Margo was crossing the street, wheeling a large cooler behind her. I stepped to the side as she leveraged it through the gate and under the white tables. She pulled out two large containers of lemonade and placed them on the counter, then used a Sharpie to label the cooler with a piece of tape that declared: ICE.
Charlotte had returned to her to-do list, currently unspooling the wire from a box fan. Tina poured a bag of chips into a purple bowl, then helped Charlotte set up the fan at the edge of the table to keep the bugs away.
I felt caught between worlds. Just like in the days before the trial—on the outskirts, looking in.
Tate and Javier arrived next, and Tate set out her dueling pitcher of lemonade, wrinkling her nose at Margo’s on the other side.
I watched, dumbstruck, as Tina set up at one of the pool tables in the corner with her parents, angling the umbrella for shade. Whitney and Molly returned with the sparklers, dragging lounge chairs out into the sun, stripping down to their swimsuits. Charlotte called, “Don’t forget sunscreen!” I couldn’t decide whether people were being deliberately obtuse or wielding their own sense of power, going on with their lives like nothing was amiss, like nothing could touch them.
Preston barreled through the gates with the shoulder strap of his own cooler slung over his arm, heading straight for the grill. He started pulling apart frozen burgers that Charlotte had stacked on the stand beside him, then scanned the crowd. “Hey, anyone seen Mac? I asked him to bring the gas for the grill. Can’t start without him.” When no one responded, he called my name. “Do you know when Mac is coming?” He said it so loudly, it carried over the crowd, and everyone stopped talking.
I whipped my head toward the entrance, terrified I’d see Ruby there, thankful that she hadn’t arrived. “No,” I said, walking closer so our voices wouldn’t carry. “Why would I?” Like I’d know any better than he did.
Preston cocked his head to the side. Lowered his voice as he closed the distance between us. “Does she not know?” He shook his head, then grinned at my wide-eyed reaction. “She’s got no right to be mad at you. Really, it’s only fair.”
I stared at him, at the twitch of his lip, at his smug expression. Daring me to ask. Needing me to do so. And me, with that pit in the center of my stomach, hating how much I needed to know what he meant. “Fair, how?” I said.
“Well,” he said, “you know.” A wave of his hand, dragging it out, making me wait. His captive audience. Seeing if anyone else would join to listen. Scanning the crowd to check that they were. “After Aidan.”
My head whipped to the closest person listening, to Javier, and I could tell by how fast his eyes darted away that it was true. That the guys, at least, all knew. Tate was staring at her husband with the same intensity—with her own version of surprise.
I closed my eyes and saw it again, the day Aidan told me he was leaving. How he’d stood in the center of the living room, eyes to the windows, pleading with me, like I should understand. My God, Harper. I have to get out of here. His arms stretched wide, and I’d thought he meant this house, this life, with me. But maybe it was something more. A mistake that was following him. A mistake that wouldn’t let him go. And I was the person worth sacrificing for his own fresh start.
Preston was looking at me with an exaggerated grimace. “You really didn’t know?”
The anger seared at the pit of my stomach. At Aidan, at her, at everyone who knew. At fucking Preston Seaver, shit stirrer, who would drag your baggage out in public, just to broadcast your reaction.
“Well, I mean, anyway. Like I said, she can’t really complain.” And then Preston turned toward the entrance. “Hey there,” he called to the young woman walking from a car parked along the street. His date, I guessed by her beaming smile. She looked like an athlete, tall and lean-muscled, with long, sleek hair, blond at the roots, dark at the ends. I thought I recognized her—a student on campus.
Preston beckoned her over, grinning like he had not just upended my entire life thirty seconds earlier. Then he craned his neck, calling out to the entrance, “Look who finally decided to come,” as Mac walked in with the container of propane for the grill.
“Hey,” Mac said, frowning at the state of us, quiet and tense. “I thought this was a party?”
But everyone was looking behind him. At the figure waltzing down the middle of the street, head high, a smile I could see from the distance.
My heart leaped and then hardened.