Page 35 of A Novel Love Story

“I don’t know, Gail, getting caught in the rain issoromantic. Just ask Ruby,” Junie said.

“It wasn’t,” I quickly assured, because I’d almost killed a man and I really did not want to think about Anders at all right now. When Gail left to go put in our food order to the cook leaning against the kitchen window, Junie turned and asked me, “Okay, so, I’ve got to ask—what brought you this way in the first place? Not to be creepy, but I noticed your license plate is from Georgia. What brings you all the way up here?”

“A book club, actually. A romance book club.”

“Oooh.” She wiggled her eyebrow. “The spicy kind?”

“Do I look like someone who reads anything else?”

She grinned. “I’d hope not.” Gail brought over our wines and a basket of roasted peanuts. Junie took a timid sip, thought for a moment, and then decided that she liked it. “Okay, so, you came up here for the book club?”

I nodded, cracking a peanut shell between my fingers. “We started meeting at this cabin in the Hudson Valley the year Rachel— a few years ago,” I corrected. Meeting the book club had been the only bright spot during the worst year of my life. “So we decided to keep going every year after that.”

She gave a start. “Oh, shit, so people are waiting for you?”

I winced. “Well … no. No one could make it this year.”

“Except for you,” she inferred.

“I know it’s silly …”

She shook her head. “I think it’s brave. I mean, staying in a cabin alone for a week sounds terrifying.”

I barked a laugh.

“Why the Hudson Valley?”

“Our favorite book series is set here,” I replied, hoping she didn’t ask anything else, “and it’s pretty easy for most everyone to get to. It’s weird, I didn’t think some of my best friends would be strangers on the internet, but here we are. My mom doesn’tquiteget it, but she understands enough. She said that once you find the good ones, you keep them around no matter what.” I frowned, thinking about Liam, whom I did try to keep around no matter what, and he’d just left me anyway. “Though, they don’t always stay.”

“Then they weren’t the good ones,” Junie replied matter-of-factly.

“My mom would say the same,” I said, eating a peanut. “She’s on a Nile River cruise right now. My folks divorced when I was, like, four, and she never looked back. She met a woman a few years ago who had a passport filled with stamps from all around the world.Mom realized, while talking to her, that she’d spent so much timereadingabout far-off places, she finally wanted to see them for herself. She figured if that woman could travel the world alone, why couldn’t she? So, off she went.”

“I couldn’t imagine. That must be so scary,” Junie said, propping her head up on her hand. “Traveling alone.”

“She’d agree with you, but she does it anyway. You do the things you’re most afraid of.”

“Is that why you came up here alone?”

I thought about back home, about the Facebook post detailing Liam and his fiancée’s wedding, the pictures of the venue and the ring and the flower arrangements and how unbearable it all felt. “Yeah,” I lied.

Gail came back with our burgers and fries, and leaned over the counter conspiratorially. “I got a question to ask you.”

“No hot sauce this time,” I said.

She pulled a ketchup bottle from behind the counter. “No, no, that’s not it. Is it true?”

I blinked, confused, as I took the condiment. “Uh … is what true?”

Gail scoffed that I’d even ask. “That you and Anders had afistfight!”

“A fist— Oh no. No no no, we didn’t,” I quickly replied. Junie snickered. I slapped him once and now it was a fistfight? I wanted to crawl under a rock and die. “I didn’t even mean to hit him!”

Junie added, “But if shehad, she’d win.”

“You think so?” I asked, and then thought about it. “He might be scrappier than he looks—”

“Oh,sweet!” A man with dusty hair, sunburnt skin, and a lopsided grin slid up to the bar beside Junie and leaned against it. His white T-shirt was paint stained,as were his fingers. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was a painter or some sort of construction worker. But no: he was worse. My heart did a flip when I recognized his face. Broken nose, scar on his upper lip, dreamy sky-blue eyes, just like in the books. “You’re the chick who stabbed Andie in the thigh, right?”

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