Page 28 of Songs of Summer

Could it bethewedding? she wondered. Things were suddenly getting more interesting. She dug deeper.

“So, you don’t like who your mother’s marrying, I presume?”

“Tacos almost ready, Chase?” Matt asked the bartender, clearly not wanting to answer in front of him. Maggie got it. She was from a small town too.

“I’ll check,” he said, and obliged.

“No. I like him plenty. I’ve known him my whole life. It’s his daughter, Dylan.”

“You don’t like his daughter?”

“No, I love his daughter.”

“She doesn’t love you?”

“She loves me,” he laughed at her impatience. “It’s just, we had one of those ‘If we’re both single when we’re thirty’ pacts and…”

Maggie’s mind went from recon to romance.

“Well, you couldn’t have picked a better person to sit next to—I’m dating my childhood best friend!”

“You mean your fiancé?”

“Yes, yes. My fiancé. I just got used to dating him,” she giggled nervously. “You should go for it. It’s the best for so many reasons; it’s like a guarantee! There are no games; you can totally be yourself around them. You know each other better than anyone else, no surprises either. Oh, and their families—you already feel like a part of them, which is a real plus, for me at least, and for you too, I presume, given the circumstances.”

“Slow down,” he teased, “I have the opposite problem. I’m worried she will want to get romantic, and I think it’s a mistake—you know, because we will be like actual family after this weekend.”

“Oh, I get it. Well, that’s great too! You will always have her as your family. You’ll never lose touch, and when you marry someone else, they won’t be jealous or intimidated by her because she’s your sister.”

“You’ve really thought this through.”

“I guess I have,” she laughed.

“You make good points. Let’s just hope she feels the same.” He took another sip of his drink before asking, “So, what brings you to our little island?”

Maggie contemplated her answer. She was already certain she wanted no part of the crazy messy family she had witnessed earlier, but she was curious about whether this guy knew her birth mother, and if “his” wedding was the same one Beatrix was attending.

“Is your mom’s wedding on board a ferryboat?” she asked, clearly piquing his curiosity.

“Yessss,” he answered in that tentative way one does when waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Certain she was leaving the next day, she went for it.

“I’m here to find my birth mother, Beatrix Silver.”

From his expression, you would think a boot had dropped, and one of those heavy ones, like a size 11 Doc Marten.

“Whoa. Bea is your mother?”

“My birth mother.”

“Have you met her?’

“No, but I saw her in action today and it put a hard stopto my journey. It was…messy, to say it politely. I’m not into messy.”

“You saw that scene today, in Bay Harbor?” Matt asked.

“I did. Were you there?”

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