Page 28 of How Sweet It Is (Willow Shade Island #3)

I take Amelia to my favorite dive bar on the mainland.

The smell hits us the second we walk in.

Grilled meat, fried onions, and cedarwood along with the unmistakable crunch of peanut shells under boots.

Amelia pauses in the doorway, her eyes wide as she surveys the mess of the floor.

She looks like someone has just invited her to eat dinner in a barn.

“People just… throw the shells on the floor?” she asks.

“It’s tradition,” I say, holding the door open wider with a flourish. “The more shells you drop, the more fun you’re having.”

She gives me a side-eye that practically screams, You dragged me into the wilderness , but she steps inside anyway. Brave girl. I guide her to a booth toward the back, close to the swinging kitchen doors, where the noise is a little less deafening.

We sit. A bowl of peanuts already waits for us in the center of the table. I grab one, crack it open, and toss the shell over my shoulder. It lands on the floor with a satisfying clack .

“That’s chaos,” she says, eyeing me.

“Try it. There’s something freeing about it.”

She crosses her arms. “You can’t honestly enjoy eating in this kind of environment.”

I lean toward her. “I do. There’s something pure about a place that doesn’t pretend to be fancy. What you see is what you get.”

“You mean sticky floors and a health-code violation waiting to happen.”

I grin. “Loosen up.”

She tries. She really does. I see her pick up a peanut, crack it open like it might explode, then gingerly toss the shells onto the table. Not the floor. Just... to the side. Baby steps.

“You’re not going to spontaneously combust if you let go a little,” I say.

She sighs. “I know. It’s just... habit.”

“Old habits die hard?”

“Something like that.”

She picks up her menu, and her eyes widen. “They have gluten-free burgers?”

I grin. That’s the real reason I brought her here. The peanut shells on the floor are an added bonus. “They do.”

The waitress comes by, and we order burgers, fries, and root beer in tall frosted mugs. The good stuff. After the waitress leaves, I turn to Amelia. “How are things going with your handsy cousin?”

She squirms. “He actually left the island.”

My eyebrows rise. “He did?”

She nods, meeting my gaze. “Yes.”

My mind reels with this new information. Her bodyguard left. Does that mean she’s safe now? I lean closer and whisper, “You’re no longer in danger?”

She stiffens. “I never said I was in danger.”

“It was implied by the big beefy guy who was watching you.”

Her gaze bounces around the crowded bar. “I can’t talk about it.”

I lift my hands in surrender. “Fine. I get it. I pushed too hard. New topic. Do you know what you’re going to wear to the wedding?”

She nods. “I do.”

“A skirt suit?”

She narrows her eyes at me. “No. Why? What’s wrong with what I wear to work?”

I shrug. “Nothing. It’s just…” I can’t think of a nice way to end that sentence, so in self-preservation, I let my words trail off.

“Just what?” she asks, bristling.

I chuckle. “Nothing, Spreadsheet. Your clothes fit you perfectly. I’m just looking forward to what you might be wearing at my brother’s wedding, that’s all.”

She gives me a smug smile. “Don’t worry. You’ll like it.”

I grin at her, trying and failing not to imagine what she’d look like in a little black dress. “You sure know how to torture me.”

We go back to silence, and I take a moment to study her. “I like your eyes. They’re dark, like they hold secrets, yet there’s a spark to them.”

She scoffs. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

I stare at her. “Why is it hard for you to accept a compliment?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I’m fiercely independent.”

“Why is that?”

She cracks open another peanut before putting the shells in her pile on the table. “I guess I had to be growing up.”

I wait for her to elaborate, but she doesn’t. The silence gets to me. I toss a shell on the floor as a silent challenge and lean back. “You know, I hated school. Like, visceral hatred.”

She tilts her head. “Really? I figured you were one of those charming slackers who coasted through.”

“Nah. I mean, I tried to be. But when you try and still get it wrong, the charm doesn’t save you.”

Her gaze sharpens just a little. “What do you mean?”

I exhale through my nose. “Fifth grade. Miss Halpern. We were supposed to write a story. Everyone turned theirs in, and she held mine up to the class like it was a specimen. Told everyone this was what not to do. Wrong punctuation. Run-on sentences. She even read a part out loud in this fake-dumb voice. Everyone laughed.”

Amelia’s eyes go soft.

“That was the day I learned jokes were a better shield than silence. If I could get people to laugh with me before they laughed at me, it stung less.”

She doesn’t say anything right away but just nods, slow and thoughtful.

“I’ve always felt like I’m ten steps behind everyone else. School didn’t make sense to me. I’d stare at the page, knowing I was supposed to understand, and just... nothing. Like my brain was a locked door and someone forgot to give me the key.”

I look at her, expecting pity, maybe a well-meaning “you’re not dumb,” but she surprises me.

“That sounds exhausting.”

My eyebrows lift. “Yeah. Yeah, it was. Still is, some days.”

She swirls her root beer. “My sister was a genius. Or at least, that’s what everyone said. Valedictorian. Full-ride scholarship. President of this, captain of that. You name it. Plus, she was tall and gorgeous. Everyone commented on her beauty and talent. I was just... the other one.”

I lean in. “The other one?”

She nods. “No matter what I did, it was never quite enough. My parents would smile and say, ‘That’s nice, Claire, but did you hear what Natalie did this week?’ She cured boredom.

She saved the whales. She got another presidential award.

Meanwhile, I was working my butt off trying to get someone to notice me. ”

The hair on my neck rises. “Claire?” I ask.

Her face pales. “I mean Amelia.” She forces a laugh. “I must be really tired. That was just a stupid nickname from long ago.”

I stare at her, my heart sinking. She’s lying. What’s going on? Is her name really Claire? Who is she hiding from, and what did they do to her?

She looks down at her fingernails, picking at her cuticles. “Have you ever felt like if you vanished, people would just... keep moving like you weren’t even there?”

“Yeah,” I say, dropping the whole Claire thing. She’s talking to me, and I can tell she’s being real with me. I’ll take what I can get. “All the time.”

We sit in that quiet for a beat too long. The buzz of conversation around us fades into background static. She looks up at me, something raw in her eyes.

“I felt that way every day growing up,” she says quietly.

My throat tightens. I reach across the table and place my hand over hers. She doesn’t pull away. My skin comes alive at the contact with her. It zips through me like an energy force.

“I see you,” I say.

Her smile trembles. “I know you do.”

We don’t say anything for a while, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe silence isn’t so scary when someone else is holding it with you.

She finally picks up another peanut, cracks it open, and this time, tosses the shell onto the floor.

I pull my hands back and give her a slow clap. “Look at you, letting your hair down. Getting messy.”

She laughs, and the sound hits me right in the chest. Warm and clear and real.

“Thanks for bringing me here,” she says.

“If you like this, you’ll love where we’re going next.”

Her eyes snap to mine. “Next? I thought you’d want to go home early. You look like you didn’t sleep at all last night.”

I chuckle. “Yeah, I didn’t, but that’s okay. I want to see you get really messy.”