Page 52 of The Weekend Crashers
“Do I get to go again?” she says.
Barclay tells her she has three tries before her turn counts as a zero. But she misses each time.
“Okay, I suck,” she says, but she’s grinning. She’s happy.
Maggie won’t hesitate to take credit: This trip was a stroke of genius. There’s no way Piper would have bounced back so quickly after the professional blow last week if they’d stayed in the city. Remarkably, she seems less affected by it than Maggie, who is still thinking about how to fix things for her. Just because Gretchen was the first person to see Piper’s potential doesn’t mean she’s the only one who ever will. Piper just has to get herself back out there.
“I might be the weak link here,” Piper says, returning in defeat. The next bachelor in line steps up for his throw. This time, it’s Aidan’s nephew.
“Never.” Maggie smiles and puts her arm around her. Scott’s hatchet lands with a thud, but it’s a low-scoring area.
“See? He barely did any better than you,” Maggie says.
“Aside from actually hitting the target, you mean?” Piper says. Then, leaning closer. “Listen, I have an interesting idea for tonight.”
“Oh?”
She nods vigorously. “Cole invited us to go camping with them tonight. Not for the competition. Just us—for fun.”
Maggie is surprised. Piper loves animals, but she’s never been particularly outdoorsy. She is, as Barclay said, a “city girl.” They’ve never gone camping together. It never even crossed Maggie’s mind. The closest they got was an extremely rustic hotel when they took a road trip to the Outer Banks one summer. She wonders what’s going on. If it weren’t for Ethan, she’d think for sure Piper had a flirtation going with Cole Danby. But it can’t be that. Maybe she’s genuinely having a good time and is caught up in the momentum of the weekend. The thought makes Maggie profoundly happy.
And of course, for her own reasons, the invitation to spend more time with the Danbys is appealing. The knitting retreat just got a lot more interesting.
Barclay is not happy to see Team Knitters within two points of tying the score after Round One. Aidan huddles everyone together to strategize. Out of the entire bachelor party, only a few of them are significantly better throwers than the women. Ritchie is one of them, but the beer is making his game sloppy.
“Ritchie, we’re cutting you off until you rack up some points for us.”
“And Cole, no more cavorting with the competition,” Barclay says.
Aidan did notice that Cole made a point of helping one of the knitters with her throw: Kalli, the dark-haired, dark-eyed young woman from the knitting class.
“Got it, Grandpa,” he says. Then, quietly to Aidan: “I hope you don’t mind cavorting with the competition too. Because I invited Maggie and Piper camping with us tonight.”
Aidan makes a face like,ha ha. Then he realizes Cole is serious.
“Wait. You did? Why?”
“I guess the same reason you invited them to build the fort,” he says with a shrug. But Aidan isn’t letting him off the hook that easily.
“That was a bet.”
Cole gives him a look like, come on.
“She has a boyfriend, you know,” Aidan says. “Maggie tells me they’re practically engaged.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You tell me.”
If Cole’s attracted to unavailable women, Piper Hodges fits the criteria. Now that Barclay’s implying some sort of toxic pattern, he can’t help but see it too. And even though Barclay asked him not to, he has to saysomethingto Cole. His first responsibility, always, is to Cole.
He almost wishes Barclay hadn’t invited him out for drinks in the first place. He didn’t need to hear about Cole’s relationship, or Barclay’s theories on his parenting weaknesses. What’s Aidan supposed to do now? He doesn’t have a time machine to go back to the past and find a perfect relationship to model for his son. And really, maybe staying single hadn’t been a choice so much as an unfortunate inevitability. He never found someone he was interested in, or had enough in common with; not many people in their thirties could relate to being a widower. He’d met women who were divorced, but never one who’d lost her husband. So while he’d had a few decent dates here and there, a few nascent relationships, nothing ever felt like a true connection. At least, not enough of one. So at some point along the way he’d figured, why bother?
“I’m not hitting on Piper, if that’s what you mean,” Cole says, practicing his arm follow-through.
“Okay. Good. Because chasing unavailable women is a fast track to misery.”
Cole drops his arms. “Why do you say that?”
