Page 15 of Only Between Us

“Thanks for the attempted save, Summer. And…” Siena’s gaze cuts to me. “Good luck with everything. I’d say I’m going to miss you, but honestly? It turns out you’re kind of a conceited prick.”

She heads down the hall without another word. Not even a glance back. Something sharp kind of carves up my insides at the sight of her walking away.

In my peripheral vision I see Summer lift an eyebrow. “Conceited prick?”

When I don’t do anything but stare at Siena’s retreating figure, stomach sinking to my feet, Summer clears her throat.

“Hey, Cece,” she calls down the hall. Siena looks back over her shoulder. “I don’t know what happened in there, but for the record? This is a guy who sobs at dog shelter commercials. Seriously, all it takes is the opening bars of that Sarah McLachlan song and it’s game over.”

I nudge Summer and give her a searing look.

“What?” she whispers. “I’m helping you out.”

“By making me out to be a sensitive sap?”

“Youarea sensitive sap. Embrace it.”

Siena watches our hushed exchange. “Thing is, Summer? I like to think I don’t need four legs and a tail to have someone’s respect.”

Damn.

She turns on her heel, leaving me in the dust feeling about two inches tall, and every bit the asshole I was in there.

Chapter5Siena

WhatIsAFootballDaddy01:Did you know there are exactly 174 Cece Pippens on this app? Took me a while to realize you’d be on here as Siena, given the whole nickname-from-your-ex thing, but I sorted through every single Cece trying to find you. It was kind of like being on hold with the bank. Scared to hang up just in case you’re next in line, you know?

WhatIsAFootballDaddy02:Apparently this thing only lets me send you one unanswered message before it blocks me? Had to make another account just now. Anyway, you can ignore all that. This is what I get for sliding into someone’s DMs at 3:15 in the morning.

WhatIsAFootballDaddy03:This is Brooks, by the way. Please message me back.

I snort, dropping my phone on the checkout counter at Ship Happens, the one and only bait and tackle shop on Baycrest’s boardwalk. I can admit to having been initially charmed by the messages, and the fact that the man created three accounts solely for the sake of rambling into the void of my inbox. Just as I’d been charmed by Brooks Attwood before our short acquaintance went to hell.

But all it takes to cleanse me of that is remembering how helevelled those accusations. How humiliated I’d felt. How grieving Dad that day was bad enough without being looked at like I was Satan’s personal envoy, come to ruin this man’s life.

How much of a hypocrite he’d been.

Accusing me of scheming to earn all the supposed perks of dating a professional athlete, when he’d asked to fake-date me for the sake of his own financial gain.

The balls on that guy.

It was a busy day on the boardwalk today, the first week of consistently warm May weather. Tourists were out in droves, all coming to the blip on a map that is Baycrest because, somehow, our small town managed to monopolize the entirety of the short waterfront of Oakwood Bay. Meanwhile, the bay’s namesake, Oakwood, is nested in mature pine trees with no view of the water to speak of, until you drive to its outskirts.

The busy days are the good ones.

They fly by in a blur of hobby fishermen not unlike my dad. Except, where these fishermen visit Ship Happens to stock up on gear before hopping on their boats at the marina down the way, this shop was Dad’s life’s passion. He and Mom built it from the ground up years before I joined their family, and it was always part of my plan to take it over. It just happened a lot sooner than I ever thought it would. Mom’s arthritis became such a challenge that she retired, then Dad passed, and suddenly the shop was mine.

I have no particular affinity for the worms and minnows that make the shop a must-visit prior to fishing excursions. Nor for fishing in general.

But I love how much Dad loved this place. I loved the weekends and summers I worked here with my new parents, loved that I was giving back to them, earning my place in their family when they’d gone through hell to keep me in it. Every corner of the shop is proof that Dad existed. From the colorful lures on clear fishing lines I’dtalked him into hanging from the rafters, to the football-shaped bobbers on a spinning display on the checkout counter.

Those bobbers have been there for ages. Can’t remember the last time I sold one.

But Dad had gotten such a kick out of them when he’d stocked them. Two of his favorite things combined into one.

“Hey, Aidan?” I call into the shop. “Can you make sure to check the—”

“Already on it.”

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