Page 38 of Beachside Kisses With My Enemy

“What?” My guilty eyes dart back up to his face, where his gaze is lit with a faint hint of amusement. Sweet macaroni, I’ve been staring like a lovesick fool. But I’m not. Lovesick, that is. I’m just a woman, appreciating the form of a man. I don’t have to think more of it than that. He has no reason to be amused.

Maybe he’s laughing at me. Maybe earlier, at the Robin, he just wanted to see how far he could take things before I broke.

Well, Lucy Reynolds doesn’t break for anyone. Most especially him. And since I can’t show him ire anymore—darn truce!—I’ll just have to be overly nice.

I paste on a smile and dip into an exaggerated bow, directing my hands toward the bathroom. “All yours, roomie.”

Then, with his chuckle low in my ears, I run toward my bedroom, a move that I’m realizing is becoming all too common where Blake Moffitt is concerned.

“Hey.”

I squeal and throw a hand to my chest at the feminine voice that greets me as I enter my room. “You scared me!”

Marilee’s sitting on my bed, her arms wrapped around the knees pulled into her chest. She’s got on black sleep shorts and a tank top with Grinch faces all over it, despite the fact it’s summertime. “Sorry. I came to deliver that”—she points to something on my side table—“but stayed because we haven’t seen much of each other, and I don’t have to work tomorrow, so I thought we could catch up a bit.”

“Of course we can.” I plop down beside her on the bed and give her a hug, then grab a postcard off the side table. A photo of some European countryside beckons.

My heart thumps. A text and a postcard from Mama all in one day? Not that the text said much. Just that she missed me—but was having the best time in Italy.

I set the postcard down again, determined to savor the message on the back later when I’m alone. Then I flick on my second fake smile in a matter of moments, this one directed at my bestie. “I’ve missed you. How are you? How’s work? And cake making?”

Last I heard, she was taking on a few cake commissions here and there as part of her job at The Blackberry Muffin. Even though I can tell that’s where her passion lies, she’s hesitant to start her own business. I can’t exactly blame her—she’s still fighting every month to get out from under the debt Donny left her with four years ago.

Her face lights up as she tells me all about a Barbie cake she made for one of the young Painter girls’ birthdays and a fiftieth anniversary cake for our town librarian Anita Draper (who is Alberta Jenkins’s twin sister and quite her opposite in terms of kindness and tact go) and her retired doctor husband Donald.

While she talks, I pull a few bottles of nail polish from my side table drawer and toss her one that’s Christmas-y red. I unscrew the bottle of a lime green color and begin to spread the polish onto my bare toenails. I’m not really a girly girl, but even us casual women like to have cute summer toes.

The strong smell of the polish permeates the air as Marilee finishes updating me on her life—including her last few “hangouts” with Jordan and Ryder, whom she oh so clearly adores. Then she makes a face, sticking out her tongue. “I just monopolized that conversation, didn’t I? I’m sorry. How have you been? How’s the restaurant? Did you hand out the BOGO coupons yet?”

“Yep, delivered them around town yesterday. Now, we wait to see if it works.” My insides twist.

“I’m sure it will. Blake’s fliers worked well.” She picks up the unopened red nail polish. “Speaking of Blake…”

Smooth, Mare. Smooth. My eyebrows lift her way. “Go ahead. Ask what you really want to.”

“Hmm? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” A droplet of red falls from her brush onto my comforter, and she sucks in a breath as she wipes the excess from the fabric with her pinky. A small red smear is left behind on the lavender. “Oh no. I’m sorry!”

“Don’t be.” I casually screw the lid back onto my polish and set the bottle aside, admiring my toes even though they’re far from perfect. “A little mess adds character. Besides, that’s the benefit of buying things secondhand for cheap.”

“I guess.” She frowns, and her glasses slip down her nose a bit as she resumes painting her nails. Then my best friend sighs, and she glances up at me again. “Fine. There is something I wanted to ask.” A pause. “How are things between you and Blake?”

I glance through the open door toward the hallway, but the bathroom door remains shut. “You mean since our Marilee-inspired truce?”

She bites her bottom lip. Nods.

“Things are…”

Suddenly, the ceiling—with its old popcorn texture, its slight cracks in the paint, the old battered ceiling fan—is the most fascinating thing in the world. Because I can’t be fully honest with Marilee. That would require giving voice to all the doubts and questions swirling in my heart and brain.

“I see.” And there’s such sadness in her voice. Her hand shakes a bit as she applies the polish.

“No, Mare. You don’t.” How can she, though? I’ve never told her how I felt about Blake. Never wanted her to think I was friends with her because I liked him. But maybe that’s done a disservice to our relationship. I inhale a steep breath, gently take the polish brush from her fingers, and move on the bed so we’re facing each other as I start to paint her toenails. I can’t look at her when I say this. “You know I was crazy about him in high school, right? I never told you as much, but Elisse likes to mock me for it, so I assume it was fairly obvious.”

“I always thought you might be. But then things changed when he left for college. You changed.”

Me? It was him that changed. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. You just seemed even more distant. And happier—but like, a fake happy.”

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