“You’re so sweet, Caroline May. That’s why this place didn’t take you down. Why you’re getting out of here with a man like that. I’m not sure how you managed to remain unscathed, but thank your lucky stars, okay?” she grabs me by both shoulders. “Nothing is as it seems around here.” If she’s just realizing this, I gave her too much credit all of these years.
“I know that,” I deadpan. “It doesn’t mean you can’t change if something isn’t sitting well with you, though. You don’t have to do something because that’s what everyone else expects you to do.” I learned that the hard way. No one thought I’d get my pilot’s license. Not one of these people, aside from Shirley and maybe Malena, thought I’d eventually take over the airport. They saw my future as the uneducated daughter of really good people. The diner was where I was relinquished.
She gives me that look. The one that says I don’t have a clue how the world works, and I bite my tongue.
“He’s cheating on me with Milly,” she says, and then heaves an exasperated sigh. “He was drunk. Because how could he not be.” I mask my face the same way I do when someone at the diner mentions something scandalous and I want to be trusted. She’s not done. Not by a long shot. She wants to spill it all, and she thinks I’m lapping it up. “I mean, he’s always cheating on me, I thought maybe once we were engaged, and then when that didn’t happen. I figured maybe when it gets closer to the wedding he would stop, but now I realize it’s a life sentence if I don’t break up with him now.”
Swallowing hard, I try to straighten my face into something sympathetic. “I’m so sorry, Britt. You deserve better than that.” I always assumed she knew, but I guess I didn’t realize the extent to which Whit was digging himself down. I can’t help but glance back, but Whit is nowhere to be found, and Tahoe is with a group of his friends surrounding the keg. He’s laughing, and his smile makes my heart skip a beat. He would never be a Whit. He couldn’t.
“So what do you think?” she asks, drawing my attention back to her.
“You want my opinion? I’m hardly the person to give opinions about relationships. Mine is so new I’m still peeling off the purchase sticker,” I reply. We slide onto a picnic bench because I can tell this conversation is far from over and she’s latched on to me.
“If it were you what would you do?”
“Are you asking for permission to break up with your cheating fiancé?”
“Of course I don’t need permission,” she says, letting her gaze wander. Probably looking for her manwhore. “Everyone would freak, Caroline. Everyone. I’m basically finished planning. I’ve got wedding gifts lining our hallway. All the gossip aside, we’d lose so much money. God, he’d never forgive me.”
I narrow my eyes. “Do you really want his forgiveness?”
She shakes her head. “You’re right. It’s so hard when you’ve been with someone for so long. You wouldn’t understand.”
Burn. Typical. “I think you should do whatever you want, Britt. I think you can handle whatever happens, but I also know you’re a beautiful girl with a ton of prospects. Maybe one that wouldn’t cheat.”
“All men cheat, Caroline. It’s a fact of life,” she breathes, tossing her hair back. “A man like yours is the worst kind.” I guess my non-opinion on her love life made me the punching bag.
“A man like mine?”
“One everyone wants.”
My stomach roils. “I’m going to get a drink. Want one?”
She nods and I rise and make my way toward the keg opposite to the one where someone wearing boots and shorts is doing a keg stand. The raucous cheers and sloshy voices ricochet off the trees lining the sides of the property.
Once I fill two beers with mostly foam, I head back for Britt and find her talking to Malena, poor old Caroline all but forgotten. I can tell Malena is getting the same earful, and I can’t help but be a little relieved. Maybe Malena will have advice for her. Maybe Malena will have the balls to tell her Whit is a disgusting asshole who should rot at the bottom of the bay. I take a small sip of the light beer and wince. I hate boat beer. It’s what we call all light beer. It goes down like water though and that’s what you want in the hot, hot sun.
Tahoe sneaks up next to me, and grabs one of my cups. “What is my DD doing with two beers? This place is awesome,” he exclaims.
Smiling, I nod. “It is. Looks like you guys are having a good time so far. Anyone giving you a hard time?”
He laughs, the beer already gone. “Who is going to give us a hard time and live to tell about it?”
He kisses me. It’s all beer and foam and the light scent of his face soap. I go into his arms willingly. He pulls back and looks me from the top of my head down to my breasts and back again. “What were you and the bitch talking about?”
I sigh, the mood broken. “Her cheating fiancé. She’s thinking about leaving him. I guess he’s just as bad as he’s always been. She thought he’d change.”
Tahoe throws his head back and laughs. “That’s the oldest, dumbest trick in the book. No one changes. What the other person is willing to accept changes.”
Biting my lip for a moment, I ask. “You don’t think cheating is okay though, right?”
His eyes widen. “You think I would cheat?”
“Of course not,” I say, looking down to the water where several canoes wait for their drunken captains. That won’t happen until later.
“You do think that. Why?”
I shrug, look down, and kick the sandy grass. “I don’t have much experience with relationships and Britt mentioned that all men cheat. I know she probably only said that to make herself feel better, but I have to wonder about you guys. Always traveling. Never settling down. Your reputation precedes you in that regard. You admitted you were only in a committed relationship with Stella.”
