Page 4 of Sea La Vie (The Outer Banks #1)

Tate

“ D on’t come any closer!” She warns. She’s acting like she doesn’t know who I am.

“I mean it. I’ll sic my dog on you.” A plump, short dog pokes its head out of the window, its tongue lolling lazily out of the side of its mouth and stump of a tail wagging furiously.

I’m not convinced this dog has attacked anything more than its food bowl, but stranger things have happened.

“I need help,” I say. “I'm stuck in the ditch.”

She slowly begins to walk toward me, her dirty blonde waves swaying behind her in a messy ponytail.

She’s barefoot, and the loose gravel on the road doesn’t seem to bother her, like she’s used to it.

The left strap on her overall shorts is loose, dangling along her back and revealing a tank top underneath.

She looks almost wild—at ease among these dense pines and twisty sandy roads—but her features are dainty and there’s an air of innocence about her.

She looks like she stepped out of a Billabong catalog, her hair sun-bleached, freckles smattering her deeply tanned skin.

She’s not the first person I expected to see, but at least we’re getting this over with.

“ Can I help you?” She asks at the same time I say, “Lainey?”

A look of recognition flashes across her eyes but she cocks her head and squints instead. “Do I know you?”

I feel the corners of my mouth turn up into a smile. She hasn’t changed a bit. Brash. Straight to the point. A real ball-buster.

“It’s me, Lainey…Tate.” Gosh, I’ve missed her. I flash back to the last time we talked, and my heart sinks, remembering the words that spewed out of her mouth in frustration. The words that halted the friendship of twelve years.

The corner of her mouth jerks down and she looks past me to my car, not willing to meet my eyes. “Oh, yeah. Long time no see, I guess. What happened?” She nods toward the car then walks over to it.

I don’t know what I expected her to say when I reintroduced myself but I didn’t expect this—for her to pretend that our friendship didn’t exist. Memories of us as kids swirl around my mind, running along the beaches and wreaking havoc on the town.

I had thought of Lainey several times over the years, even going as far as trying to look her up online, but never had any luck.

I had found myself speculating on why she was unreachable online.

Did she have a family of her own that she didn’t want to share with the rest of the world?

Did she somehow block me, unwilling to ever speak to me again?

Or did she simply not buy into the hype of social media, preferring to live in the moment instead?

Realistically, I knew the latter fit Lainey to a T.

I gesture toward the rear end of the car. “I have a flat,” I tell her. She walks over to where I’m standing and kneels on her long, tan legs, then presses herself flat to the ground. I’m in awe of how much she’s changed in ten years, yet is somehow still the same.

“You do, but your control arm is broken too,” she mutters from underneath the car. “You’re going to have to call Sid, but I bet he’s already six beers deep at the diner by this point.” She shimmies out from underneath the car then pushes herself up and dusts herself off.

“Sid’s still at the garage? Wow,” I muse. “I always thought he was so old when we were kids.”

Lainey frowns. “Yeah he’s still at the garage. What did you expect? That he left?”

I stiffen at her harsh tone. Clearly, she’s not as thrilled to see me as I was to see her.

When I don’t answer she says, “You could probably limp it into town if we go ahead and change your tire. You want me to block traffic for you while you do it? There shouldn’t be too many cars this late in the evening but I’ll direct them around you, just in case. ”

“You want me to change my tire?” I ask. She stares at me, blinking hard.

“That’s what I said. You know where your spare is, right?”

“Of course I do,” I say defensively. “It’s just that…my head… I should probably head to the hospital to have this looked at first. Do you think it needs stitches?”

Lainey squints before licking her thumb and rubbing it on my forehead. Before I have time to respond with how disgusting that was, she says, “It’s just a scrape. You hardly broke the skin but I bet I have a bandaid in my truck if you want one. It’s got Care Bears on it though.”

“You do?” I ask. “That would be great, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure, I’ll go grab it,” she says with an eye roll. “It’s right beside my freshly ground espresso from the local Starbucks.”

“You all got a Starbucks?” I ask, not bothering to hide the surprise in my voice. “I never saw that coming.”

“Yeah, it’s right next to the luxury resort they built a few years ago and our new state of the art hospital.”

I frown, realizing she’s being a smart alec. “If you don’t have a bandaid, that’s all you had to say,” I mutter. I let my head fall back into my hands, wondering how this day could go from bad to worse.

“So? The tire?” She taps her barefoot impatiently against the ground and huffs out a breath.

“Are you in a hurry?” I ask. I might as well see what info I can get out of her. She’s already mad; how much worse could it get?

“I’m always in a hurry,” she mutters. “I have places to be, things to do.”

“Is your family waiting on you for dinner or something? I can call a wrecker and you can be on your way,” I offer.

She sighs and rolls her eyes. “I live alone with my dog—never married, no children—if that’s what you’re asking. It’s been nice catching up with you, but I really do need to move along. I’ve got a shift at the diner, and I’d love to wash the smell of fish off me first.”

“Sure thing,” I say. I open the passenger door and search around my glovebox for the car’s manual.

Surely there’s a diagram or something showing me how to get to the spare tire.

I shove a couple napkins aside, and Liv's engagement ring topples to the ground. Thankfully, Lainey doesn’t notice, saving me from a conversation I’m not ready to have, and I scramble to pick it up.

Sighing exasperatedly, she walks over to my car and begins unloading the spare, never once glancing at the manual.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Changing your tire,” she snaps. She gets to work, expertly maneuvering around my car.

The sun is beginning to set, disappearing into the thick pines, and an owl hoots in the distance.

I look for any way to help Lainey, but instead stand helplessly beside the car, afraid to get in the way and clueless as to what she’s doing.

“Looks like you had a worse day than me,” she says, her voice finally softening. “How’d this happen anyway?”

I shove the ring back into my pocket, stopping myself from throwing it into the wilderness on the side of the road.

I’d love nothing more than to be rid of it, but my responsible side wins, remembering the cost of this ring.

I’m also not one to cause a scene, no matter how often I’ve seen it happen in the Lifetime movies I like to watch before bed.

“A squirrel darted into the road, and when I swerved to miss it, I ran off the road,” I admit, feeling the warmth of my admission creep into my cheeks.

“Those squirrels will get you every time.” Her eyes cut to me and it’s the first time I’ve really got to look into them. A hint of mischief sparkles behind her green irises and her left dimple pops out, giving me a hint at a smile—the first I’ve seen since she hopped out of her truck.

She returns her focus to the task at hand, letting out a cute little grunt every now and then.

She moves effortlessly around the car, and in no time, my spare tire is on my car.

Who is this girl? I mean I know this is Lainey, the girl I spent every summer with for all those years.

But who is she now, and how does she know how to change a tire?

“All done, City Boy,” she says.

“How do you know I live in the city now?” I ask, hope bubbling in my chest that she’s tried to find me.

She wipes the grease from her hands onto her cutoffs and smirks, then eyes me up and down slowly. It’s enough to make my face heat under her gaze. “Let’s see…the fancy clothes, a watch that probably cost more than my house, the impractical shoes, and we can’t forget the sports car.”

“I have paper towels in my trunk.” I grimace at the greasy handprints splayed across her thighs.

Lainey glances down then shrugs. “Nothing they’ve never seen before. It’ll be fine.”

I would be wrecked if the clothes I’m currently wearing got greasy. When I first became an accountant, I perfectly portioned out my paycheck each week until I had enough to curate a closet most designers would be jealous of. I barely suppress a shiver and reach around for my wallet.

She swats my hand away and swivels toward her truck then unties her long waves. She shakes them out, and the scent of vanilla and ocean water surrounds us. “Well…” she trails off. I’m not ready for her to leave.

“How far out are we?” I scramble for something to keep her right here.

Lainey points to a sign a couple hundred yards in the distance. The spotlight underneath illuminates its chipped white paint as it flickers. Most of the words are covered in Spanish moss and I have to narrow my eyes to make out Widow’s Wharf, NC. Population 1200. “Almost there,” she answers.

“I don’t remember that sign looking so depressing,” I mutter.

“The world’s most depressing sign for the world’s most depressingly named town,” she says with a shrug, then she throws her hand over her shoulder. “C’mon. I’ll follow you into town. Do you remember how to get there?”

I shake my head, although I do remember. I’m just looking for any way to stall her here. It’s been ten years and I’m not ready to let her go again so soon. Or ever again , a voice in the back of my mind says.

“Take a right at the only stoplight, and go for about three miles until you see a garage. Leave the keys in it, and I’ll take you over to Dave’s.”