“Hunter,” she said quietly. “What’s this really about?”
Hunter opened her mouth to speak, then stopped. Shelby glanced back at the other guests, hoping no one would interrupt them. She wasn’t going back to the party until Hunter spilled it.
“Just tell me,” Shelby said.
“Fine,” Hunter said, crossing her arms. “Do you remember that last summer we went sailing with my parents?”
The question was so out of context, it took Shelby a second to think about it. “We did that a few times.”
“Right. But the day when we did edibles and kept hanging out belowdecks and they didn’t know why we were freaked out by the wind?”
Shelby smiled. She did remember that day. They’d accidentally gotten way too high. It hadn’t been funny at the time, but it was now that she thought back on it. Still—what did that have to do with anything?
“That morning, before the boat, I told you there was a guy I liked,” Hunter said. “But that I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.” Hunter’s face turned red and she toyed with the small gold hoop near the top of her ear the way she did when she was upset.
Shelby had no recollection of the conversation.
“He was someone I’d been thinking about for a while. Someone I thought I had, I don’t know, some sort of connection with that might turn into something more. I was, like, sure of it.”
“I’m sorry, Hunter. I don’t remember you telling me about him.”
“That’s because I never did. Not specifically. Because a few nights later, you showed up at the Canteen with him.”
Shelby tilted her head to one side. It took her a beat to be sure she was understanding her.
“You don’t mean... Justin?”
“I do mean Justin. The night we went to dinner after his talk at Town Hall, I felt like we connected. And for some reason, I just couldn’t get my mind off him all year. I thought, I don’t know, that something might happen that summer.”
Shelby’s jaw dropped. Hunter had just described exactly the way she herself had felt after that first night with the Lombardos. And she didn’t wonder why Hunter never mentioned it; Shelby hadn’t, either. It was too ephemeral. It felt, well, silly. And they were not silly girls.
“When he picked you, I could live with it. I was happy for you. I thought, okay maybe it’s true love or something, and how could I compete with that? Who was I to even try? But then you just dumped him. Like it wasnothing. And it seemed like...such a waste.”
Shelby pressed her fingers to her temples. “I’m trying to process this. Are you saying this was all about Justin? Not the book?” She lowered her hands, incredulous.
“It all ties together. I saw how you ended things with Justin, and I thought, wow, she turned it off just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “But I guess we all make choices.”
“That’s not true,” Shelby said. “I didn’t... Nothing turned off.” In fact, breaking up with Justin had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done. But she knew it came down to a case of “right guy, wrong time.” She’d learned, moving around so much as a child, that goodbye was a part of life. Understanding this, acting accordingly, wasn’t a character flaw. It was her strength.
“I felt bad for him,” Hunter said. “I couldn’t imagine losing you as a friend. And I thought, well, she’d never do that to me. But when you moved to New York, you kinda did.”
“Hunter, that’s not fair. Our lives changed. You got busy, too.”
“True. And I didn’t blame you. You had other things on your mind, new friends. So did I. And maybe you forgot about me a little. I had no problem with that. But you didn’t forget about me at all, did you? In fact, you remembered so much,you felt the need to write it into a book.”
Shelby stared at her. Hunter looked away, her attention caught by something beyond them. Shelby turned to see Pam walking over.
“Ladies, I’ve been looking all over for you,” Pam said. “Doug’s about to make a toast before he leaves.”
“Lead the way,” Hunter said, brushing past her.
Stunned by the turn things had taken, all Shelby could do was follow along.
Doug stood on the deck, Colleen by his side. He raised a champagne flute filled with orange juice. Shelby’s heart was pounding like she’d just run a six-minute mile.
“They say timing is everything in life,” Doug said. “We’ve all heard that. But what I never realized was how much of that timing is out of our control. This summer is nothing like Colleen and I had planned. And it’s better than anything we ever imagined.”
“Actually, I imagined getting out of bed a lot more,” Colleen said, and everyone laughed.
