Page 10 of At First Flight (Coral Bell Cove #1)

“Honey, I’m home,” I call out as I step foot in the small craftsman-style house Ashvi rents just on the outskirts of Coral Bell Cove, Virginia.

My bag drops to the floor at my feet with a thud as I slip off my tennis shoes by the front door. The new bag was a purchase in Scotland, along with my new wardrobe, courtesy of Dean’s card.

It was funny how I expected the card to decline the first time I used it at the bar across the street from the hotel. My hand shook like a leaf as I handed it over, but in the end, it was all clear.

Dean had been true to his word, and over the entire two weeks, I thought more about him than my ex, which was just plain annoying, considering how we ended things in the airport.

“You’re back!” my gorgeous friend shouts as she darts out of her room and nearly tackles me to the ground.

Ashvi Basu is an energetic spitfire whose energy matches her height.

And with her dark features and long black hair, she turns heads wherever we go.

If only they knew how much true crime she watches or her obsession with plants, they’d think differently.

She is my personal Seymour Krelborn, and I may have had a nightmare or two about a real man-eating plant.

Seriously, she has at least forty succulents lining her kitchen counter, and she’s named them all and has them on strict water diets.

But I love her just as much as my siblings and have since her family moved to our small coastal town in second grade.

She asked to borrow my scissors to cut gum from her hair that our class bully, Ashley, put there during lunch.

But instead of just cutting hers, she took the blades to the end of Ashley’s braid.

Her tenacity amazed me, and we’ve been best friends since that day.

“Oomph,” I grunt as my back collides with the small table in the foyer, but instead of complaining, I wrap my arms around Ashvi and smile.

Being here with her reminds me of how much I missed home over the past two years.

Hell, if I’m being honest with myself, I’ve been missing home since I left for college ten years ago.

But I had my reasons for staying away then, just as I do now.

“Oh, how I’ve missed you,” I murmur into her hair. I may have seen her two weeks ago, but it feels like a lifetime.

“Tell me about it,” she says as she pulls back, holding me at arm’s length with her graceful fingers clutching my shoulders. “And I do mean tell me. Everything.”

While on my self-discovery trip, I’d spoken with Ashvi only a handful of times, just enough to keep her anxiety over my well-being at bay but clearly not enough to feed her curiosity. Especially once she learned that Prescott had canceled all my cards.

“I will…but I can’t right now, Vi.”

“That’s okay. I’ll get it all out of you with some red wine later.”

“From your brother’s winery?” Vi is the youngest of five, another reason we are so close, and her eldest brother owns an award-winning winery in the Napa Valley area of California. He frequently sends her boxes of his newest batches.

“You know it.”

She knows how much I love his Cabernet, and like she dangles a bone in front of a dog, I nod. One glass of that red deliciousness and I turn into an open book. A fault that she loves to exploit at her whim.

Once she releases me from her grasp, I reach down for my bag and start wandering toward the guest room.

Until I can find a place in town to rent, Ashvi offered to let me stay with her.

She knows moving back into my family's home is the last place I want to be. Not because I don’t love my parents or siblings, but because I am jobless, there are expectations to help out with my mother’s business—a local nanny service.

Unlike my siblings, farming doesn’t come naturally to me, so on the bright side, I won’t be asked to help my dad.

A green thumb is not something I possess.

Setting the leather duffel on the bed, I pull the few items out, placing them in the dresser drawers. Despite the no-limit card Dean had given me, I restrained myself and only purchased a few necessities. A few pants, shirts, and undergarments.

“Oh, this is pretty,” Vi says as she grabs the dark red lace lingerie I’d splurged on. When I saw it in the store, it immediately reminded me of the maroon color of Dean’s shirt. Before I could blink, the sales lady was grabbing my size and packaging it up for me.

“Mm-hmm.”

Holding it against her much thinner body, Ashvi twists one way, then the other, admiring the lace on her body.

“Please, for the love of all things tartan, tell me you picked this up for some sexy Scottish mystery man who helped you forget all about that prick of an ex.”

Yanking it from her grasp, she cackles as I shove it into the top dresser drawer. “I just thought it was pretty, okay?”

“Sure. Sure.”

Vi drapes her body dramatically on the bed as she watches me put the rest of my things away.

“So how long do you think it will take before your parents realize your home?”

“I give it two days max. The rental car isn’t going to throw them off long.” I sigh exasperatedly as I consider how they’re going to bombard me.

“You’re right. That family of yours is like fox hunters. So keen and always one step ahead of everyone. I’m pretty sure your dad knew whenever we planned to sneak out in high school before we even did.”

“You are not wrong. It’s even worse with my brothers. They’d call just as I was about to step out the door with Prescott, not that he ever let me answer, knowing it would probably piss him off.”

“Speaking of Prescott…”

The name drops into the room like a grenade.

The pink cashmere sweater slips from my hands and pools at my feet, but I barely register it.

My body stills, the breath in my lungs locking tight as if the syllables alone carry weight enough to crush me.

It shouldn’t hurt. He shouldn’t have that kind of power anymore, but hearing his name from someone else’s lips slices deeper than when I say it myself.

Like it makes him real again. Like it pulls him from the shadowy corners of my past and plants him squarely in my present.

I feel like I’ve been yanked backward, like I’m standing in the boutique again, drowning in lace and lies. My stomach twists, and the faintest tremor runs through my hands. I blink, forcing myself to stay grounded at this moment, not the one I left behind.

Dean’s name grounded me before. But Prescott’s name? It splinters.

And for the first time, I realize that healing doesn’t mean I’m immune. It just means I’m fighting to keep my footing every time the past tries to drag me under.

“Has he come by?” I ask in an unforgiving sense of panic.

Ashvi leans up onto her elbows and looks at me, assessing my change in demeanor. Without saying a word, she quickly rushes to my side and wraps me in her arms again.

“No, he hasn’t been by,” she whispers as she lovingly strokes her fingers through my mess of hair. “Is there something more I should know about, Lila? Something you’re not telling me?”

Ashvi knows all about Prescott’s actual family, but I’ve left out the part where I felt like a prisoner in my own life. I ran away from the confines of my small town, only to end up in a snow globe perched upon a shelf for my fiancé to toy with when he desired.

“No. I just…I don’t want him to bother anyone here.”

She leans back, reminding me so much of my mother at that moment that I also break down into the tears I’d been keeping at bay for the last two weeks.

“You’re lying to me, but I’ll play along this time.”

Ashvi steps back, notices the soft material pooled on the floor, and reaches for it. Some unyielding force inside me stops her in her tracks, and I grab it before she can. She cocks one perfectly arched eyebrow at me as I quickly slip the cardigan on a hanger and slide it onto the closet rod.

“Explain?”

“Sorry, it’s just something…special.”

“Mm-hmm.”

I hate lying to my best friend. At this point, I’m afraid I’m either going to spontaneously combust into a pile of ash and find my way to the deep, dark depths of hell or I’m going to tell her everything.

I’m not sure which conclusion is worse. Dean was one of the few details I left out of our calls during my trip.

Besides his credit card, which continues to burn a hole in my wallet, I didn’t think our meeting was anything more than happenstance.

A delicious moment, but a chance meeting none-the-less.

And something about him wanted to keep the meeting close to the chest. That doesn’t mean I didn’t spill a few breadcrumbs about the hot guy who calmed me during the flight, but that was all I mentioned.

“Well, how about I entertain you for a little bit while you unpack?” She moves toward the floor-length mirror in the corner of the room and begins braiding her waist-length hair. It weaves through her fingers like strips of dark satin, and the action momentarily hypnotizes me.

“Anyway,” she begins. “When I went into town over the weekend.” The town she’s referring to is Norfolk.

One of the major cities that’s a hop, skip, and a jump across our small bay.

I preferred our quiet, small town, but Ashvi thrives in the hustle and bustle.

Her world flourishes in the noise and bright lights. “I met the most gorgeous Navy man.”

Giggling, I hang up the pink sweater and turned to face my friend. “Of course you did, Vi.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks with a hint of indignation in her voice.

“Oh, Ashvi. I just meant that any good-looking guy with half a brain cell would want your attention. You’re beautiful. A walking Bollywood star.”

Twisting her ever-present hair tie around the ends of her hair, she lets the plait fall against her back. “You’re right. But this one was different.”