Page 97 of Brewbies
“That’s what I wish people in Townsend Harbor understood.” Rolling onto her side, Darby faced Ethan across her rumpled pillow. “These artists, these performers that they’re so quick to judge and label? They’re the same people who had next to nothing themselves, but moved heaven and earth to help me. Someone they knew only a few months, and they took turns coming with me to appointments, organizing benefit shows. And here they are again,” she said, gesturing toward her camper window. “They hear Brewbies is in trouble, and boom. They’re here with bells on.”
“Are you talking about the guy who was wandering around with the cowbell hooked through his scrotum?”
Darby rudely nudged her hips backward, making Ethan grunt. “You know what I mean. Townsend Harbor isn’t a tight-knit community because its residents are close. It’s because they’reclosed. Closed-minded. Closed-hearted. And Lord help anyone who tries to infiltrate those ranks.”
Ethan studied her with an intensity that made her feel simultaneously vulnerable and real. “I wouldn’t sayanyone.”
“Just sex positive, boob-themed coffee campers that donate a portion of their proceeds to breast cancer research?”
He looked thoughtful for a moment. “In all fairness, had more people realized the cancer research part, I doubt you’d have garnered the same reaction.”
“But that’s the whole fucking point,” she insisted, her pulse beginning to thunder in her ears. “I’m not interested in having to wear my status as a breast cancer survivor like some kind of shield against social judgment. Women shouldn’t have to almost die to live life on their terms.”
A crease appeared in Ethan’s lightly freckled forehead.
“On a related topic, I’d trade my vintage Swarovski crystal pasties to know who started the petition in the first place.” Darby flopped over onto her back and stared at the rainbow shards bobbing along her camper’s ceiling from the prism in the window. “Someone has some serious comeuppance coming their way.”
Heavy silence thickened the air.
Ethan shifted away from her and sat up in bed, and the sheets slipped down his bare chest as he stared toward the front of the camper.
A powerful wave of déjà vu rocked her as her body experienced a sudden and involuntary onslaught.
Tunneling vision. Damp palms. Racing heart. Metallic saliva gathering beneath her tongue.
Ethan looked at her then—really looked at her—his eyes appearing impossibly blue next to the sleep-reddened whites.
“I did.”
Darby’s heart lurched as if she’d sustained a physical blow. She tried to find her voice but only managed one stuttered syllable. “You?”
“Yes,” Ethan confirmed, his face contorting with what looked an awful lot like guilt. “I started the petition.”
The world tipped on its axis as she looked at him, trying to process the implications of what he’d just said. “You?” she asked again.
“Yes.”
Pushing against the bed, Darby turned to face him. “So, were you just never going to tell me before I brought it up?”
Ethan shifted slightly, adjusting himself on the bed before he answered her. “I honestly thought you might have assumed it anyway.”
“But when you came to serve the notice, you said, and I quote, ‘This isn’t coming from me.’”
“Because it wasn’t.”
Darby folded her arms over her chest, wishing she’d at least bothered to wear a sports bra before she turned in for the night. “I’m going to need you to make that make sense.”
On a heavy sigh, Ethan whipped back the sheet, awkwardly crab-scooting to the end of the bed.
One major downside to camper living—not enough real estate to properly retreat to your separate corners during a disagreement.
Snatching his jeans from the hook by her full-body mirror, he jammed his legs into them. “I started the petition because everyone and their goddamned dogs were lighting up the departments’ lines around the clock. If they hadn’t had somewhere constructive for their objections to go, you’d have had protestors camped across the highway a hell of a lot sooner.”
“So it had absolutely nothing to do with your own personal objections to a sex- and body-positive bikini coffee camper?” she asked.
It was a tripwire, and they both knew it.
There was no way Ethan could answer in the negative without lying. And while Ethan Townsend was many things—the list grew longer every minute—a liar wasn’t one of them.
