Page 39 of Friends to Lovers

chapter twenty-four

“If I never have to see a twinkle light again, it’ll be too soon,” Thad says across from me as he rips another shepherd’s hook stake out of the ground, looping the strand of lights already hanging there over his arm.

We’re all scattered around at various sites, checking items off Sasha’s list while Leo and Stevie are in town with his family, who arrived last night.

In the kitchen before they left, Leo was quiet and tense in a way I’d never seen him before, and I worried that his family’s presence could be what sends everything off the rails.

But then I clocked Stevie’s fingers lacing through his, and I knew they would get through the day together.

“I thought the lights at your wedding were gorgeous,” I tell Thad.

We’re halfway down the path to the lighthouse, and I’m sweating through my tank top as I mimic his actions, ripping what we had thought, for the third time, was a perfectly placed stake out of the ground, only for Sasha to inform us that they needed to seem like they were part of the tree line, then that they didn’t start soon enough at the top of the path, and now that we’re short string lights and instead need to use these to line the lawn that stretches from the old lighthouse keeper’s cottage to the end of the headland.

To, you know, make sure no one plunges to their death during toasts and dancing at the wedding tomorrow.

“They were gorgeous,” Thad says. I can just glimpse the ocean through the trees behind him as he pauses, takes in a deep breath. “Because someone else put them up.”

I snort, yanking on a particularly stubborn stake that comes free abruptly, sending me reeling backward. My heel catches on a rock, and I trip to the ground, hands flying back to brace my fall at the last minute.

“Are you okay?” Thad says, dropping his meticulously looped lights in a heap and lurching toward me, slipping easily into parent mode. Except in this case, I’m the child.

“I’m fine,” I say, something like delirious laughter bubbling out of me as I brush my hands together, take his waiting one.

He pulls me up to standing, rubs a hand down his face.

“Thad.” I knock my elbow against his arm. “What’s up? Fratty Chicken got you down?”

He meets my gaze almost reluctantly, the same brown eyes as his mom and Ren. “I love Katie so much,” he says. “Being away from her this week feels like there’s this whole part of me missing.”

“I’m sure it does,” I say, waiting out the rest of whatever he’s going to say. Thad is like an older brother to me, and while he’s always been playful, his earlier comment about that part of our lives being over has me wondering if he’s struggling with something deeper.

“I don’t know,” he says. “It’s just—trying to balance lawyer life and fatherhood hasn’t left a lot of time for anything else. I haven’t hated having a break to just feel like myself again.” He exhales, squints at me. “Sorry if I went overboard last night.”

“You mean sorry if you had too many of the shots Stevie was showering on everybody?” I ask, hating that he thought we felt that way. “I think you’re allowed to have a break sometimes. It doesn’t mean you’re not an excellent father.”

Thad sighs. “Thanks, Joni,” he says. “Anything you want to divulge?”

“Oh, plenty,” I say, stepping toward the edge of the path again. “But we have a job to do.”

“These fucking lights,” Thad says.

“These fucking lights,” I repeat.

“ These fucking lights—” Sasha’s voice echoes from behind us, as she marches up through the trees from the direction of the lighthouse, clearly back to her normal self “—can stay on the path. We found the ones we need for the lawn.”

“Are you kidding?” Thad throws an arm out toward the work we’ve just undone. “Sasha—”

“Sometimes it takes a few tries to get it right,” she says, mirroring his gesture. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Thad tips his head back, letting out something close to a growl. “Good thing we’re stringing shitty lights for a wedding and not building an empire, then,” he says.

“Exactly,” Sasha says. “So you can— Joni, you’re bleeding.”

I look down at where she’s pointing. “Look at that,” I say. Blood trickles from a short cut on my ankle, heading toward my sandal that Sasha, to be fair, did warn me was not appropriate light-stringing attire as we left the house earlier. “It’s fine.” I wave her away.

“It’s not fine if you get gangrene and can’t be in your sister’s wedding tomorrow,” she says. “Come on.”

“I don’t think that’s how you get gangrene!” Thad calls after us as she hauls me away. “I’ll get these lights, don’t worry!”

“I’ll send her back in five!” Sasha shouts back to him, like the drill sergeant she absolutely could be.

She guides me down the path toward the lighthouse, one hand on my arm like my minor scrape might send me off-balance at any moment, crashing through the trees to the rocky bluff and down into the ocean.

She leads me past where my dad and Greg are mapping out the placement of the chairs that will be delivered tomorrow for the ceremony on the lawn, and up the steps into the cottage. The long bays of doors are thrown open on either side of the room where Ren and I set up the tables the other day.

“I have a first aid kit somewhere,” Sasha says, shoving me into the lone chair in here, next to the bar where Ren is unloading boxes. “Hang on.”

“Are you okay?” he asks as Sasha ducks behind the bar and rummages around with the air of someone who thinks the time it will take to grab a Band-Aid is what will derail the wedding.

“It’s a tiny scratch,” I say, rolling my eyes. “She’s—”

“Sasha!” We both turn to see my mom hurrying in, eyes near rabid.

“What?” Sasha barks, popping up like a gopher out of its hole, first aid kit in hand.

“The trucks are here,” my mom says.

“What trucks?” Sasha’s voice reaches a decibel that bounces around the room.

“The chairs, the dance floor, the tent,” my mom says.

“They’re not supposed to deliver any of those until tomorrow . Today is for minor setup only!”

Ren widens his eyes at me from the bar and I have to stifle a laugh behind my hand.

“Ren,” Sasha says, slamming the first aid kit against his chest. “I need you to handle this emergency. Carol—” She nods at the door and the two of them take off at a dead sprint, both straight-backed and clear-eyed.

“Does she seem bossier than usual?” Ren asks as he drags a footstool out from behind the bar and next to me. He pulls my leg onto his lap, fingers soothing against my skin.

“A little,” I agree. “Weddings can do that to people. It’s probably also the hangover.”

He’s focused on my ankle, gently rotating it so he can see the cut. I watch him as he cleans it, puts a Band-Aid over it.

“What do you think?” I ask. “Will I live?”

“Prognosis looks good,” he says. He keeps a hand on my leg, lifts his eyes to look at me. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I say, unable to help the smile that threatens at my cheeks. “How’s it going down here?”

“Oh, you know,” Ren says. “Sasha thinks getting the bar set up is a life-or-death situation.”

“Well, she chose the right man for the job.” I glance at the bar behind us. “Thad and I are on our fourth go-round with the lights.”

“So I heard.” Ren’s fingers slide a little higher, over my knee. “I can ask Thad if he wants to trade.”

“Mmm,” I say as his fingers continue their path until they’re just reaching under the hem of my shorts, toying with a loose string. “Do you want to get all scratched up threading lights through a bunch of underbrush?”

“If you’re there, absolutely.” He grabs the leg of my chair and yanks me closer to him, his other hand still on my thigh.

I slide my leg around his hip and smile against his lips as he kisses me. “This is exactly what we’re not supposed to be doing,” I say.

“What, kissing you isn’t on Sasha’s list?”

“Hey,” I say between kisses. “Good work bringing up my tattoo earlier.”

“I’ve seen you in a swimsuit since you got it,” he protests, smiling as his grip tightens on my back.

“Something my sister, who is deeply suspicious of us, doesn’t care about at all.”

“So we should probably stop this, then,” he says, nodding as I do.

But we don’t stop. He roams under my tank top, fingers coming to rest against the tattoo in question, and swallows at the sound that escapes me.

Ren’s phone vibrates in his pocket.

“Mmm-hmm,” he answers over Sasha’s shrill orders on the other end of the line. “No…Didn’t you—” He stops, sighs, extends his phone toward me. “She’d like to speak with you.”

“Hi, Sash,” I say. Ren’s attention returns to my leg, still slung across his lap. He tucks his fingers in, then slowly releases them over my knee like he did when we were younger. I’d laugh about it then, kick him away, but now it’s shooting up to my center in a way that has my toes curling.

“We don’t have enough lights,” Sasha says.

Ren trails his lips over my shoulder and I have to work to keep my breathing even. “Didn’t you just say—”

“Yes,” she says. “But that was before they fucked up the delivery schedule and didn’t bring the lights for the cottage and—” she says something to someone else on the other end of the phone that I would distinctly not like to be on the receiving end of “—I need you and Ren to run into town and buy every twinkle light you can find.”

I hang up, look at Ren as his head lifts, his eyes soft and open, waiting to hear Sasha’s decree.

I wish, very much, I could lean forward and kiss him right now, wrap us up in this moment instead of going on an errand to make this wedding visible from space.

I sigh, comb my fingers into his hair. “Sounds like you and I are going into town, Webster.”

* * *

As it turns out, being in Ren’s car is a welcome respite from the chaos of the house.

On the drive, I admire how he manages to make a plain white T-shirt look so good, return the face he makes at me when I’ve been staring at him for several long minutes.

I think I could swallow this moment, let it nourish me, survive on times like this, alone with Ren.

At the hardware store, I lean against him as he walks us down the narrow aisles. He’s wearing a pair of camel-colored shorts, and I never thought a bare knee against the back of my thigh could send such a decided spark shooting through me.

We find what we’re looking for in a back corner full of long-forgotten party supplies: inflatable flamingo pool floats marked at 50 percent off, their boxes dented or torn open, Fourth of July tablecloths that will be full priced again next year, and in the middle, what will hopefully be enough twinkle lights to satisfy Sasha.

“Should we do a box of two fifty-foot twinkle lights, or a box of the single hundred-foot strand?” I ask. The arm Ren isn’t using to hold the shopping basket is wrapped around my hips, fingertips skimming under the hem of my shirt as he towers over me, his nose brushing against my neck.

“Hmm,” he murmurs, voice vibrating through me. I fold both my arms over the one he has around my waist, trapping it there and letting its warmth sink into me. “We need to think long and hard about this, Joni.”

“Don’t you think Sasha will want us back at the house soon?” I ask, my head dizzy.

“I couldn’t care less what my sister wants right now,” he breathes into my ear.

“We could drive somewhere,” I say, tipping my head back against his shoulder.

He squeezes my waist. “Joni,” he says, voice gravelly. “Should we talk about this?”

Embarrassment flashes through me that Ren had to be the one to call out how obviously we’ve been avoiding reality. “Of course,” I say. “But not now? We have the rehearsal dinner tonight, the wedding tomorrow. We can wait until we’re back in Portland.”

Ren’s brow creases at the same moment I realize what I’ve said. I stay stock-still like prey spotted. Maybe if I don’t move, he won’t catch it.

I’m not sure why I said it. I know I’ll have to move out of my place in New York sooner rather than later, but I haven’t been thinking about it this week, have assumed it’s an issue I’ll deal with—it hits me with stomach-dropping clarity—the day after tomorrow.

Sunday. When I’ll be getting on a plane to head back to a life that doesn’t exist anymore, and here I am, making out with Ren in the aisle of a hardware store like horny teenagers, like the past and future don’t concern us.

“I mean,” I say, twisting to face him. “When we’re… I don’t know. When we’re in the same place again.”

He looks at me like he used to, like he can see straight into my brain.

I wait for him to question me, but instead he just pulls me into his chest, all the spots our bodies touch working to erase the anxiety clawing through me.

I think it might solve all my problems if he never lets go.

He reaches up, tugs lightly at the ends of my hair.

“I like this new haircut,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong, I love your long hair too, but this feels like you. ”

“It does, doesn’t it?” I say, wrinkling my nose. Ren smiles thoughtfully at me, and I’m transported to a world in which we didn’t fall apart, in which maybe I didn’t need to cut my hair, or maybe I did anyway and he was there much sooner to tell me that it looked like me. “I’m so annoyed by that.”

“Why’s that?” he asks.

I shrug weakly. “Sometimes I just don’t think I know what I want until the universe gets fed up and hits me in the face with it.”

Ren laughs. “The universe hit you in the face with a new haircut?”

I rest my chin against his chest, look up at him. “Something like that.”

I don’t tell him what I really mean. That three years ago, my feelings for him dawned on me so suddenly I felt like I’d been flipped upside down and shaken out, and that I don’t think I was turned upright again until now.