Page 34 of The Vineyard Bride

Chapter Fourteen

“It feels like a hammerliterally fell on my head.”Audrey placed her forehead on the cool wood of their favorite table in their favorite booth at their favorite breakfast place in the world, just to the left of her huge plate of pancakes.

Lola, whose own head felt similarly worse for wear, reached toward their communal pile of bacon and crunched the edge.“We really pushed it last night.”

“I remember everything until right after Mark Rathburn ordered us a round of tequila at that last bar,” Audrey whispered.“As he told me where he thought I fit into the future of journalism.”

“Mark was drunker than both of us combined,” Lola told her with a laugh.“I don’t think you have to worry about embarrassing yourself.”

Audrey puffed out her cheeks and lifted her head.Boston rain splattered across the window as Lola slid her fork and knife through the pulp of her own stack of pancakes, feeling heavy with a sense of loss.After all, a celebration of something meant that a portion of your life was over.She would never strive in her career in the same way.She would always be known as having “made it.”

“Burgers and breakfast,” Audrey said sadly as she crunched on a slice of bacon.“What else was on the food list?”

Lola shrugged.“Let’s not make ourselves sicker than we already are.”

Audrey laughed and rubbed her eyes, smearing her eyeliner.“Maybe instead, we should teleport back to the Vineyard.I’d like to sleep for the next week.”

Lola dropped her eyes to her plate, thinking about Boston and the intensity of her love for this city.Her life on the Vineyard was gorgeous, brimming with love.But if there was anything she’d taken from the gala and the night of her bachelorette party, it was this: Boston had been an integral part of her career and life.She couldn’t throw all that away; she couldn’t avoid acknowledgment.

“I want to drive by Valerie’s place,” Lola admitted suddenly, surprising herself.

Audrey arched her eyebrow.“Really?”

“I don’t know where to put my love for Valerie,” Lola continued.“She and Jenny were my family here in Boston.They basically helped me raise you.In so many ways, I never could have won that award if not for their support.”

“I don’t know what I would do without so much support on the island,” Audrey murmured as she slid a big piece of pancake through the syrup.

“They were my sisters, my best friends.”Lola swallowed a gulp of coffee as her mind cleared.“I need to stop by Valerie’s place.Ask if there’s a way to get through this together.”

“You want to just drop by?No calling?”Audrey asked.

“According to my phone, I texted her three times last night, with no answer,” Lola returned sheepishly.

“Oh no.Drunk texting your ex-best friend?”Audrey scrunched her nose.

“I know.Not a good look,” Lola replied.

“I guess dropping by is the only way to go, then.”Audrey fell back against the cushion of the booth.“Do you think she’d be willing to come with us to the pizza place?Or would she rather hit up the Chinese place?”

Lola laughed good-naturedly, grateful, as ever, that Audrey was willing to make a joke.“Unfortunately, I don’t think this conversation can be food-based.”

Audrey groaned.“If you say so.”

For the previous ten years, Valerie had lived in a little apartment building about fifteen minutes away from where Lola’s last Boston residence (which she’d finally given up about six months after she’d officially gone to the island).Lola drove the familiar route toward the apartment building as Audrey texted Noah in the front seat, laughing to herself about whatever inside joke they shared.

Once outside the apartment building, Lola shut the engine off and traced a path with her eyes to the first-floor apartment pathway, which she and Audrey had traced time after time en route to Val’s place.

“You want to come with me?”Lola asked.

Audrey nodded.“I’ll be your backup.”

“This isn’t, like, a mafia thing, Aud.”

“Whatever you say,” Audrey offered with a crooked grin.Lola laughed, despite everything.

Once outside, rain flattened itself across her forearms and upper forehead.Lola rustled her fingers through her greasy hair, wishing she’d bothered to scrub her scalp in the shower that morning rather than opting for a “rinse off.”

Valerie’s front door was just as non-descript as the other apartment doors, with only the APARTMENT NUMBER: 144 proof that this was, in fact, the place Valerie had resided for ten years.Lola rapped the front door, shoving away memories about Valerie’s horrendous attitude at her bachelorette party.

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