Page 30 of Merritt and Her Childhood Crush
I cross my arms. “Maybe I just like being alone.”
“Maybe you’re a control freak.”
“Maybe I am.”
Dante shakes his head, smiling. “You’d never agree with me if you weren’t trying to pretend Merritt isn’t the real reason. Or, at least, a big part of the reason. You are also a control freak, by the way.”
“Don’t expect me to send more business your way anytime soon,” I mutter.
He cackles. “I’m not looking. But for real, man. Whatever feelings you’re feeling, I don’t think they’re a one-way street.”
I ignore the way my heart lifts at this statement and the springing up where none has any business growing. Like a ruthless gardener, I yank it right out by the roots. Hope is a weed.
“She doesn’t want to live on a small island,” I say pointedly. “She doesn’t want this life.”
Dante shrugs away my words with an easy roll of his eyes. “You gonna hold her accountable for something she said ten years ago?”
“Yep,” I say simply. It’s the best way to protect myself from moments like the one earlier when I almost kissed her in the kitchen. “Also, she has a boyfriend back in New York.”
Dante frowns. “Really? That is not the vibe I got when she was drinking you in like a tall glass of water.”
“Such a cliché, man. And she was not drinking—”
Dante’s raised eyebrow silences my rebuttal.
“Was she?” I can’t help asking, but I feel stupid the second I do.
Dante doesn’t tease me this time. “Just telling you what it looked like to me. Maybe the two of you should talk.”
Maybe we should.
Or, maybe I should go on trying to keep my distance. Maybe I should remember how much it hurt to lose Merritt the first time. How much I let her words set me on a path to the small life I live.
What sucks is not knowing whether I’d be living this same small life if Merritt hadn’t said what she did. Is this the life I really want? Or did her words stick like some kind of label, making me think this is the only life I can have?
I drive home in silence until the silence starts to feel too loud. I switch on the Bluetooth connection in my truck, hoping whatever I last listened to on my phone will start up and distract me from my own thoughts.
Except the last person listening to anything on my phone was Isabelle, so what starts playing is some kid-friendly version of Justin Bieber.
This isdefinitelyworse than silence.
I pause at a red light and shuffle through my Taylor albums. My current mood isFolklore. But what Ineedis1989, so I go with that.
If “Shake It Off” is a little too on the nose, no one but me needs to know what I’m humming along to.
I cross the bridge onto Oakley in a new, Taylor-mellowed state of mind and debate driving straight home and not going back to Genevieve’s place at all. But I left tools in the front yard, and I don’t trust island weather enough to leave them out overnight. What’s more, I picked up the shiplap to trim out the fireplace in the front room before stopping in at Dante’s. Bare minimum, I need to drop that off.
But I won’t stay.
I won’t look for Merritt.
I won’t consider Dante’s suggestion to have a conversation that’s a decade or more in the making. Even if I probably should.
All those well-intentioned resolutions—and my mellow mood—go out the window when I pull up to the front of the house.
Merritt is sitting on the front porch steps. She’s surrounded by sawdust and construction debris—she probably ought to be wearing a hardhat—and for just a moment, she looks like the Merritt from before. Her hair is loose, blowing in the late afternoon breeze. Her blue eyes pop against the dusty blue of her shirt. Her feet are bare.
She should really be wearing shoes with so much debris, even out here. But what is it about a woman being barefoot?
