Page 27 of Beached Wedding

“So they didn’t get married or try living together?”

“No. I hardly see him. He lives in Ontario and sends me birthday money. He said he started an education fund for me, but Grandma told me I shouldn’t count my chickens.” Fliss chewed a nail and looked at the damage. “Grandma always thinks Mom’s boyfriends are deadbeats and says Mom shouldn’t date at all. She thinks Mom should have got a better education than hairdressing—which Mom really likes because it’s flexible and I can go to the shop after school. But Grandma thinksherway of being a single mom is the right way. Then Mom says something like if she’s so perfect, how come her daughter wound up pregnant at seventeen and is only a hairdresser, butherdaughter is on the honor roll and never skips.”

“You like school?”

“I don’t know. Our town is so small, it’s like your choices are to go to STEM club or smoke pot behind the gas station.”

“Feels like a missed opportunity. Hold the club meetings there and solve fossil-fuel emissions.”

She snorted. “Sounds like something one of those potheads would say. But yeah, Mom and Grandma argue a lot while Auntie Ashley takes me for ice cream and tells me they’ll sort itout and everything will be okay. Why? Do you think I’m awful for wanting her to stay home so I don’t have to listen to all of that?” She had Ashley’s eyes, big and earnest. Certain there was a right way to be and she would strive to be it.

“No.”

“Because I missed her a lot when she was away. I was really mad when she said she was getting married and moving. She seemed so happy, though. And at least we were coming here for the wedding, but now what? I know I shouldn’t be glad this happened, but I want her to come home with us.” She exhaled and sent me another look, this one shadowed with guilt.

“And you don’t want to thank me for it.”

“No. I don’t.” She scowled. “And I don’t want you to tell her to move to Australia anyway. Are you going to?”

I blew out a breath, leaning back in my chair as I considered it.

“I don’t know what to tell her. Shane’s an all-systems-go kind of bloke. When he wants something, he goes.” I ran one palm against his other and shot my hand forward. “Half the time it’s a great idea and succeeds beyond everyone’s wildest dreams.”

“Like your company?”

“Yes and no. I wouldn’t have taken that kind of risk alone and I had concerns about doing it with him, but Shane would have done it without me. And he likely would have bankrupted himself in a year or two. That’s not me being full of myself. I know both of us very well. I’m one of the few people who is willing to throw myself in front of the speeding train that is Shane and say, Stop. Think. Let’s do it this way. He knows I don’t get in his way unless it’s important. We make a good team. But Ashley isn’t aggressive enough to get what she wants out of him. I know how hard she had to push to get this.” I pointed at the roof over the lanai. “To her mind, it was a fair compromise, but Shane fought her every inch of the way.”

“And didn’t show up,” Fliss noted darkly.

“Exactly. So I guess whatever Ash does should be her choice and we should support her in whatever she chooses to do.”

“The summer dress, then,” Ashley said from the opening to the bedroom. She turned away with a scrap of pink and yellow in her hand.

ASHLEY

Isent Fliss to the villa while I went in search of the wedding planner. Fox shadowed me across the busy lobby, but I refused to look at him.

“I’m not sure why I’m a dick for saying you should decide your own future.”

“I never said you were a dick.” I was thinking it, but I hadn’t said it. I flipped my hair and took a place in line at the concierge desk, glancing to the registration desk that had an even longer queue of guests checking in.

“It was implied,” he drawled.

“Well, how am I supposed to react when I overhear you talking about me? Saying I’m not good enough to marry Shane?”

“I said ‘aggressive.’”

“Because that’s what everyone wants in a spouse.”

“I meant his personality is stronger than yours and you don’t always hold your own against it.”

“Oh, that’s a way less painful kick in the stomach.” He wasn’t entirely wrong, though. Shane wasn’t here. I had lost that fight in the most profound way.

Maybe that was the problem with my entire life. I didn’t know how to fight for what I wanted. I always decided I wasn’tas important as everyone else and wound up giving in, thinking, ‘Maybe next time.’

“Hey, c’mon.” Fox touched my arm.

I pulled my arms into a fold across my chest, drawing in like a pill bug that couldn’t stand the vulnerability of being seen.

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