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Celeste is a knockout. Add the kindness, intelligence, sense of humor, and quirkiness, and she’s the top one percent. It’s impossible for me to imagine her without someone loving her. She should be worshipped every day.
Unless what she’s saying is she does casual hookups only, which is also disturbing. Even more than she deserves to be physically worshipped, she deserves to be loved.
She shrugs, gaze sliding back to the game. “I haven’t met anyone who compares to Jeremy. I’m not settling for less.”
Beneath my mask of calm, something inside me shatters. It was mostly broken already, held together by memories and old, tired wishes. Its end is surprisingly anticlimactic—a pop when I always expected a boom.
“Good for you, Peapod,” I murmur.
Feeling someone’s focus on me, I glance over Celeste’s head to find her dad, Jack, staring me down. I’ve always liked her dad. He looks like Colonel Sanders, has a laugh like a buzzsaw, and a soft spot for lost causes like me. I have no idea what telepathic message he’s trying to send me, but his bushy eyebrows are twitching. Eventually, he rolls his eyes and huffs, turning his attention back to the game.
I do, too, just in time to watch Damien receive a pass, maneuver it expertly past two players, and kick it into the top corner of the goal. I’m on my feet almost before Celeste is, hollering like a madman with all the other parents and families.
“That’s my boy!” Celeste yells, grabbing my arm and grinning up at me. She’s jumping up and down, her body pressing against my side, soft and warm, and the joy on her face feels like sunshine after a thousand years of darkness.
In that moment, my denial evaporates, and I realize why I bought the damn Wild Lake property. Why I came back to Sun River at all.
For her.
But… I haven’t met anyone who compares to Jeremy. I’m not settling for less.
And I am, by definition, less.
When everyone settles down, I stay standing and touch her shoulder. “I’m gonna go.”
A flash of disappointment, then a brisk nod. “Okay. See you around.” When I start to collapse the chair, she waves me off. “I’ve got it.”
She doesn’t look at me again. I say goodbye to her mom and dad, then weave through the clusters of other families. There are a couple of nods here and there, but overwhelmingly I’m either ignored or given intentionally cold stares.
I don’t blame them. If someone came to my town and decided to rip down one of its most beloved landmarks, I’d hate them, too. They don’t care that Camp Wild Lake has been empty for three years and that not one offer besides mine was made. They don’t care that I grew up here, that I was one of them.
I’m taking a piece of their history and perverting it for profit.
Like I said, I’d hate me, too.
9
Sunday afternoon, Damien and I head to my parents for our weekly family dinner. While I’m not exactly thrilled to hang out with them after yesterday’s little betrayal, I’m also not about to let my personal business mess up my kid’s routine. He loves his grandparents. And more than that, I owe them a debt I can never repay.
Without their help—especially in the first two years of Damien’s life—I have no idea how I would have survived. My grief was so deep and wide, there were days I couldn’t see past it and could barely function as a human, much less a mother.
So despite my lingering annoyance about yesterday, we show up with our usual offering of a pie from Annie’s. As we’re walking up the path to the front door, an unfamiliar car pulls into the Adlers’ driveway.
My skin tingles. Picking up my pace, I ignore the sound of doors opening and closing.
“Come on, bud. We’re late.”
“Since when do you care about being late?”
“Since right now. Hurry.”
Damien throws me an annoyed look, then focuses past me. “Who’s that with Mrs. Adler?”
Fuck.
“No one.”
Damien slows. Stops. And asks in an odd tone, “Isn’t that the guy in all those photos of you and Dad when you were young? The ones in Gram’s hallway?”
