Page 2 of Make Me Yours

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One week earlier…

Gertrude “Sully” Sullivan

A woman on the verge of

making some very risky

decisions…

This is stupid.

I shouldn’t be here, and I certainly shouldn’t have sent that text…

I don’t love Mark Tripp.

I don’t evenlikeMark that much.

Yes, making out with him was fun, but our “situation” ended when the September chill set in. Getting handsy behind the dock house or in some secluded beach cove after work wasn’t nearlyas much fun when the temperature was barely above freezing. And we didn’t have anywhere to go to hook up indoors without being found out.

Mark lives with his two cousins—both Tripps who loathe the Sullivan clan for “stirring up trouble” at dock meetings for the past fifty years. If he’d brought me to his place, he would have been labeled the black sheep of the family.

As for the Sullivan clan?

My grandfather hates Rodger Tripp, Mark’s father and the Tripp patriarch, with the passion of a thousand giant lobster claws, snapping closed all at once.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve heard tales of the greedy, selfish Tripps, the family that created an illegal fishing empire in our town by bending the rules and paying off crooked politicians. According to Gramps, the Tripps are trying to squeeze out and destroy anyone who doesn’t share their last name.

The Tripps won’t be happy until every boat in our harbor has their ugly logo painted on the hull. The Tripps lie and cheat and steal. The Tripps don’t sort their recycling and never return their shopping carts to the corral and are probably descended from Satan worshippers.

“There’s a reason they don’t brag about their roots like the rest of those Mayflower assholes,” Gramps is fond of saying when he’s had a few too many at the pub. “They came running up here from Salem right before the witch scare. No noose or burning for them. Oh no, not for the Tripps. They knew when to pull up stakes and run. That’s the problem with witch hunts. Real witches get tipped off by the Dark Lord and get out of town, and you end up burning innocent people.”

And while I’m eighty percent sure he doesn’treallybelieve in witches or that his nemesis, Rodger Tripp, has a direct line to thedevil himself, Gramps would have a cardiac event if I brought a Tripp boy home.

My grandfather has been like a father to me since my own dad proved uninterested in the task, and he’s usually the ultimate “cool” parent. In elementary school, Gramps let me have as many friends over for my Saturday night sleepovers as I wanted and ordered pizza for the entire crew. He worked extra hours to help pay for my braces and my first car and never imposed a curfew. And when I announced my intention to move into the old apartment above his garage after high school, he helped me replace the carpet and install a kitchenette.

Not once, in the six years since I “moved out” has he ever said a word about me bringing boys back to my apartment.

Gramps and I don’t talk about romance, but he never stopped having lady friends over, even when I was little and sleeping right across the hall from his bedroom. And he’s made it clear with his occasional winks across the bar when I’m flirting with a cute tourist that he thinks girls should be allowed to have as much fun as the boys.

As long as that girl isn’t a Sullivan with her eye on a Tripp.

If Gramps knew I’d let Mark Tripp put his hand up my shirt at Whale Song Beach, he would be so disappointed. If he knew I sent Mark a cleavage shot earlier tonight, when I was lonely and wishing I didn’t live in a one-lobster town with men I’ve known since we were children and zero chance of finding a long-term boyfriend, he would toss my phone into the sea.

And maybe me along with it…

I have to get to Mark’s cell phone before he shows that picture to anyone else. Gossip spreads like wildfire in Sea Breeze. Our tiny Maine town is hopping during the tourist season, with music and art festivals, bonfires on the beach, and outdoor movies at the community center. But in October, there’snothing to do except drink beer, pile on extra layers before you head out on the boat each morning, and talk.

And Mark likes to talk.

He swore he didn’t want anyone to find out about our little secret, either, but he’s the one who kept staring at me across the hall at the Moose Club’s annual lobster feast in August. He’s the one who let his hand brush mine at the farmers’ market, when we both reached for the same loaf of sourdough bread. And he’s the one who told Maya Swallows, one of my best friends, that he thought I looked “beautiful” when I was taking pictures on the dock one afternoon after work.

“He said you looked like a movie star,” Maya had relayed that evening during book club at our friend Elaina’s café. “Isn’t that sweet?”

“No, it’s stupid,” I’d said.

Because it was.

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