Page 114 of The Trouble with Flings

“How the hell should I know?” Jamison says. “I need coffee.”

As he heads up to the counter, I glance at Jennifer, surrounded by women who have already brought her into their close-knit group. She looks over and smiles.

Fuck optimal outcomes. I grab a chair from another table and sit by my girl.

Jennifer is vibrating as we head to the car almost two hours later. “Is that normal? Seeing so many friends on a random Saturday?”

“Pretty much.”

“I’m not usually a crowd girl, but that was fun. Everyone was really nice.”

She got a good dose of what it’s like here. Jamison claimed a chair at the table, though he didn’t stay long. He was right about being outnumbered but wrong about Jennifer feeling pressure to act a certain way because of my presence. When the girls heckled me and Jamison, Jennifer didn’t hesitate to join in. Jules and her sisters, Leni and Sutton, wandered in for coffee and sat with us for a little while, too. Before taking off to go shopping, they added Jennifer to their private girl chat on their phones. God only knows what kind of interrogation she’s in for, but I have no doubt she can hold her own.

She talks about them halfway to Seaport, making sure she knows the names of their significant others and who belongs to which family, so she can keep them straight when we go to Brant and Cait’s tonight and to the Easter egg hunt tomorrow.

She’s quiet as we drive down the main drag of the old fishing town, looking out the window at the cottages that had once been home to fishermen and have been converted into shops and restaurants, their residential fences and driveways still intact.

I’ve driven these narrow roads hundreds of times, but today I try to see them through Jennifer’s eyes. There are no grand monuments or enormous houses in Seaport, as there are in Silver Haven, no elaborate town square or cobblestone streets like in Chaffee, but Seaport has the heart and soul of a close-knit, salt-of-the-earth town in which people show up for one another in times of celebration and grief and after every storm. My family has been showing up alongside this community my whole life in good times and bad, doling out congratulations, soothing hurt hearts, hauling supplies, fixing roofs, and writing checks nobody ever asks for.

“I forgot how much I liked this part of the island,” she says as we pass the bakery, the candle shop, and the corner wine shop with the hand-lettered sign. “It’s not as fancy as the other side of the island.”

“It’s a sweet town. Where was the cottage you rented last summer?”

“I don’t remember,” she says.

That does not sound like the detail-oriented Jennifer I know. I arch a brow. “You loved the town but can’t remember where you stayed?”

She winces. “Fine. I might’ve embellished a little.”

“Embellished what?”

“Where I stayed. I couldn’t afford a cottage for the weekend, so I rented a room above a garage.”

“Why wouldn’t you just tell me the truth? Rentals in peak season cost a fortune.”

“I don’t know why. I was going for a vibe the night we met. Garage apartment sounds like a fire hazard, and cottage sounds like a romance novel, so I went with it.”

“Now, that sounds like the Jennifer Stone who reeled me in like a fish on a line,” I say as I park behind the furniture showroom.

She rolls her eyes. “I did not.”

“You absolutely did, all brash confidence and brazen sexuality. Other women only wish they could hold a candle to you.” I lean across the console, tugging her closer. She smells like roses and sunshine, and there’s been a new shimmer in her eyes lately that looks really fucking good on her. I brush my nose along hers and say, “You could’ve slept in your car, and it wouldn’t have made a difference to me.”

“Wanna bet?” she challenges.

“Absolutely. What are we wagering? I win and you do whatever I want for a night, and vice versa?”

“That sounds like a win-win for me. I’ll take it.” She smirks. “And just so you know, I don’t own a car, which means I’d have to steal one, and you would’ve been sleeping with a criminal.”

“Well, I do like my girl naughty.”

I give her a chaste kiss, and then we head inside.

The showroom is located in the old mercantile building, tucked between the main shopping district and the harbor, with faded cedar shingles, tall windows, and wide front doors. Inside, the air carries the rich scent of wood and leather. It’s quiet in the way churches and libraries are.

Jennifer moves through the showroom like she’s in a museum, whispering as we make our way through rooms where heavy farmhouse tables sit beside intricately carved trestle tables and round tables with claw feet. Leather and upholstered armchairs are positioned by sun-drenched windows overlooking the water, and decorative shelves are intermixed with wood-and-glass display cabinets.

She stands in front of a glider in a living room display, studying it appreciatively. “Everything is so inviting,” she whispers.