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A pang shot through my chest as I tried not to let on that her rejection stung. I adored my parents, but they had been old for as long as I could remember. Mama reminded me of those well-to-do biddies in the movies, the ones who wore their white hair curled and sprayed, pearls around their necks, and colour-matched twin sets well before they qualified for a seniors’ card. More than once, Arthur and Nancy had been mistaken for my grandparents. I knew that made them sad sometimes, and it might have bothered me when I was young, but I’d learned a long time ago not to care about what other people thought. In fact, I took great pride in taking people’s judgements and shoving them in their faces.
“Well, what would you have me do?” I asked.
“Have you spoken to Will?” she replied. “This might be the perfect opportunity to take your relationship to—well, you know, the next level.”
Ah, shit. I tried to smooth my expression even as I blinked a little too quickly. Will Kidd was the owner of Valentine Bay’s best bar, The Salty Stop, as well as our small town’s resident playboy. He was my best friend, and there was an undeniable undercurrent of sexual chemistry between us, but I wasn’t in a relationship with him.
That wasn’t the story I’d told my parents, though.
My eyes cut to Dad, who was still engrossed in his paper, and back to my mother.
“I’m not sure what you mean… exactly.”
Mama’s cheeks flushed with rosy self-consciousness. “I mean, you’ve been dating that boy for quite some time now, and I know you aren’t, ah…exclusive… but I can see how much you adore him. Your closest girlfriends have good men and are settling down, and I worry about you leaving it too long.” Her smile was small and a little sad. “I don’t want you to wish you’d started your family earlier.”
I shifted uneasily on the chair, even as I stifled a groan. I understood why they worried, and I hated lying to my parents, but it was for their own good. Nine days out of ten, it also made my life easier. Just not today.
“I’m not even thirty yet,” I reminded her for the thousandth time. “There’s plenty of time for marriage and babies.”Assuming I even want them.
Mama nodded slowly. “You think that now, but we never know what life has in store for us, and your father and I will feel better when you’re settled.”
Will was always a tricky topic—and thanks to my little white lie, I only had myself to blame—but Mama had double-whammied me by bringing up Willanda subject that made my insides wind up so tightly it hurt: the fact my parents were as old as they were. They wouldn’t be around forever, and both Mama and Dad wanted nothing more than to see me married with kids as soon as possible. On the one hand, they’d found it difficult to be older parents and didn’t want me to face the same challenges. On the other, they’d quietly given up on my brother Adam ever giving them grandchildren so that burden had now fallen completely on me.
I understood their dream on a theoretical level. They’d had such a happy marriage they only wanted the same for me, and knowing I had someone to share my life with would give them both a sense of peace—the knowledge that even when they weren’t around anymore, I’d have someone to look after me. Thinking about that made me sad, and I’d do almost anything to alleviate their concerns, but the truth was I’d never dreamed about a husband, two-point-five kids, and a house with a white picket fence. I’d spent my twenties convinced I wasn’t cut out for monogamy, let alone marriage.
That made Will my matrimonial beard.
One morning about eighteen months ago, when we were hungover and nursing sore heads and coffee on the way home from our respective walks of fame—not shame—both of us agreed that neither of us was the marrying type. Did that mean we wanted to grow old alone? Hell, no. So, we made a pact. We promised to be lifelong friendswithoutbenefits—each other’s emergency contact person and the partner we always took to weddings and awkward family functions. We understood each other’s need to enjoy ourselves, and the more we thought about it, the more our wacky plan made sense.
I didn’t think far enough ahead to the day when watching a line of women parade in and out of his bedroom might make me want to claw someone’s eyes out—theirs or mine. Take your pick.
Mama reached over to rub my forearm the way she’d done since I was a little girl. To soothe me. To broach a difficult subject. To convince me to do something that she believed was for my own good. “So, what do you think? Wouldn’t it be better if you stayed with Will? Isn’t it time you took the next step?”
Her eyes looked too hopeful for me to argue, and Will would never say no, so I sighed dramatically and rolled my eyes. “Okay,fine. I’ll stay with Will.”
Mama gave me a satisfied smile. “Good. Now, let me tell you about this charity sale. You won’t believe some of the things people have tried to give us. Just yesterday, I had to return…”
I nodded along as my mother rambled about dirty old kitchen pots and odd shoes with no soles, but I was too in my head to pay close attention. I lived a wilder life than either of my parents knew, but not nearly so scandalous as I let everyone else believe. The real Abigail Ellison existed on the yoga mat, a woman somewhere between the compassionate, dutiful daughter my parents needed me to be and the reckless free spirit I presented to the world. And when it came down to why I went to all thattrouble, the answer was simple. It was so the people I loved never had to worry about me.
My parents—who didn’t want to leave me without a family of my own. My friends—who needed me to get back up after a cruel rumour in high school tore me down. And Will—who would always be a playboy and hate himself forever if I forced him to break my heart. Because when it came to Will Kidd, I refused to be one of the many. If we were ever going to be together, I had to be the one.
3
Will
“If you go topage twelve,” I began, flipping through my own copy of The Salty Stop Bar & Brewery Business Plan, “you’ll find income forecasts and a comprehensive repayment plan.” I ran my forefinger over a printed chart, stopping at the end of a descending red line and tapping the point marked “zero”. “You’ve seen my savings records. That money, combined with the additional revenue I’ll gain from expanding The Stop’s opening hours, means I can purchase the warehouse space next door and fit it out with the necessary brewing equipment and repay your loan within two years.”
Sitting opposite me in a booth at the back of Valentine Bay’s best bar—my bar, The Salty Stop—Birdie Maxwell bowed her head over her copy of the paperwork. Beside her, with one thick arm stretched behind her along the leather-upholstered seat, Birdie’s boyfriend and one of my best mates, Sergeant Isaac Greene, leaned back with a small, amused smile.
I ignored it. The old advice was to never mix business with friendship, and if there was a bank within a hundred miles that hadn’t already rejected my loan application, I wouldn’t be sitting here after closing time in the bar I already owed a shit-ton of money on, asking my best friend’s millionaire girlfriend for cash.
I was taking this seriously, even if Isaac thought it was a done deal—a favour between mates. I wasn’t a charity case, and I didn’t want a handout. Running my own craft brewery was my dream, sure, but it was also a solid business idea. I knew that in my bones, but I needed the capital to prove it.
Birdie raised her head, her copper braid glinting in the golden glow of the hanging overhead lamp, and I breathed a little easier at the seriousness pinching the corners of her mouth. She, at least, was treating this like the business transaction it was supposed to be.
This woman was smart—like, real-life genius-level smart—not to mention a pro poker player who was always up for a gamble. I was betting on that fact to work in my favour.
“Why now?” she asked, turning back in the report until she reached my statement of savings. She twisted the page to face me and stabbed one finger at the total near the bottom. “If you keep putting away money at the rate you have been the last three years, you’d have enough to do this on your own in eighteen months. Maybe less.”
