Page 16 of The Gingerbread Bakery (Dream Harbor #5)

‘We clearly don’t believe in following tradition anyway,’ Iris said, gesturing to her belly and smiling at Hazel and Kira.

Hazel laughed, raising her glass of champagne in cheers, but Annie knocked on the wood table beside her.

She didn’t need anyone jinxing the wedding or anything else for that matter, babies and relationships included.

She still hadn’t found Estelle or finished the secret wedding dessert.

She didn’t have time for any more bad luck.

As soon as her nails were dry, she was going back out there, this time by herself.

She didn't need a certain someone distracting her from more important things, like her friends’ happiness.

* * *

‘Aren’t you not supposed to see the bride the night before the wedding?’ Bennett asked, stepping up to take his turn at the dart board. They were at the pub doing what the groom had requested for his last night of bachelorhood: eating burgers, drinking beer and playing darts.

Logan scoffed. ‘I’ll be damned if I’m not going to sleep with my fiancée tonight.’

Noah patted him on the back. ‘That's right. Who needs those old traditions, anyway? You two have been shacking up together for a year so that ship has basically sailed.’

‘Says the man who barely left his hotel room long enough to get married before hauling Hazel back to it.’

‘Hey, there was no hauling. She came willingly,’ he said with a smirk.

Mac laughed, taking another pull from his beer. He was glad he’d come out. He needed a distraction. Annie’s words had been tormenting him all day. I faked a lot of things. And then she’d gone off to get her nails done, like it was nothing.

Not to mention he’d failed to find Estelle and he didn’t really know what they were going to do about it. A little detail he had no intention of telling the groom.

Despite all that, he was happy to be out with the boys.

He’d lost touch with most of his friends from high school and, much to his surprise, it had been Logan who reached out first when he’d moved back.

It was nice to have solid friends again now that he was settled in one place, even though he knew it pissed Annie off having to see him all the time.

Or maybe especially because it pissed Annie off.

For a while, he'd deluded himself into thinking that simply being around her would be enough to soften her feelings toward him, get her to see that he was different than the boy who had left her, but Annie was stubborn as hell.

Could he have pushed the matter? Probably.

Over the years, there were plenty of times he could have forced the issue and demanded that they get all their bullshit out in the open.

But then he would have had to face the fact that she really did hate him and that she would never forgive him.

So, he hadn’t pushed it, at least not until today.

She’d made it so that they couldn’t ignore their history anymore: because she’d altered it.

I faked a lot of things.

‘Mac?’

‘What?’ He shook his head trying to rid himself of thoughts of Annie and her soft hand on his mouth in that dark closet and everything she’d said afterward.

‘You’re up,’ Bennett told him.

‘Right.’ Mac got out of the booth and took the darts from Noah.

They were in the back corner of the pub, away from the crowded main dining room where a group of teachers were having their end-of-year party and were engaged in a rather contentious round of secret Santa, along with the volunteer fire-department’s annual celebration and awards ceremony.

It was nuts in here. He made a mental note to give Amber a raise in the new year.

He tossed his first dart and missed the board completely.

Noah and Logan both turned to stare at him. ‘Dude, what was that?’

Mac shook his head. ‘A shit throw.’ He tossed the next dart, which barely made it onto the board, hitting the outer ring.

‘Everything okay?’ Logan asked, a look of actual concern drawing his dark brows together.

‘Everything’s fine.’ Mac chucked the last dart, and it bounced off the wall.

‘Holy shit,’ Noah breathed. ‘I’ve never seen you play this bad before.’

Mac tried to shrug it off. ‘It happens.’

‘Not to you,’ Noah insisted, and unfortunately, he was right.

If there was one thing Mac had gotten good at while spending years of his life in his father’s pub and so many others, it was darts.

And he’d spent far too many nights kicking Noah’s ass at the game to try to claim that he wasn't any good.

‘Forget it,’ Mac said, heading back to the table. Bennett had just returned with another round of beers and Archer had joined them.

‘Hey, what’d I miss? I had to wait for the babysitter.’

‘Logan's going to sleep with Jeanie the night before the wedding and something's very wrong with Mac,’ Noah reported.

Archer raised an eyebrow. ‘Wow.’

‘Nothing’s wrong with me,’ Mac insisted, except he felt like everything was wrong with him at the moment.

He’d lived so many years convincing himself that there was nothing between him and Annie.

That it had all been some teenage fantasy, blown way out of proportion.

And then he'd moved back here and he was screwed, because Annie was exactly as perfect as he'd remembered. But she didn’t want him, and he’d done his best to move on.

He’d set up a life here. He’d dated other women, grown his business.

He’d made fucking friends . And then he’d spent one morning with her, and she'd destroyed his resolve to stay away.

He couldn't think straight.

And he certainly couldn’t play darts.

‘He spent the morning with Annie,’ Archer reported, and if he didn't have a baby on the way, Mac might have punched him in the face.

‘Really?’ Noah said ‘Interesting…’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Iris. She said you and Annie stormed the Y this morning.’

‘You were also spotted together at the café,’ Ben added, taking a slug of his beer. These grown men, his alleged friends, were worse than the book club with their gossip.

‘Jesus. You can't do anything in this town without everyone knowing about it.’

Archer chuckled. ‘It’s the truth, but what were you guys doing together? I thought she didn't let you near her.’

Mac shook his head, downing more of his beer. That was more true than he wanted to admit.

‘I was at her apartment this morning,’ he glared at Noah before the man could jump in with questions about things that definitely didn’t happen, ‘fetching Logan’s cufflinks. And her car was out of gas. I helped her run a couple of errands. That’s it.’

‘That’s it?’ Bennett asked, skeptically.

‘Yeah, that’s it. Errands.’

Nobody looked like they were buying it, but Mac must have had a threatening enough look on his face that they let it go.

‘Okay, man, whatever you say.’

‘We’re not here to talk about me, anyway,’ Mac said, gesturing to Logan with his bottle of beer. ‘We’re here for our friend on his last night of freedom.’

Logan rolled his eyes. ‘Last night of freedom is a bullshit thing to say,’ he said. ‘We’re here because I wanted a pub burger and a beer and you’re just lucky I let you tag along.’

Mac shook his head with a smile. There was the grumpy bastard they all knew and loved.

‘To Logan and Jeanie,’ Archer said, raising his bottle and the others followed suit.

‘To Logan and Jeanie!’ they all said.

‘Congratulations, man.’ Mac clapped his friend on the back.

‘Thanks,’ Logan said. ‘I am glad you guys are here.’

Noah pretended to wipe his eyes. ‘Don’t get all sappy on us now. You're going to make me cry.’

Bennett laughed and Mac got up to grab some more food for the table. By the time he got back, Iris was perched on Archer’s lap.

His heart rate picked up speed. Were all the girls here?

‘Hey Iris, what are you doing here?’ he asked, sliding a plate of fries in front of her.

‘Perfect,’ she said, with a little sigh. ‘I was having a craving.’

‘I can make you fries,’ Archer grumbled.

Iris pressed a kiss against his temple. ‘I love you and I love your cooking, but you can’t deep fry me fries at home and this is exactly what I wanted,’ she said, popping one of the crispy fries into her mouth.

Archer kissed her shoulder. ‘Okay, sweetheart.’

‘Jeanie wanted me to tell you she’ll meet you at home,’ Iris said, turning to Logan. ‘She was grabbing dinner with her parents first.’

Logan nodded.

‘So, I guess you don't think it’s bad luck, either,’ Iris said. ‘Sleeping together the night before the wedding.’

Logan shook his head. ‘Of course I don’t think it’s bad luck. Jeanie is it for me and I’m not going to spend the night away from her because of some ridiculous superstition.’

Iris smiled. ‘She feels the same way.’

Logan dipped his head in acknowledgement, a happy smile tugging at his lips.

And for a minute, Mac couldn’t identify the sensation in his gut, until he realized it was jealousy.

He was jealous of his friends. Jealous of Logan for being so sure about Jeanie.

Jealous of Archer for having his beautiful and pregnant girlfriend in his lap, and of Noah, who’d already married the girl of his dreams; and then there was Bennett, who spent his days so wrapped up in Kira it seemed like he required nothing else.

On the night before his friend’s wedding, it hit Mac like a ton of fucking bricks. Maybe this was what he wanted, too.

After years of trying to convince himself otherwise.

He wanted what his friends had.

And unfortunately, he knew exactly who he wanted it with.