Page 18 of 40 and (No Longer) Fighting It
Scarlett’s eyes went wide with greed. “I’ll finish right up.”
Claire left her friend to get the words she’d been searching for onto the page while she popped the casserole into the oven. Premixed salad waited in the fridge, and she gathered the fixings and prepared two bowls with the veggies, then added a loaf of French bread to the oven and poured the wine. By the time Scarlett came into the kitchen, dinner was ready.
“Oh my God, I’m starving!”
“You worked up an appetite,” Claire teased.
“You have no idea. Jax and Vanessa are being total shitheads. I’ve been struggling with the two of them all day.”
Scarlett’s characters were notoriously finicky. Scarlett said that was just her process, that she couldn’t tell her characters what to do but instead had to wait for them to tell her what the story was. Claire thought that sounded like an exercise in constant frustration.
She passed over a plate of lasagna. “Here, maybe this’ll help.”
They settled on the couch in the front parlor with their food, wine, and the next episode of their current binge,Nailed It!A conversation not long after they first met had uncovered their mutual bewilderment with the shows many of their peers loved. Scarlett claimed the constant fooling around onThe Bachelorand other romance-central reality TV offended her romance author’s need for a hero who was ruthlessly monogamous once he laid eyes on his heroine. Claire hated the idea that romance and dating were some kind of competition you had to “win,” especially given the way her own marriage had ended. The two had bonded over their love of food; hence a weekly TV night featuring their latest cooking show fixation.
While stuffing themselves with salad and lasagna, they hooted and hollered at the show’s participants as they created disaster after disaster, rolled their eyes to each other at the hosts’ corny jokes, and wolf-whistled the sexy stagehand that appeared periodically with prizes. At the end of the episode, Claire sat back against the overstuffed red suede couch that was Scarlett’s pride and joy, and finished off the last swallow of her wine.
“Another glass?” Scarlett asked, standing up.
“I’m good.” She gathered her dirty dishes and followed her friend back to the kitchen. “I’ve got a meeting in the morning at the bank for the financing of the new shop, then a cake for Patty’s little boy to make.”
Patty owned the deli on the square. Her husband had run off with another woman last year, leaving Patty alone with their three boys.
A haunted look shadowed Scarlett’s eyes before she bent to add her dishes to the dishwasher. Claire didn’t know much about Scarlett’s background before she’d moved here a year ago, none of them did, but she was almost certain a divorce had been part of it. A bad one. Her friend wrote romance and was an enthusiastic proponent of relationships when it came to their friends’ circle, but mentions of a breakup or reminders of a situation like Patty’s always brought Scarlett down.
“You okay?” Claire dared to ask. She was closer than Lily or Erin had become to Scarlett, but having been through her own shitty divorce, she’d been careful not to push too hard. Scarlett would tell her about her past when she was ready.
“Hmm? Oh, yeah, sure.” Scarlett pinned a smile on her face and reached for Claire’s dishes.
“I can do that.”
“So can I,” Scarlett asserted, and this time her smile was genuine. “You haven’t said how things are going with the resort.”
Speaking of avoidance… Claire handed over her dishes, then went to work on the food. “We’re just at the beginning of planning, so there’s not a lot to tell.” Total lie. And when she glanced over her shoulder at Scarlett, the knowing look she caught said her friend knew it. She cleared her throat. “So, you know Lincoln Young is in town.”
“Met him at the barbecue,” Scarlett said. “He is one sexy silver fox.”
If Claire had been drinking, she’d have choked. “I guess so,” she wheezed.
“Guess so?” Scarlett rinsed her hands in the sink. “There’s no guessing about it.” She eyed Claire. “But somehow I think you know that, don’t you?’
Claire rolled her eyes. “I know a lot when it comes to Lincoln, unfortunately.”
Scarlett chuckled as she took her empty wineglass over to the bar, had a seat next to the nearly empty bottle, and patted the barstool next to her. “Sit down and tell Aunty Scarlett all about it. Especially those delectable muscles. Or the tattoos.”
She didn’t know much more about the muscles or tattoos than anyone else except how they felt under her fingertips, though her attention had really been on Lincoln’s mouth at the time. His tongue.
Was it getting hot in here?
Plopping down on the barstool, she cautioned, “Fair warning: there’s drama ahead.”
“Oh, well then spill it immediately.”
So Claire did. Meeting Lincoln, their conflict, the reasons she’d left New York. The things she’d learned from him last night. Her own uncertainty. Honestly, it felt good to get it all out, to air her thoughts and just get some space around them.
When she finally fizzled to a stop, Scarlett was frowning. “So he’s just looking for a summer fling?”
Claire shrugged. “I’m not totally clear on that aspect.”
