Page 21 of Win Some Love Some
“I know.”
This wasn’t working. She clearly didn’t want to talk to anyone, least of all me.
Maybe a little nostalgia might shake her out of it.
“You want to enter the three-legged race?” I pointed at the square where couples were pairing up to have their legs tied. “Show those rookies how it’s done?”
“Uh, hard pass,” she said disdainfully. I wasn’t sure if that attitude was for the race or for me. Probably me.
“We could-”
“Nick. Stop. Just…stop.”
I knew this wasn’t about me. Her life had fallen apart. But it had been six years, six years of being kept out of her life and she needed me. Her friend. Her best fucking friend. I knew it, Roy knew it. She had to know it.
“Me? Me stop? How aboutyoustop!”
Her eyes got huge. “Me! What am I doing?”
I rubbed my hands through my hair, over my face. I wanted to strangle her. I wanted to pull her into my arms and tell her everything was going to be okay. But I could do none of that because of that stupid night. Because she’d crossed a line and I’d messed it up and she couldn’t even fucking look at me.
“Ignoring me! It’s been years, Nora. Years. Are we ever just going to get over it?”
“There’s nothing for you to get over.”
I couldn’t control my gasp of outrage. I sounded like Madame Za when she flipped over a good card for someone. Nothing for me to get over? She’d basically ignored me forsixyears.
“Fine, thenyouget over it,” I said sharply.
“Why do you even care?”
Didn’t she know I wouldalwayscare?
“Because I fucking miss you, okay?” I stood, too agitated to sit. “We were friends. We were a part of each other’s lives, then you just cut me out-”
There was a ruckus over by the apple cider donuts stand. A crowd was forming. Phones were being lifted overhead so they could video whatever was happening.
Nora got to her feet like she might bolt and I put my hand on her elbow. Through her sweatshirt I could feel the tension in her body.
“Is it…” she stopped herself from saying his name but it was in the air between us. I knew for a long time she’d be looking over her shoulder for that guy. Just like it took me years to stop looking over my shoulder for my father.
“No,” I said.
“Can you see?” she asked, craning her neck. “Do you know?”
The crowd split and two men – two giant men – one wearing a plain black sweatshirt and Timberlands. The other one wearing a leather coat and a diamond fucking necklace walked right through the three-legged race course towards us.
People were staring, pointing. You would think everyone in town would have gotten used to them by now. They practically lived here.
“Is that the…the Locke brothers? What are the Locke brothers doing in Calico Cove?”
“How do you know The Locke Brothers?”
“Roy. And Will.”
Right. Hockey fans.
“Nick?” she said, tugging on the sleeve of my shirt. “Why are they walking towards us?”
