Page 108 of The Love Haters

I WAS STILLglowing from all the revelations when Rue knocked at my door not long before dinner.

“Hi, sweetheart,” she said, when I opened it. “Did Hutch just tell me you’re sick?”

“I’m not sick,” I said. “I’m just taking a personal day.”

“Wonderful,” Rue said. Then she held out another shopping bag from Vitamin Sea. “I’ve brought you something.”

I took the bag.

“It’s a sundress,” she said, “but there’s a choice. Romance red, or funeral black.”

I pulled them out, and held them both up, and let the fabric tumble down.

“Pick one, and wear it to dinner,” Rue said. “It’s Ginger’s birthday.”

And then, in honor of my new epiphany, I said, “Red.” As if there had never been a question. I might not be having a romance with Hutch. But nobody could stop me from having one with myself.

“I’m so glad you said that,” Rue said, kissing her fingers and then touching my cheek.

I hadn’t planned on going to dinner tonight, to be honest. I had planned on giving myself the gift of not having to see Hutch.

But now I’d discovered a hidden well of inner strength.

“Hutch will be there,” Rue added, thinking that would be an inducement.

I let that sit.

Then Rue said, “Or I assume he will be, at least. He only used to come to dinner once a week before you showed up, but now it’s pretty much every night.”

“He only used to come to dinner once a week?”

“It seemed frequent at the time,” Rue said.

“But why so often now?”

Rue looked at me through her red glasses. “I think things became more fun for him recently. For reasons no one on earth could start to guess.”

She gave me a wink.

Had I been fun for Hutch?

I wasn’t sure.

But it didn’t matter.

Hutch or no Hutch… Rue was throwing a birthday party for herfriend. And my new red dress, my recalibrated worldview, and my kissable mouth would all be in attendance.

HUTCH DID SHOWup, in the end.

And the red sundress looked even better on.

If I held my arms out to the sides and lifted the hem, it made a full semicircle from the waist. Combine clothing that voluminous with a hearty island breeze, and add some string lights, an outdoor party, and some yacht rock on the speaker system… and you’ve got some fluttery magic. I walked out of my cottage and toward the party doing something I’d never done in my life: admiring myself.

Was every aspect of me Photoshop perfect?

Irrelevant.

The addition of my kissable lips to my growing collection of lovable visuals had tipped the scales.

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