“Sure.” He winked. “The town director.”
“How convenient.”
“You’ll come to realize a lot of jobs around Magnolia Bay default to me.” Like—all of them, lately.
“So why aren’t you mayor, then?” She tilted her head toward him.
He tightened his grip on the wheel. “Maybe one day. When I’ve earned it.”
“Seems inevitable. You’ve always been the face of Magnolia Bay.” Rosalyn’s ponytail flipped over her shoulder as she twisted toward him. “Small-town boy.”
“And you were always destined for bigger and better things.”
She stared straight ahead, the wind funneling through their cart, carrying the scent of lilacs and stirring loose tendrils by her cheeks. “I don’t know about better.”
“Don’t tell me the world-famous aerialist has regrets?” Cade missed the next pothole with room to spare, thankfully.
But Rosalyn seemed to sink right into his verbal one. Her profile tightened. “I guess we all have a few, huh?”
“I’ve got one.” He took a chance, hurled a dumb question into the air. “Like why weren’t we ever actually friends?”
That snapped her out of it. She snorted. “Because you were always trying beat me?”
“And yet you somehow managed to always beatme.”
Rosalyn shook her head with a grin, the shadows on her face retreating. “Not always. There was that one mathletes competition, remember?”
He remembered. “Eh. I got lucky.” He’d also studied harder than he ever had before. Wanted to impress her—which had always been impossible. She was too smart. Too perfect.
She continued. “And you always beat my team at trivia when we had history questions.”
Cade shrugged as he slowed the cart at the upcoming intersection. “But you always got the English and science questions right. I still have no idea what elements do what to who.”
She shot him a sideways look. “Whom.”
“Oh, don’t even start, Ace.” He chuckled, loving the sound of hers when she laughed in return.
And maybethatwas why they’d never been friends. Rosalyn would’ve burrowed under his skin much too quickly, camped out there. She’d been too busy with her girl group anyway, the ones who’d spouted man-hate and turned their nerdy noses up at Cade for four years because he liked to date cheerleaders and got along with the jocks and still managed to make good grades.
See? He hadn’t depended on Dad foreverything.
“You aren’t lying about not knowing elements, by the way.” She squinted at him. “Or compounds, rather. Like how much vinegar is needed for a volcano.”
Ha. “I swear, you’re going to engrave that on my tombstone one day, aren’t you? It wasoneproject.”Onemistake.
But all his mistakes seemed to hover over him, didn’t they? Like the mist over the bay in the morning.
“Being forced to work together in sixth grade didn’t go very well, did it?” Rosalyn winced, her dimpled cheeks providing apology. “But hey, look at us now.”
“Yep. The small-town boy and the aerialist.” Two people who couldn’t have any more different goals.
They’d always been rivals. And even if they’d had a near-moment years ago in an alley, or even if her laughter felt like the best possible remedy for his stress, and even if she could give Blake Lively a run for her money in the beauty department…
That’s clearly all they were destined to be. She’d always seen him as a spoiled extension of his father. Besides, she’d be off and running to the next big performance out of town—probably out of the country—once her knee allowed her.
“The small-town boy and the aerialist?” Rosalyn repeated, tilting her head as Cade turned onto Bayou Boulevard. “Sounds like a book title.”
Cade snorted. “Maybe so.”
