Page 35 of My Favorite Lost Cause (The Favorites #2)

MAREN

A s far as I can tell, there is no one in the state of New York that my mother has not invited to this party—in our home which only possesses five bedrooms.

“Everyone thinks they’re staying here!” my mother shrieks, pacing the wide-plank floors of the kitchen. “Where do they think they’re going to sleep?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Mom, you know that when you say come to our house in the Hamptons , people think you are literally inviting them to stay.”

“Well, I wasn’t, and now I’m short at least a hundred and sixty beds.”

“If the party is successful enough,” Roger says with a grin, “no one will need beds. Or they’ll only need them briefly .”

Charlie would be cheerful in precisely the same way if I were panicking.

And it probably wouldn’t work, just as it is not working with my mom, but it leaves me homesick for him already.

“Roger, half the guests are over the age of forty. They are not going to be staying up all night, nor will they be using the beds for other purposes. ”

“Apparently, I have more faith in our age group than you do, hon. Maren, you’ll stay up all night, right?”

I sigh. “It sounds like I won’t have much of an option.”

An hour later, Henry arrives. He pulls me out to the back porch before my mother can suck him into her madness. “How are things, kiddo?”

My smile is overly bright. One of those Anna Kendrick smiles that reeks of the force used to hold it up. “Just great. Thanks so much for your help with the dogs.”

He frowns, as if my gratitude pains him. “Maren, I’m your father. Of course I was going to help with the dogs. You don’t need to thank me. Is Harvey giving you any trouble? Don’t lie to me about it.”

My eyes sting. It’s always like this, when Henry is kind, and I don’t know why.

Maybe because I have a batshit crazy mother whose only concerns are my weight and my income potential, and no matter what Henry says, I know he owes me nothing.

“He’s been kind of a dick,” I admit, mostly to explain the tears in my eyes.

“He’s texting a lot, accusing me of stuff… with Charlie.”

Henry narrows one eye and hesitates, as if he thinks I might admit what Harvey’s saying is true. When I’m silent, he lets his hand rest on my shoulder. “I’ll take care of it. You won’t hear from him again.”

I believe him. Henry never says anything he doesn’t mean, and he certainly has the power to make it happen.

My mother breaks up the conversation, hands flailing as she accuses us of acting like guests and tells us to go help Roger find houses for the overflow.

She then begins to wail about some rare fish the caterer isn’t going to be able to acquire and gets indignant about the song list provided by the band.

I slip out of the house while she’s off to either yell at or seduce the catering manager into giving her what she wants and go into town, simply for a break from the hysteria .

I enter the tiny, overpriced grocer on the corner and have just grabbed a Diet Coke—though I should apparently be buying a sleeping bag, which they don’t sell—when someone calls my name.

I turn to find Andrew, tan and handsome, carrying a six-pack of Sapporo and a minuscule serving of prosciutto. He gives me a one-armed hug. “I had no idea you were in town.”

He says this without reproach. He is not a man who reads into silences or failures to text. He won’t pout and punish when he’s displeased. He’s so much better than Harvey.

“My mother is hosting a surprise engagement party for my sister and her fiancé. I just got in a few hours ago.”

He smiles and holds up the Sapporo. “Me too. Going to my buddy’s house and attempting to be a good guest. I had this whole idea in my head about what I’d bring, but they don’t have half of it so…” He shrugs. “I guess I’m showing up like this.”

A sweetly hapless male looking for a partner, one who won’t assume the favorite grocer in town will be fully stocked on a Saturday in high season.

“So…I assume the party is tonight?” he asks.

I should invite him, I guess, but God, that’d just open up another can of worms. Multiple cans of worms. Half of my mother’s friends would be texting everyone they know in Manhattan to say Andrew and I are a thing, and I’m not ready. “Yes,” I reply. “Just family and some friends.”

“Are you staying around afterward?”

Do I want to see him? I don’t know. Things are already so chaotic. It’s an impossible question to answer under the circumstances.

I nod. “Yeah. I’ll be here for at least another day.”

He gives me a half-smile. “I imagine that you’re pretty busy right now, but could we try to get lunch tomorrow?”

I tell him that sounds great, except it doesn’t , and I don’t know why.

Wouldn’t ending up with someone like Andrew solve every problem I currently have?

When I’m in Oak Bluff with Charlie, I forget the rest of the world exists.

But it does, and it’s a world I’m about to return to.

I need to figure out how I’ll move forward without the part of it that actually matters—him.

Kit and Miller arrive mid-afternoon. She’s tan from Turks and Caicos and glowing with joy.

My mother makes a huge fuss over Miller and gushes over the ring and Kit seems to shrink a little, as if she can make herself small enough that the spotlight will no longer find her.

Miller’s hand wraps around her waist, tucking her into his side, shielding her. I wonder if they discussed the awkwardness of this situation on the way here.

This is, after all, the very place where Miller dumped me—apparently because he was in love with her. That I’d so thoroughly forgotten it until this second is proof that I’m over him, but no one is going to give me the opportunity to say this and wouldn’t believe me if I did.

Kit has Miller take their bags up to one of the bedrooms and then grabs me as soon as our mother’s back is turned to go sit on the back porch swing.

“This party is Mom’s worst idea,” she says, “and that includes the two years she failed to pay taxes.”

I laugh. “I can’t believe she implied to all the guests that they could sleep here.”

Kit groans, running a hand over her face. “See, I wasn’t even talking about Mom’s incredibly poor planning skills when I said that. I just meant…this is awkwardly timed. I’m sorry you’re being put through it.”

I squeeze her knee. “I’m fine. Seriously. ”

She opens one eye and squints at me. “You are fine. Actually, you’re better than fine. Why are you suddenly doing so well? You were miserable the last time you said you were leaving Harvey.”

I shrug. “Helping Charlie with the house has been nice. So much more peaceful than being at home and I’m just…happy.”

She studies me a moment too long. Kit, like Henry, is too smart for her own good. Smart enough not to believe, anyway, that some time out of the city would be all it took to solve my emotional turmoil. She’s kind enough to let it go, however.

“Thank you for helping Miller pick the ring,” she says, studying her hand. “God only knows what he would’ve picked if left to his own devices.”

“What you should be thanking me for is that,” I say, nodding toward the large, framed photo of Miller and Kit at Everest, which my mother plans to display. “Aren’t you glad I made you get your hair highlighted?”

“Henceforth, I will assume I’m about to be proposed to whenever you or Mom is insisting that I get my hair and nails done.”

“Mom insists that at least once a week. And I sort of hope this is the last time you’re going to be proposed to.”

She smiles with a quiet joy I can’t help but envy. “It will definitely be the last time. Or at least it will be the last time I ever say yes.”

That’s what I want. I want to get engaged to someone knowing I won’t regret it. I want to marry someone without a single impulse to run back down the aisle and hop into a cab instead.

I never got that, but not everyone does.

And while marrying someone like Andrew wouldn’t inspire the last-minute terror I felt on the day of my wedding to Harvey—the feeling of oh my God, how did I get into this? How do I get out of this? —it won’t be a thrill .

It’ll feel a bit like settling.

We talk about Everest and the proposal, and eventually Kit goes upstairs to find Miller and I go to the hall bathroom to start getting ready for tonight.

There’s an emptiness inside me when I look in the mirror as I admit the truth to myself: what has sustained me these past few weeks was not some kind of newfound maturity on my end.

It wasn’t the peacefulness of Oak Bluff.

It was Charlie. It was opening my eyes in the morning, excited to see him and the way my heart would hammer every time he shot me that lopsided grin.

It was our meals together, in the humid summer heat of the back porch, and our bike rides, and watching him laugh as the puppies licked his face.

How much of all of that would have happened anyway, and how much of it is Margaret reenacting some piece of her past through me?

Not going back will break my heart. But how much harder will it be if I give myself another month with him only to wind up exactly where I am right now?

At seven PM, the party is in full swing, and I am in hell.

If I had a dollar for every time one of my mother’s friends had gently squeezed my arm or looked at me as if I was the grieving widow tonight…well, I wouldn’t be as rich as I am now, but I’d be well off.

I’m sure they all think it’s kind on their part, this sympathy for a situation that doesn’t bother me in the least. And the situation that does bother me—the fact that I’m wildly infatuated with my stepbrother, a man who wants none of the things I want—is one I can’t breathe to a soul.

I’m in a beautiful yard, wearing a beautiful dress, surrounded by a group of women I know, yet I can’t escape this feeling that I’m very small and vulnerable, and especially that I’m alone .