Page 2 of For Butter or for Worse
Something settles heavy in my gut. Now that I’ve got a good look at her, she looks far more familiar than I’d like. There’s no way…
“Oh,” she says, eyes quickly taking me in before dropping to her feet. “I guess someone missed the ‘no shirt, no shoes, no service’ sign on his way in.”
I tug the t-shirt over my head, not because she said something but because I feel far too exposed. If she is who I think she is, I’m going to need thick layers of armor between me and her. A thin piece of cotton isn’t going to provide much protection, but it’s something. “Someone missed the ‘closed’ sign,” I say back. My words come out rough. Strained.
The woman glances behind her, first at the sign on the door and then to the three old people sitting in their spots. “A few someones,” she says slowly. Then her eyes meet mine again, and I’m hit with a sharp sense of déjà vu. They’re a bright shade of green that I’ve only seen on one person before. Her curly hair is shorter and her face is thinner, but everything else about her is familiar.
I’m tempted to look behind me, where several pictures are taped to the wall above the merchandise display. Though I force myself to keep my gaze on the woman in the center of the room, I know exactly which photo is calling to me. It’s the second one from the left, third row down, and it’s a picture of Uncle Bill and a fourteen-year old girl in the bakery kitchen, both of them laughing as theydecorate cupcakes. She has a streak of flour on her cheek, her hair pulled back in braids like she used to do a lot.
My fingers curl into fists as the woman starts studying me the way I’m studying her. I didn’t think she would ever come back.
“I was hoping to talk to Mr. Kingston,” she says, taking a small step forward.
My scowl stops her from taking another. “That’s impossible.”
“Please? He’ll want to see me.”
I’m sure he would, if he were still alive. But the fact that she’s here, now, and has no idea that Uncle Bill is gone…well, it doesn’t bode well for me. She hasn’t recognized me yet, but she will.
I fold my arms. “We’re closed,” I say sharply. Gary and Carl give each other pointed glances, and Mrs. Vanderman looks like she badly wants to interrupt this exchange, but the three of them keep silent. “You can come back later if you really want, but it’s not going to get you a meeting with Bill Kingston.”
The woman pouts and tucks a dark curl behind her ear, making my stomach twist into a knot. My doubts that I know exactly who she is are dwindling with every expression and gesture she makes. As if my day wasn’t bad enough already… “It really won’t take a long time,” she says and cranes her neck, trying to see into the kitchen through the swinging door separating the lobby from the back. “I promise Bill will want—”
“Come back later.”
“But I—”
“Georgie.” Her name tumbles off my tongue almost painfully, leaving behind the taste of acid.
The color drains from her face as her eyes take me in once more. I don’t think I look that different, but it still takes a few seconds before recognition sets in. “Royal,” she whispers, and I can’t help but wince at her use of my first name. She’s the only person who has ever really called me by my actual name.
“King,” I correct and point to the door. “Later. I’ll find you.”
I don’t move until she’s gone, the bell signaling her departure, but even then my limbs feel like lead.Georgie Carpenter is in Willow Cove.It’s like something out of a nightmare, the kind that sticks with you long after you wake up. Thelast time I saw her, she was looking out a plane window and disappearing into the sunset, and I was trying to figure out how I could have seen her as anything but a coward and a quitter who would so easily tear my heart to shreds without a single word.
Chapter Two
Georgie
I guess I shouldhave expected to see Royal—King—when I got to Willow Cove. I knew he likely still lived here, and I knew he would be on the boardwalk at some point because that was where he spent all his time back when we were… Well, I figured it would happen before long, but I didn’t expect to see him in thebakeryof all places. He hated that place! I was sort of banking on him avoiding Kingston’s until I had a chance to find my footing, even if his uncle owns the place.
After King kicks me out of Bill’s bakery, I spend the morning sitting on the beach and ignoring Cecily’s repeated calls. I hung up on her suddenly at the sight of a shirtless King, and she hasn’t left me alone since. But I don’t think I’ll be able to explain why I’ve been off balance ever since realizing that the well-toned man of a man showing off his muscly torso in the bakery this morning wasRoyal Kingston.
My best friend doesn’t know King exists, and I’d like to keep it that way. Some things are better left in the past, and King is the source of my biggest regrets. A girl doesn’t easily talk about the man she left behind in the worst possible way.
Goodness, but I forgot how warm it can get in South Carolina, and more than likely my morning on the beach is going to leave me red and tender, but there’s really nowhere else for me to go. Willow Cove is small on a good day, and when I spent summers here as a kid, I was always either in the bakery with Bill or on the beach with King. The bakery isn’t an option, so the beach it is.
I didn’t exactly make a plan before I came here, so I don’t have a place to stay. Nor can I easily afford a room in the Coralberry Cottages after draining my checking account to pay for the gas to make the drive from New York and rolling into town on fumes.
If Bill can’t help me, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. This journey was a Hail Mary.
It’s almost noon before King finds me watching the waves from the end of the boardwalk, and I’m genuinely surprised he actually came. With the way he glared at me—not that I can blame him—I expected to be waiting on the boardwalk until his uncle closed the bakery later this afternoon.
King rests his elbows on the railing about a foot from me without a word, his eyes on the ocean and his jaw tight. And wow, does he have a jaw. The last time I saw this man, he was a gangly teenager with barely a sign of facial hair, and the man next to me is…not that.
He’s still got his mop of dark hair, though he’s cut it slightly shorter on the sides so it doesn’t curl over his ears anymore, and his brown eyes are as bottomless as ever. His face isn’t as round as it used to be, full of angles and edges, and scruff lines his cheeks in a way it never did before. He looks like someone took hold of his eighteen-year-old self and, like clay, molded him into a man.
I gotta admit, they did a good job on him. I always thought he was cute, but grown-up Royal Kingston is certifiably gorgeous.
