Page 33 of My Favorite Lost Cause (The Favorites #2)

MAREN

I t’s the day before Kit’s engagement party, and I am still not in the Hamptons. My mother is livid, even when I explain that trying to get out there on the Fourth of July would be nearly impossible, and that I’m flying straight to the island’s tiny airport in the morning.

“You’re dragging your heels,” my mother snaps, and she is right.

I am dragging my heels, because I’m probably not coming back, so I want to stretch these final moments out as long as possible.

I’ve been in South Carolina for a month now, living vicariously through Margaret—or perhaps she’s living vicariously through me—while my real life back in Manhattan withers on the vine.

Harvey has threatened to give away all my clothes and says he’s changed the locks on the condo.

These are things I don’t care about, but I bet if I spent enough time in Manhattan, I’d realize I should have cared.

But tonight, this last night with Charlie, is going to be magical.

They’re having a town festival for the fourth, with food vendors and fireworks and I’ve convinced him that we should bike into town.

In part, because parking will be a nuisance, with the crowds, but mostly because I want to feel like a kid who grew up here.

A kid who was here in the twenties or thirties.

Maybe even a kid growing up now. I had a city childhood.

I didn’t bike anywhere, ever, unless we were off on vacation somewhere.

The one time I asked Henry to let me and Kit bike somewhere—swearing we’d be careful and that we’d stay on the sidewalk—a homeless man exposed himself to us.

I bought our ice cream and let Kit eat mine as well as hers, and she threw up on the way home.

I never asked again, but tonight I’m going to get a little taste of that life.

Charlie’s waiting for me by the porch that evening in khaki shorts and a T-shirt. The simplest outfit possible, but I’m almost sickened by how handsome he is.

“You’re wearing that ?” he demands.

So, I guess the admiration isn’t mutual.

I glance down at my red-and-white-striped sundress. “It’s patriotic.”

“It’s short ,” he grouses. “We’re parking these bikes outside town and walking in. I don’t need every guy on the street trying to look up your skirt on that bike.”

I shrug and climb on my bike. “Obviously, you’ve got a lot more experience perving on women than I do.”

“I certainly hope so,” he replies.

We start down the road that leads to town under the shade of the live oaks.

I wonder if Margaret ever biked on this road. Did girls bike back then? Maybe her brothers brought her in a Model T like William’s, or possibly she went on horseback.

She was a beautiful girl. She must have married, even if it wasn’t William she wound up with.

She probably had kids. Loads of kids…People spat them out like rabbits back then and no one blinked an eye if you were married straight out of high school.

So how did the house fall into disrepair, how did it fall into the hands of a bank, and why can’t I find a trace of her?

We park the bikes outside town and walk in.

The food trucks along the street sell frozen lemonade and barbeque and mac and cheese with bizarre toppings.

I try a little of everything and make Charlie finish it.

We shop at the vendors’ stalls, where locals are selling things like crocheted toilet-paper covers shaped like ball gowns, and wood stumps carved and lacquered into hideous coffee tables.

“If you leave before the house is done,” Charlie warns, “I’m going to decorate it entirely from shit I buy here.”

I smile but I want to cry at the same time. I really, really need to stay gone when I head back to New York tomorrow...and I really don’t want to.

Martha from the Stop-n-Shop has a little craft stand where she sells plants and herbs. I buy some lavender from her, and she grins from me to Charlie, who’s now one booth over. “I knew that it was going to work out for you, hon. Good on you.”

I don’t have the heart to tell her how wrong she is.

When it grows dark, Charlie and I head to a hill where we saw other people spreading blankets as we biked in.

The fireworks are a tiny fraction of what we’d see at home, but there’s something more special about this, about sitting beside Charlie in the grass, our hands splayed side by side, his pinkie finger resting against my own.

I remember, suddenly, a different fireworks display.

It was New Year’s Eve and we were in Sydney with our parents maybe two years after they got married.

Charlie and I had run off to the bar, and we’d slammed our first drinks and were waiting on our second ones when the fireworks started up.

I turned to watch, and when I glanced over to see if our drinks were ready, Charlie was staring at me.

Not at the fireworks shooting off Harbour Bridge, but at me , with this thing in his eyes .

He looked away almost immediately, and then it was me, watching him, my heart racing. Wondering what it was that I’d seen. Wishing I could see it again.

I can feel his gaze on me again. I want to look, but I don’t dare.

It would ruin everything, wouldn’t it?

There’s a boom , one that doesn’t sound like fireworks, and lightning streaks across the sky.

Parents glance at each other, and Charlie and I do the same.

Do we run for shelter? Do we ignore it? The decision is made for us when rain begins to fall in slow, fat droplets.

We gather our trash and the stuff I bought from Martha and run back toward the bikes, but by the time we’ve reached them, the rain’s coming down so hard that I can barely see a foot in front of my face.

We bike back through the downpour, and lightning zigzags across the sky as we dump the bikes and run for my cottage.

Charlie follows me inside. The rain is thunderous on the tin roof above us, but the dogs are too exhausted to care. They barely raise their heads when the door slams shut.

“I’ve never been this wet in my life,” I tell him, kicking off my shoes.

“As you’ve spent the past five years with Harvey,” he says, pulling his shirt overhead, “this does not surprise me.”

Air seems to still in my chest at the sight of him there, feet from me, rain dripping down his perfect chest. He’s too large for my little cottage, suddenly, and too undressed.

“You can take the first shower,” I force out, “since you’re already half naked.”

I wait until he’s in the bathroom to strip out of my soaking wet clothes, put on my robe and curl up on the bed, thinking about today.

I’ve done crazy things for this holiday in past years, but in spite of how it ended, I think this was my favorite Fourth of July ever. I love Oak Bluff, but I don’t think it was the town that made this one special.

The bathroom door opens, and I roll over to ask Charlie if he remembers the year our parents took us to Paris for the Fourth.

He’s got a towel wrapped around his waist...and nothing else. Every word in my head vanishes at the sight.

Charlie, long and lean and muscular, tan from the weeks here and the shirtless workouts.

Charlie, and the look in his eyes as he glances at me on the bed.

If it wouldn’t ruin everything, would he stalk across the room and untie the robe?

If it wouldn’t ruin everything, would I let him?

His gaze sweeps from my toes and up, lingering on my face. As if he’s considering it too. “All yours,” he says, his voice rough, before he opens the door and walks back out into the rain. He didn’t get his clothes. He didn’t even get his shoes.

I cross the room and take in my reflection. I’m flushed. I look hungry and not for food.

Yes. I’d have let him.

Even if it would ruin everything, I’d have let him.