babysitter. Go answer your husband.”
She’s standing, then walking away from the table and lifting the phone to her ear before I finish giving my permission. For the first time all night, I’m alone. The three couples Tessa and I were seated with are all immersed in conversation with each other. I make a halfhearted attempt to join in. The couple on my right is talking about Bailey, and the couple across from me is discussing Maeve, and—at least I tried.
I lift my glass, only to find that it’s already empty. The memories Logan’s speech stirred up, along with others that I keep locked away, stalk the edges of my consciousness, demanding release or relief.
The choice is easy—no crying widow in the bathroom this time.
There’s just enough space for me at the bar beside Logan’s high school friends who’ve been parked there since before speeches. They call out for another round, their collective voices slurred. The bartender barely hides his irritation as he pours another round of shots for the raucous group and faces me.
“What can I get you?” He fixes dark, soulful eyes on me. The kind of eyes that might get another woman in trouble. Luckily, I’m immune to good looks, charm, and—Tessa would add—fun.
“A chardonnay. I mean charpagne. I mean—” I groan. “Champagne. It’s been a long night.”
His expression softens. He pours a generous serving and slides the flute across the bar. “You’re not driving, right?”
The band kicks up a snappy rendition of “We Are Family” and mutes all other sound.
I shake my head, and he scowls at the crowd pressing in behind me, calling out orders. He leans over the bar. “I’ll have the waiter bring another glass in about thirty minutes. Table ten, right?”
“You have a good eye,” I say, leaning closer to speak over the music.
“Not really. Certain people just catch my attention,” he says and turns to serve the woman shouldering in behind me.
My face flushes. I’m immune, but not oblivious.
Before I can come up with a response, the crowd pushes me away from the bar and spits me out onto the dance floor. I register the strobe lights a moment before my blood turns to ice. I freeze. Even before I became this town’s tragic young widow, I had no business walking onto a dance floor. Rhythm and I are not well acquainted. Everyone still talks about how bruised Brandon’s big toe was after our wedding dance.
One of the groomsmen crooks his finger, summoning me. Obviously a masochist. I duck my head and beeline to the relative safety of a table full of couples—what a night, when that feels like the lesser of two evils.
I make it three short steps.
