Deep (Pagano Family #4)(75)

Bev stared at the tray. Curly fries, chocolate chip cookies, and grinders. And soda—probably not diet. She sighed. “You, too?”

Sky shrugged. “I’m not even sorry. What is it, fifteen pounds you’ve lost?”

Closer to twenty, but Bev nodded. “I’m not starving myself, Sky. I’m okay.”

“Good—then eat. We’ll eat a disgustingly delicious lunch, and then we are going to shop. It’s a beautiful, sunny summer day, we are two women with time on our hands, and I am employed again. We deserve some retail therapy.” Sky had taken a job at a family restaurant not far outside the Cove. When Bruce got Sal’s going again, she’d said she planned to work both places for awhile.

Bruce was home and recovering well, and the odds of his reopening Sal’s had increased to a near certainty when Nick had forgiven his debt as recompense for the attack. Bev had been psyching herself up to ask him to do just that. She loved Nick all the more because she hadn’t had to ask. He might have been a killer, but he had honor.

“Not on Gannet Street, though.” Sal’s and Cover to Cover Books were both on Gannet. Bev picked up her sandwich and took a bite. It was good—the food at the Cove Café was basic deli stuff but always fresh and tasty.

“Nope. I thought we’d do the thrifts and antique shops on Breakwater. And I want to run into The Sea Weaver.”

“The yarn shop? Why?”

“I took a knitting class over there while I was trying to find ways to spend my time. Remember?” Bev nodded. “Turns out, I love it. It’s like my yoga. Or my crack. Either way, I need a fix. Plus, have you ever been in there?”

Bev shook her head. She was not a knitter. She could barely tie a bow.

“You’ll like it—it’s beautiful, and the owner, Andi, is all up in incense and meditation and crystals and stuff. It smells like your place.”

“I’m not into crystals, Sky. I just meditate.” Meditating hadn’t been going so well lately. She couldn’t find her center no matter what she did. But she was back teaching her yoga class. Her neighbor, Carlotta, had taken over for her while she was ‘ill.’ Everybody, including Carlotta, seemed to be glad she was back.

“Anyway, I just want to get some yarn. Everybody is getting knitted goods for Christmas this year, because I have a productive obsession and I’m going to exploit it for all it’s worth.”

Bev chuckled and looked out over the water, quickly getting lost in the view. She didn’t spend much time in the ocean. She preferred to swim in the pool. But there was something calming about being on the beach. She liked to sit and watch the people—children playing in the waves; parents preparing their lunches, everything from simple sandwiches pulled out of tote bags to elaborate meals set out on tables; lovers lying coiled together on blankets; groups of teen girls baking their skin, groups of teen boys ogling them; solitary readers or sleepers. The beach in summertime was a place to find people being happy.

Sitting here, Bev could almost remember that feeling.

“Bev?”

“Hmm? Oh, sorry. Just daydreaming.” She set her half-finished sandwich down, done with it, and picked at a cookie. “Have you seen him?”

“Who? Chris? We’re going to talk about Chris?” Sky set her sandwich down, too, and folded her hands together. “I thought he was verboten.”

It had been weeks since that day he’d come to Ben’s house and she’d found out her most lasting and important friendship had been a fiction. For years, she’d thought she had a real best friend, someone who cared about her and was interested in her just for her, and not for what he wanted from her. She had been completely open with him. He knew everything about her. And she knew everything about him—or she’d thought so. Now, though, it turned out that he’d simply been taking notes and biding his time, waiting for her to come to her senses or something and fall in love with him.

She’d never thought about him in that way, and she’d had no idea he’d thought about her like that. How completely stupid and na?ve was she, really?

But she missed him. There was no chance they’d be friends like they had been, but in the past couple of weeks, her anger had ebbed enough that she’d missed him, what they’d had—what she’d thought they had.

“I just wondered if he’s okay.”

Sky huffed. “Okay. This isn’t high school, and I am not going to be running notes back and forth between you. But I will tell you that I see him around a little. It’s not like we were all that close. You were the thing that connected us. So we’re not hanging out or anything. But we’ve run into each other. He’s…okay. It looks like he’s okay. Doing his thing.”

“Okay.”

“Are you thinking about talking to him?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. I’m just sad to lose what we had.”

“What you thought you had.” Sky’s expression suggested that she was pissed at Chris, too.

Bev pushed the cookie away. “Yeah.”

“I swear, that ‘friend zone’ bullshit is f*cking infuriating. Like all we are is somebody to f*ck.”

“Sky, you’re not helping.”

“Sorry. It’s just…I had a big fight with Rome about this not so long before all that shit went down. He said Chris had it bad for you, and I tore him ten different new *s about how misogynistic it was to assume that a guy couldn’t be friends with a woman. And then that bastard goes and proves him right. And trust me, my Romeo has not let me forget it.”