Page 109 of Every Beautiful Mile

“Hmm, now how would you explain that, Ethan?” she asks him coyly. “I would call us… summer friends, right?”

When she bats her long, thick eyelashes at him, I finish my beer in a single gulp, tipping the bottle straight toward the sky for good measure.

“That’s nice,” I say dryly.

“How do you two know each other?”

Her gaze goes from me back to Ethan, where it lingers.

“Oh, you know, the usual. He pinned me up against my silly RV, and I dry-humped his leg until I moaned his name. So… friends, I suppose, would describe us too.”

Both Ethan and Rachel stare at me with mouths hanging open as I snap a lobster claw with a nonchalant smile.

“You know Rachel, it was great to see you, but we have to finish this up and get going,” he finally says, scratching his neck. When she walks away—speechless—he looks every bit as uncomfortable as I hope he feels.

He holds his hands up defensively. “I can explain that.”

“No need,” I say, ripping another piece of shell off my lobster too aggressively. “I’m leaving in a couple weeks, remember? You’re allowed to have summer friends named Rachel.” I shrug before continuing. “Plus, it also explains why you didn’t tell me you would be here—you didn’t want to miss out on all your seasonal… what’s the word? Ah yes—friendships!”

I emphasize the s with a hiss as I snap a leg off the already angrily demolished lobster’s body.

I don’t wait for him to respond before I scrub my hands with the smallest wet wipe I’ve ever seen that does nothing against the sheen of butter that covers my fingers. I stand up slowly, rip off my bib, and march out of the restaurant without looking back.

Forty-one

“I know that looked bad.”

Ethan is still wearing his bib when he finds me wandering the docks of the marina, and it would have been funny if I wasn’t plotting his death.

“Oh, do ya now?” I pick up my pace only for him to match it. “Look. I have no reason to be mad at you. We are friends, and I know you’re a walking stick.” My laugh is self-deprecating and unamused. “I know we’re nothing, not really. It’s just that she was perfect, like a thirty-five-year-old Barbie, and I’m… I’m… like Tom Hanks in that movie where he’s been stranded on an island with a soccer ball.”

“Volleyball,” he says, correcting me like it’s funny.

“You know what I mean.”

“Nel, listen to me.” He grabs my arm and stops me. “Rachel and I went on a few dates last summer. That’s all she was. My excuse for ending it was that the season was over, and it was, but I also just wasn’t interested. If you weren’t standing here with me, nobody would be, got it?”

He rounds his back and bends his knees so his eyes are level with mine.

I look away like a scolded child.

“Nel, I need you to tell me you believe me.”

I want to slap him and then push him in the water so a boat motor can chop some of the perfect off his face, but dammit, I believe him. Maybe I’m a fool, but I trust him.

“Fine.” I cross my arms and face him. “I believe you.”

He grabs my hands and tugs them gently.

“I have something to show you while you think of all the ways I’ll be punished.” The smile on his face is contagious and tramples my best efforts to stay mad.

He drags me up and down a series of docks until we finally stop.

A houseboat?

The exterior is a deep hunter-green with black trim and a set of steep steps that lead to a railing-wrapped rooftop. Facing the dock is a small porch with two chairs and a small table in front of a sliding glass door.

It’s modern, sleek, and nicer than any I’ve seen.

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