Page 9 of Stuck With the Billionaire Grump

I glance up, confused by the unfamiliar voice. I see a handsome, muscular guy with black hair and twinkly eyes heading toward me with a wide smile on his face. A hazy memory resurfaces, but he must see the vagueness in my expression, because he laughs and does me the favor of introducing himself.

“It’s Eric Kendall,” he says, pausing a couple feet in front of me. “Do you remember me?”

Just like that, the recognition kicks into high gear. Right. Of course. Eric Kendall. He’swaymore muscle-y than he used to be, but I know those eyes and that laugh. His family summered here one year a while ago when I was in high school. We became… acquainted.

And by that, I mean that Eric Kendall was my first kiss.

Stranger still, that was the same summer I met Theo.

I glance back over my shoulder toward the private beachside lane, but Theo is nowhere to be seen. When I turn my focus back to Eric, he’s still grinning expectantly.

“Wow,” I blurt out. “Hi. Yes, of course, I remember. It’s been ages! What are you doing here?”

“I came here to confess my undying love for you, obviously. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you for the past decade.”

I snort. That’s right. Eric was a real jokester. Hardly ever took anything seriously. I liked that about him.

“How gallant,” I remark. “I’m surprised you recognize me.”

“Are you kidding? How could I not? You’ve always been stunning, Lucy. I could never forget that.”

That sort of comment might sound a little too flirtatious coming from anyone else, but I know that Eric is mostly kidding. Josie used to say the way he talks issuperfluous.

“Oh, don’t flatter me.” I sigh, waving him off. “I’m too busy for it at the moment.”

Eric places a hand over his heart as if I’ve wounded him, but he’s still smiling in that easygoing way of his.

“Too busy to grab a drink and catch up with the boy you shared your first kiss with?”

At that, I have to laugh. It’s just so ridiculous and dramatic, and I’m also oddly giddy from his confirmation that I am, in fact, highly recognizable even as a twenty-eight-year-old. Take that, Theo Danvers.

“I seem to remember you not only gave me my first kiss, but also a bad case of mono.”

After kissing Eric, I was sick for the rest of the summer and just barely recovered in time to start eleventh grade. Josie got sick, too. Which meant that Elijah also got sick. It was a whole fiasco that way too many people in town knew about.

Not that I was all that furious at Eric for it. It was a total accident. After all, he didn’t even realize he was sick when he gave it to me. He just happened to share a drink with his older sister earlier that day, and Natalie Kendall was most definitely kissing more than a few people during her brief time in Mermaid Shores, so it’s safe to land the blame primarily on her shoulders.

In fact, me and Eric kept in touch for a while after that summer. We were friends on Facebook. Then, a couple of years later when I was at Boston University, he came down to the city from Dartmouth for the weekend and stopped by a house party I was at. We shared a drink, but then I was dragged away by my friends, and our sort-of friendship fizzled out naturally after that. No hard feelings, just different lives on different tracks.

Which is why I’m desperately curious about how we’ve found ourselves back on the same track again.

All three of us—Theo included.

Chapter Four: Theo

It washer.

Lucy.

Lucy… I can’t remember her last name. All I can recall is that the name tag she wore on the first day of camp hadLucy M.written on it. Lucy Moore? Maxwell? Mason? No, it was something fancy. Something with a lot of syllables.

I shake my head, my footsteps crunching in the gravel on the narrow lane leading to my rental cottage. Whatever her surname is, it took only a matter of seconds for me to realize why her face was so familiar. She hasn’t changed much from twelve years ago, other than a slight sharpening of her features. Her hair is longer now, too.

Not that I paidthatmuch attention to her at divorce camp.

Scoffing under my breath, I kick a smooth stone across the road. This part of town is quiet and fairly empty, a safe haven compared to Main Street. The only things here are private bungalows and luxurious beach houses. Ever since meeting Elijah and Harry for coffee, I’ve mostly been wandering around on my own, sticking to these peaceful pathways.

Perhaps I didn’t need to come to Mermaid Shores two days before the real wedding festivities were scheduled to begin, but I’m the sort of person who struggles to fly by the seat of his pants. I don’t travel much, and when I do go somewhere new, I need time to settle and get my bearings. Call it the curse of being an introvert or something else entirely, but I don’t do well when I feel like a fish out of water.

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