Page 12 of The Holiday Hate-Off
“I need to be alone.”
“And I’d be a real asshole to leave you here by yourself, knowing there could be weirdos and flashers hiding underneath the bridge. Can’t do it.”
“That’s not why you’re staying,” she says fiercely. “You just want to get the last word. Rachelle told me all about that too.”
I shake my head, smiling tightly. Feeling the burn just like I’m supposed to. This time, I have to admit they both have a point. And since Idolike getting the last word, I say, “Rachelle’s not your friend. She probably forgot your name within five minutes of meeting you.”
“Oh, so she’s like you?”
I laugh. “We already established that you never told me your name.”
“You could have asked someone.”
I raise my eyebrows. “People were already whispering about you calling me a bad lover in front of half a dozen people. You think I wanted to encourage the rumor mill?”
She has the grace to look embarrassed. “I didn’t say you were a bad lover. I said if you didn’t?—”
“Oh, I remember exactly what you said. My brother emailed me the following week’s Lady Lovewatch column, which featured a direct quote. So thank you for that.”
Lady Lovewatch is the anonymous gossip columnist for our local paper. It’s all very good-natured and civilized, until it’s aboutyou.
Devil Woman balls her gloved hands into fists. “Since you want to discuss the past, I rememberexactlywhat Rachelle said. That you only care about yourself.”
I straighten up to my full height. “Hardly. She didn’t like that I cared so much about my family, but blood runs thicker than water.”
She flinches as if I’d hit her. “Not always.”
There’s something sharp about the way she says it. Still, my need for the last word pulses inside of me. “When you’re Italian American, always.”
“No wonder she broke up with you,” she says, lifting her chin like a prizefighter.
A tired sigh escapes me. “Look, let’s cut this conversation short. You don’t know me. You don’t know this town. You’re an outsider, a tourist who decided not to go home. You’ll always be an outsider.”
“At least I’m not an asshole.” She whips away from me, one long curl brushing across my arm, and runs off the bridge.
A feeling of remorse settles into my chest. I was in the wrong, but I wasn’t wrong. A person can’t get the lay of the land that quickly when it comes to something as intimate, as intertwined, as a small town. She may think I’m arrogant, but isn’t it arrogant to assume you know what’s best for a bunch of people you don’t even know?
At the same time, I’ve stayed away from Hideaway Harbor for years. What right do I have to still call it mine?
I wait a few minutes to make sure she’s long gone before I set off. She must have come on foot, because I don’t hear an engine turn over.
I’m about to leave the bridge when I notice a folded piece of pink paper on the ground. It’s dry and unmarred, freshly dropped. Devil Woman must have lost it as she fled.
Curious, I stoop to pick it up and open it.
Make a wish on the Wishing Bridge.
Beneath it, in neat, tiny writing, I see:
Lose my virginity to a rando so I can be ready for Mr. Perfect.
Holy shit.
I drop the note as if it had burned me.
CHAPTER 3
LUCY
