The Plan (Off-Limits Romance, #4)(15)

Hugh is silent for a half second. Then in careful tones, he says, “She’s fine. Just fine.”

“Yeah?” My eyes sting as I grit my teeth and lock my jaw.

“Doing just fine. Absolutely okay. Watched a couple hours at a distance today—and just fine.”

My eyes well up. I squeeze them shut. “Okay.” The coolness of the night fills my head and chest. I hear myself say, “That’s all. Thank you, Hugh.”

He says, “Any time, friend.”



*

Marley





My phone buzzes, and I push up off my elbows, where I’ve been leaning over the bathroom sink, waiting to wash this collagen-enhancing mud mask off my face.

I’ve got a text from Kat. ‘ARE YOU READY TO RUMBLE?!!’

I blink my eyes, which feel a little dry in my immobilized, green face. I bend my neck so I can get a better view of my phone, and feel the mask crack as I smile. ‘Ha. Almost. Still good with 7:30?’

‘Bet your face. Still good with Charlie’s >> Moonbeams >> Hospitality?’

‘Haha, IDK, guess we’ll see… I’m kinda tired for all of that.’

‘Put on your spurs, cowgirl’

I roll my eyes and start to wash my face. Charlie’s is Fate’s best restaurant—seafood and steak—and Moonbeams is the go-to bar for normal people. Hospitality is the dive bar, where all the men are wearing dirty boots and all the female regulars are garden tools. I’d have to be drunk right off my ass to go to Hospitality. I don’t plan to get drunk.

As I dress, I tell myself to cheer up—and I really try to. I’m not sick or dying, and I have a safe, comfortable life. There’s nothing tragic about the passage of another year. On the contrary, I should view it as a blessing. One year closer to what I want, right?

It’s my birthday, and I can dress how I want, so I pull on mermaid scale leggings and top them with a long, cream sweater. My hair is bugging me, so I pull it up in a loose bun. Why not be comfortable?

Finally, I pull the strap of my small, leather purse over my chest diagonally, hop onto my bike, and head off toward Charlie’s on Main. I could have driven the two blocks or gotten a ride from Kat or Lainey, but riding my bike is insurance against drinking too much. I’ve had a tiring week at work, and I don’t want to feel like shit all weekend.

When I reach the door of Charlie’s, someone opens from the inside. I don’t even stop to wonder who it is, just step inside and jump out of my skin when the place roars “surprise!”

I let out a little scream as heads pop up from behind booths, the restaurant’s open-concept dining area going from near-empty to near-full in the span of a second. Kat is right here at the forefront, giving me a thumbs-up sign and grinning in a way that says, “forgive me, please.”

“You hussy!” I punch her.

“You love me.” Kat hugs me, and Lainey puts some kind of headband on my head. Turns out, it’s sparkling stars attached to two springs that stick up like horns. “Happy birthday, love!”

Damn, but it’s a total whirlwind. Almost everyone I know is here—except for Mom, who probably declined the invitation due to her need for nonstop oxygen and her hatred of basically everyone. In attendance are Grandma Ellis, Zach, his good friend Clint, two of my favorite high school teachers, all the doctors from the clinic and some of the nurses, Miss Shorter (and her hand-carved crane cane), my old piano teacher, a friend I mentored in cheer when I was a senior and she was a freshman, the now-grown-up Holley children whom I babysat for three years while their parents launched and ran this very restaurant, and Staci, Laurel, and Bitty, three other high school friends I haven’t had a chance to reconnect with yet.

Word of my birthday spreads through the whole place, and within minutes, everyone is twirling on the tiny dance floor, playing old songs on the adorable jukebox, and ordering me celebratory drinks.

Two and a half hours, three beers, two Bloody Marys, and four pineapple shrimp kabobs later, I stumble out into the chilly night, flanked by Kat and Lainey, trailed by Staci and Laurel, and head down the street to Moonbeams.

“I said I wouldn’t drink, you hussies…”

Lainey smiles, looking giggly from her own lemon martinis. “It’s your birthday. Get that stick out of your behind.”

I chortle. “You said ‘behind.’”

“Do you prefer ass?” She slaps mine.

“Lainey!”

“Even drunk, Marley is the tightest ass among us,” Laurel says. “And by tightest I mean most uptight, although she does have a nice ass. I say we skip Moonbeams and take her out to Hospitality.”

“I second that,” says Staci. “Poker night there. I bet the five of us could rock that shit.”

I grumble, but I’m quickly overruled, but who really cares? Kat pledges to take me home and be the DD for the rest of us. What’s one night of stupid drunkenness?

We take the highway to the town’s outskirts, to the nondescript white building on the edge of the woods, and park in a tree-fringed lot crammed with mostly good ole boy trucks. As Kat parks her Volvo, I can hear the booming country music.

“C’mon, you guys. Let’s go back to Moonbeams.” In the time it took to ride here, I sobered up a little. “I hate loud music.”