Page 6 of The Ex-Best Thing
“Good night, Bree.” I take a step back, safe under the porch from the rain. It goes against every fiber of me not to pick up her enormous suitcase and carry it to her front door. Something tells me she needs space, like she’s a feral racoon—dark-rimmed eyes and everything—and one step closer will make her lash out. She needs the room to retreat.
Bree grabs the handle and yanks it down the wet sidewalk. “Good night, Benny.”
I listen for her front door to shut and watch the living room light flash on, off, on through the lacy drape-covered window. My house is too quiet now, even with the window open to the sound of rain pinging against my back deck. I clean up thepuddle on my hardwood floor and find myself staring at the sea lion on the nearby table.
Bree is here. She’shere.
And she seems to want nothing to do with me.
I wake up,lace my shoes, run down to the beach and back—notonthe sand, as I don’t actively sign up for torture—and shower, all before six AM. Something about knowing that Bree Belacourt is in Colby’s house next door has made it impossible for me to get any sleep at all. Even my run doesn’t push her from my head.
I know she’s there. She knows I know she’s there. I can’t get the thought out of my head that she has nothing in her fridge and no rental car. Is she hungry? Do I take her muffins? Avoid her completely? She has nothing to eat, and the Bree I used to know was a raging monster before food. She defined the wordhangryfor me.
But she’s not that girl anymore. She’s a woman with life experience and changes in her preferences and behaviors, undoubtedly. When we dated, I hated onions. Absolutely loathed them. Picked them off my pizza, sent back sandwiches that had been defiled by their potent stringy bits. Spit out a bite of stuffed mushroom at a Grammys after-party once because the onion crunch had been so jarring.
Yes. I once spit my food in a bush in front of Shawn Mendes. He was nice about it.
But now? Ilovethem. Grilled, baked, caramelized. They’re the sprinkles on my cupcakes, and I add them to anything savory I can. There aren’t many meals in the Rhodes house that aren’t onionized somehow.
So, clearly I’ve changed. I can’t expect less from Bree.
Then again,hangerdoesn’t seem like the sort of thing onegrows out of. I pick up my key, throw on my helmet, and head for my garage. I don’t have to see Bree to bring her something to eat. It’s not out of line to leave muffins on her porch, right? That’s the polite, neighborly thing to do.
It crosses my mind to ask Colby for her number. He’d have it through the booking she made on his short-term rental, right? Then I could text her that there was food on her porch and never even have to knock.
That feels like too much. Does Colby even know who he rented the house to? She couldn’t have used a real name. Not if she doesn’t want to be found.
Cool morning air whips my cheeks as I snake through the ocean-lined highway toward town on my retro Harley.
Well,townis generous. It’s more like half a street covered in an array of shops punctuated, by old houses turned into high-end art galleries and wind chime stores. The people here really love their wind chimes. We have a lot of wind, so I guess it’s fair.
If you need anything more than a quick supermarket can provide, you have to drive into a bigger town where they don’t price-gouge you for milk and eggs. Which is why I take a once-a-month venture to Costco and stock up.
I’m currently due for a Costco run, so I’m fresh out of anything worth sharing with a neighbor. But fifteen minutes later, I’m choosing pastries at Wild Flour and agonizing over which foods Bree might like now that she wouldn’t eat ten years ago. What are her onions? Does she like cherries? She used to hate them. Or maybe she isn’t a fan of blueberries anymore.
They have an array of fresh scones, so to be safe, I take one of everything. Which is how I end up driving home slowly while holding an overstuffed paper bag and wishing I’d taken my truck instead. When the blue ocean comes into view, sunlight sparkling like a thousand little diamonds, my regret slithersaway. I breathe in deeply, letting salty, cool air cleanse my lungs, and turn for home.
I don’t really have time for this. I have a Zoom meeting with Justin in thirty minutes, and I haven’t even warmed up my voice.
I’m slowly puttering up my street when I notice movement in the bushes in front of my house. A woman is trying to peek through my front window, face pressed to the glass and hands cupped around her eyes to block the sun.
That woman looks a lot like Bree.
3
BREE
I jump backfrom Benny’s front window when a loud engine rumbles down the road. The last thing I need is for a do-gooder neighbor to call the cops and have to answer questions about why I’m puttering around my neighbor/ex-boyfriend’s front yard and trying to see into his house. That’ll lead to “Why are you here, Bree Belacourt?” and swiftly change to, “Can I get a selfie? My daughter is going to freak out when I tell her who I met today.”
Which, frankly, would lead to me stealing Benny’s truck and finding somewhere else to hide. I can’t have a criminal record, and I don’t want to leave. Getting here was exhausting. I want to stay at least a little longer.
Be smarter, Bree. No more looking through the neighbor’s windows, even if I’m convinced he’s trying to avoid me.
When the bike roars onto the driveway and parks next to Benny’s lifted F-150—which I can only identify because of a commercial I starred in a few years ago for the Super Bowl—heat steals into my cheeks.
Not a do-gooder, then. The ex-boyfriend himself.
“Watch out for my hydrangeas,” he says, slinging his leg overthe bike. Wayfarer shades hide his eyes. He lifts the helmet from his head, revealing disheveled, dark hair that I’d really like to run my fingers through. Benny’s completely dressed, covered from head to toe in jeans and a black jacket, but this is still the most mouth-drying image I’ve seen in years.
