“I know.” Allie sighed. “Is he going to be weird about you and me being friends?”
“No.” Devon shook her head adamantly, then closed her eyes and groaned. When she opened her eyes again, she refrained from shaking or nodding and simply said, “He’s happy about it.”
“Until you puke in his car,” Allie said with a chuckle, more relieved than she’d expected to know that Josh would be okay with her friendship with Devon. It had only been an hour and she already felt like she’d be pretty devastated if it didn’t work out.
“Ah, I’ll make it up to him.”
Allie looked at her with surprise. Devon was grinning slyly.
“Now, see,
that’s
what I’m talking about,” Allie said, happily. “Hinting about blow jobs. That’s a nice start.”
Devon coughed. “How do you know I was thinking blow jobs specifically?”
Allie grinned. “Yeah, maybe that’s just
my
favorite get-out-of-jail-free card.”
Devon laughed. “This girl-talk thing is fun.”
It was. But the talk of sexual innuendos and blow jobs had her mind very firmly back on Gavin. She pushed herself off the car resignedly and leaned through the open driver’s window to grab her phone.
Flipping it open she was startled to see four new voice messages waiting for her.
She’d been home for three hours and everyone was already calling?
Yeah, that was about right.
That damned heaviness settled on her again.
Reluctantly she opened the screen to see who the calls were from.
They were all from Gavin.
Her heart sped up. That was a lot of calls. She certainly hoped he missed her, but… She hit the redial button and waited, holding her breath.
Eight rings later, it went to voice mail.
What the hell?
She snapped her phone shut.
“So he’s…” Devon started.
But Allie’s phone rang just then. It was Gavin.
“Gavin, are you okay?”
“Josh said you’re at the cemetery.”
She blinked. “Um, yeah. Josh told you?”
“Yeah. We’ve been calling back and forth trying to figure out where you girls are since you weren’t answering your phones. He just called and said you were at the cemetery with Devon.”
“Oh. I am. He’s on the way.”
“Me too.”
“You are?”
He sighed heavily in her ear. “Allison, the whole call-me-if-you-need-anything bit definitely includes going with you to the cemetery.”
She shook her head and immediately thought she was going to lose what little food she’d had. She gave in to her body’s urge to sit down—quickly—and slumped to the curb, burying her face in her hands.
“Allie?” Gavin said in her ear. His voice was husky. “Are you okay?”
“Actually, I’m drunk,” she admitted.
“You’re
drunk
?” he repeated. “I thought you were at the cemetery.”
“We are.”
“You’re drunk at the cemetery?” he clarified.
“With the woman who ran off with my fiancé,” she said wryly.
He chuckled and the sound washed over her, making the heaviness lift a little. “You’re drunk and you didn’t call me to sing?”
“Actually, I was considering it,” she said. “But I couldn’t think of something dirty enough. I was just considering Kelly Clarkson’s ‘My Life Would Suck Without You’.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. Then he said, “I’m on my way.”
“Just meet me at Dad’s.” She disconnected and then lay back in the grass by the curb. “I’m screwed,” she told Devon.
“Gavin will be at your dad’s?” Devon asked.
“Yep.”
“And that’s bad?”
“This whole thing is going to be hard on you.” Allie pushed up and braced herself with her hands on the grass behind her. Devon still leaned on the car.
“On me?” Devon asked. “How so?”
“Either this is just a visit and he’ll leave again—which will tear my heart out—or he thinks he’s going to stay to be with me—which will also suck because it’s not what he really wants.” She scowled at the pavement as she said the truth out loud. “He’s not happy here. And that’s going to tear me up, because I love him and want him to be happy. Either way, I’m going to need a
lot more tequila, a lot more often, and it’s pathetic to drink alone.” She looked back up at Devon. “So, since you’re my best friend, you’ll be drinking with me. It could be hard on you. Cirrhosis of the liver is nothing to sneeze at.”
And she wasn’t even joking.
It wasn’t a healthy way to handle it—physically or mentally—but she didn’t see a way around it.
Devon sat down next to her, taking her hand. “First of all, being your best friend, I’m determined to ration your tequila from this point on. Second of all, there are other options, Allie. Gavin could find a job in Boston. Or somewhere else where you can be together, but be close enough to home that you could come often.”
Yeah. It sounded good when Devon said it. Allie just wasn’t sure she could turn it into reality.
“He likes polar bears,” she said, pushing up from the curb and brushing the seat of her pants off. “There are only seven polar bear populations in the world and only two in North America. So, it’s Alaska or Canada. Both far away from the harbor.”
Devon couldn’t reply to that because Josh pulled up just then.
Josh stepped out and looked at them with a bemused expression over the top of the car.
Allie looked at Devon and she looked at Allie. Devon’s clothes and hair were rumpled, there were blades of grass clinging to her pants and she had that funny, dazed look in her eyes that came from too much tequila in too short a period.
Allie probably looked even worse.
“Can you take me home?” Allie asked Josh, knowing he’d say yes.
“Yes,” he said simply. “I can even buy you coffee on the way.”
“I don’t want coffee,” she told him, gathering her shoes—that she’d kicked off at some point—and shot glasses and mostly empty tequila bottle. “That might sober me up.”
“So you did get drunk on purpose.” He reached out to help her into the backseat of the car, probably afraid she’d break the bottle on the door.
“I drank on purpose,” she told him. “The amount snuck up on me.”
“Gavin’s on his way.”
“He’s going to Dad’s.” She frowned at Josh. “Why’d you call him anyway?”
“He came four thousand miles from Alaska for you. Twice. Pretty sure he’d want to be with you right now.”
The truth—and sweetness—of that hit her in the chest. “But I can’t believe
you
called
Gavin
to come be with me. Doesn’t that strike you as a little odd?” she asked him.
“I want a front-row seat,” Josh said. “The last time you mixed tequila and Gavin’s return to the harbor, things got really interesting.”
Allie squinted up at him. “Did you just make a joke about the Wedding That Wasn’t?”
He chuckled. “Yes.”
“So we really are both over it.”
“Seems that way.” He reached out and put an arm around Devon.
“Okay.” Allie sat back in her seat and rested her head back as Josh shut the door and helped Devon into the front. Allie closed her eyes and kept them that way until she felt the car stop.
“I should go in with her,” Devon said.
“No need,” Allie assured her, somehow sitting upright without feeling like puking. “I’m fine.”
Josh, being Josh, insisted they walk her into the house anyway. Which turned out to be a good idea. The steps were a little taller than she’d remembered.
Gavin met them at the top step of the porch, clearly torn between being gracious about Josh helping her and wanting to grab her away from the man she’d almost married.
In the end, Josh handed her over to Gavin without a word.
Gavin swept her up into his arms and she cuddled close, thinking that was exactly where she wanted to be. He headed straight for the bedroom, Josh and Devon following.
“Wow, I’m really jet-lagged,” she said with a huge yawn.
“Yeah, I’m sure
that’s
the problem,” Josh said.
“You okay, sweetie?” Devon asked.
“Fine.” Allie yawned again as Gavin set her on the edge of the bed.
Without thinking, she stripped her top T-shirt off, leaving her in only a tank top.
“Time to go,” Gavin announced, turning Josh out the door.
Devon crossed to Allie and hugged her quick. “Call if you need anything.”
“You bet,” Allie agreed, lying back, watching her ceiling spin. “I’ll need more tequila tomorrow. I’ll call as soon as I wake up.”
“No more tequila,” Gavin and Josh both said firmly from the hallway, but Devon pulled the door shut behind her.
Allie shut her eyes. She had a BFF again. That was going to come in handy if Gavin ended up breaking her heart.
Allie awoke several hours later, completely disoriented.
One look at the wallpaper in her childhood bedroom—the tiny yellow flowers on the white background that she’d picked out when she was twelve—reminded her where she was.
Her body insisted it was early afternoon.
In Alaska, it was. In Promise Harbor, it was—she squinted at the clock—five-oh-four. She groaned. This was going to take some adjusting.
And the tequila definitely hadn’t helped.
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sighed. It wasn’t the time that had awakened her. It was the noise downstairs. Which meant there were people here.
She really didn’t want to see, or deal with, people.
Especially the ones she was related to.
She stepped into the kitchen, yawning, but she stopped in the doorway, blinked rapidly and rubbed her eyes. She still didn’t believe what she saw.
Danny was at the stove. Cooking.
“What’s going on?”
“Hey,” he greeted her over his shoulder.
That didn’t answer her question. She wandered farther into the room. “What are you doing?”
There were voices coming from the dining room just through the doorway.
“Making dinner.”
“
You’re
making dinner?”
“Pasta.”
That
was suspicious. “What kind?”
“Fettuccini with asparagus and salmon.” He gave her a cocky grin. “I’m a natural in the kitchen.”
“Lydia told you that?”
“Yep.”
Allie couldn’t believe that Lydia had been coaching her brothers to cook via Skype. “How would she know? She can’t smell it or taste it.”
“She just did. Said it was awesome.”
“She…” Allie’s attention was pulled from the fettuccini—that did look pretty good, especially considering she’d been asleep for a little over seven hours and was starving. “What do you mean she just did?”
“Like ten minutes ago.”
Allie’s gaze flew to the doorway leading to the dining room. “Lydia’s
here
?”
“Yeah, got here like a half hour ago.”
Allie headed for the dining room.
“Allie!” Devon was the first person she saw and the first to see her. Devon was out of her chair, a big red purse thrown over her shoulder, and at Allie’s side seemingly in milliseconds. She grabbed Allie by the arm and tugged her down the hallway to the bathroom.
“What are you doing?”
“This is why I’m here,” Devon said. She upended her purse on the countertop. Makeup, hair accessories and other items rolled, bounced and clattered on the Formica.
“To give me a makeover?”
Devon took her shoulders and turned her toward the mirror. “I figured you’d get out of bed, realize everyone was here, and you’d come running without realizing
this
.” She gestured toward Allie’s reflection.
Allie focused on her face. And winced.
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
She’d gone straight to bed without taking her makeup off, brushing her hair or even changing out of her capris.
“Okay. Maybe I could freshen up.”
“Start with this.” Devon handed her a brand-new toothbrush, still in the package.
“You know,” Allie grumbled as she took the brush and opened it. “It’s a good thing we’re best friends. I don’t take that from just anyone.”
Devon hugged her around the shoulders. “I know.”
With Devon’s help and red purse, Allie was presentable within fifteen minutes.
“So what do you think of Lydia?” The girl hadn’t been very high on Allie’s list of Things To Worry About for the past several hours, but now she wondered how Lydia was doing.
“Charlie seemed to be expecting her because he was right there at the door and whisked her off to his bedroom.”
Allie sighed. “Great.”
“He’s twenty-five, hon,” Devon said, applying blush to Allie’s cheeks. “And they’ve obviously taken some time to get to know each other.”