Zoey was sitting at the bar with her laptop open, her elbow resting on the countertop so her hand could create a platform for her head. Her tired gaze flicked over to me, and for a moment she looked confused until recognition passed over her face and she sat up.
“You’re back!” she said as she moved to shut her laptop and then slip off the barstool.
“Yeah, sorry.”
“I thought you were going to be another few hours,” she said as she rounded the counter to join me in the kitchen.
“Not tonight. Cole said he’d close up.”
Zoey frowned. “Cole?”
“I haven’t told you about him?” I asked as I set the soup down on the counter and turned to face her.
She shook her head.
“Let me say hi to Jasper. Can you dish up some of this soup for him? I think there are oyster crackers in the cupboard. When I get back, we can eat, and I’ll dish.”
She nodded and moved to open a cupboard while I hurried out to the living room to find Jasper lying on the couch. He squirmed when I kissed his cheek because I was “in his way” which I took as a good sign.
I tousled his hair and told him I’d have some soup out for him in a minute, but he didn’t respond. His gaze remained glued to the screen in front of him. Just as I turned to head back into the kitchen, my phone chimed. I slipped it out of my back pocket as I walked to see that it had been a text from Uncle Doug.
Doug:Heading out of town to do some more fishing in Montana. Probably won’t be back until next month. Keep that boy alive and my diner open.
I chuckled as I sent him a thumbs-up emoji followed by a few fish emojis, and he hearted the text.
Zoey was waiting for me at the kitchen table with two bowls of soup. She waved me over, and as soon as I joined her, she demanded that I spill the tea. So I told her all about Cole and what he’d said. The contract my uncle had signed, and the fact that his lawyer had authenticated it. I told her about how he’d brushed me off when I asked him his plan for the diner, telling me to keep our relationship professional, only for him to turn around and make me soup when he heard Jasper was sick.
Once everything was out in the open, I brought my bowl closer to me so I could take a bite. A small moan slipped from my lips as the broth touched my tongue. The flavor was so amazing for something so simple.
“So let me get this straight. He just shows up with aletter,” Zoey said, putting air quotes around the word, “and you just believed him?” Her gaze slipped down to the soup. “Then he tells you he wants to buy you out. Then he makes you soup and tells you not to come in tomorrow?” She slowly pushed the bowl of soup away from her. “I smell a coup.”
My gaze dropped to my bowl of soup as her words floated around my mind. “You think he’s trying to get on my good side just to push me out?”
When Zoey didn’t respond right away, I glanced up to see her shrug. “Do you think it’s possible?”
I drummed the table as I thought. Truth was, I didn’t know this man. Anything was possible. “Oh my gosh, he’s a slimeball.”
Zoey brought her foot up to rest on her seat as she tipped her head back and dropped some of the oyster crackers into her mouth. “I agree.”
I glanced over at her. “What do I do?”
A smile emerged on Zoey’s lips as she leaned in. “We don’t let him win.”
13
ELLA
I’d never been sohappy to see Monday on my daily calendar. Monday marked the conclusion of the weekend that would never end. Today, Coralie was heading back to New York, where she would be until Saturday when she would fly back to marry Asher. But I wasn’t going to focus on that part. For now, I was going to celebrate that I would have five full days alone with my best friend. We needed it.
Not only did it feel like Asher was changing who he was to be with this woman, but I could also feel him slipping away from me. We went to sample some meatless food yesterday at Tasteful Affairs, Harmony Island’s new catering company. It was so painful to stand there and watch Asher pretend that he liked the food when I knew he couldn’t stand what he was eating.
Add to that the fact that Coralie had made it perfectly clear she didn’t like me, and I was ready for the week to start so that I could feel somewhat normal until my entire world shifted this weekend.
I stretched out on my bed and closed my eyes before inhaling deeply through my nose and out through my mouth. Something was up with Asher, and I wasn’t going to feel better until I got to the bottom of it.
I understood tweaking things here and there to accommodate your fiancée, but to fully change fundamental things about yourself? I just couldn’t believe that Asher was actually happy with what he was doing.
And I missed my best friend. It had been so long since I’d been able to talk to him. Like truly, deep down talk to him. Every conversation we’d had since he came back from New York with Coralie by his side had been surface-level crap. I wanted Asher back, and now that Coralie was gone, I was determined to get him back.
