I like giving people peace.
But I’m done doing it at the expense of my own happiness.
“Hayes, your mother wants to know if she should send Charlotte into town for coffee, or if we’re bringing some back,” Amelia calls.
I lean around Hayes and smile at her. “Everything’s set in the pot in the kitchen. It’s my special coffee-of-the-month-club coffee. From Ecuador this month. And it’s delicious. All she has to do is hit the power button.”
She doesn’t smile back.
I lift my eyes to Hayes. “People in your social circles do know how to hit the power button on a coffee maker, right?”
“If not, there’s always Charlotte.”
I blink. “Did you—did you just make a joke?”
“No.”
His delivery is so straight-faced, I crack up. “Well, you should’ve. Jokes lower blood pressure too.”
“So does getting home and getting to work. Get in the cart.”
I stroke my fingers into his hair, pretending I don’t notice when his entire body goes stiff against me, and definitely pretending I don’t notice a new pressure on my belly right below where his belt sits. Is he easily turned on, or has it just been that long for him too? “Walk me home. It’ll take an hour, and it’ll clear your head before you disappear to do all of your work and leave me to entertain your mother and your ex-wife.”
A strangled noise rumbles from his throat. “She is not—”
“Grade school wives who are super successful all on their own don’t often come back when you’re still single at your age, and when they do, they definitely don’t get on a plane with your mother at the drop of a hat to go check on you at a secret hidey spot just because they had nothing better to do,” I whisper. “She’s here because she wants you.”
“Congratulations on your powers of observation.”
“Walk with me. It’s what a boyfriend would do.”
He doesn’t sigh out loud, but his expression looks like my mother’s when she wants to, and she’s had so many reasons to sigh silently at me in the past few months. He doesn’t beat you, cheat on you, or degrade you, Begonia. I don’t understand why you’d throw away a man like that when there are so few good ones left.
“Amelia.” Hayes releases his hold on my hip and turns, one hand still gripping the bike. “We’ll be walking home. Please take the groceries.”
Her lips purse. “Are you sure that’s safe?”
“I have the mayor on speed-dial if anything happens.”
I can’t see Amelia’s eyes, but I’m positive they’re twitching.
As they should be.
You’d think a woman with glowing magenta hair couldn’t be incognito in a small town, but apparently no one recognized me as the tourist staying at the big island estate today, since I had brown hair the last time they saw me, and I got to eavesdrop on all the shoppers talking about everything from Hayes’s affair with the mayor here two years ago to how long Giovanna might be planning on staying, given the amount of luggage she brought with her to, yes, who would also like to date him.
And I’m betting Amelia knows the part about Hayes dating the mayor here.
“There’s no room for the bike on the cart,” Amelia says. “And there’s no room in the security cart either.”
“We’ll walk it back,” I tell her. “Along with—Marshmallow!”
There he is.
That’s my dog.
Soaking wet and leaping up into the driver’s seat of the golf cart and trying to kiss Hayes’s second-grade wife.
“Down,” Hayes orders before I can take a full step toward the cart, and miracle of miracles, Marshmallow hops off the seat.
He also shakes his whole body right in the space between us all, coating every last one of us in sea water and sand.
Amelia’s nostrils flare.
That muscle in Hayes’s square jaw twitches.
And Marshmallow flops to the ground at my fake boyfriend’s feet, gazing up at him with blatant adoration coming out on every tongue-lolling pant.
Poor Marshmallow.
We are so out-classed here, and he has no idea.
Probably best that way.
I should get back to working on not caring too.
11
Hayes
Amelia has barely driven the cart out of hearing range, the security cart accompanying her but lighter two men who are keeping a respectful distance, when I hear my name, and it’s not coming from Begonia.
“Hayes! Hayes, hi. Everything okay out at the estate?”