Page 50 of The Matchmaker's Cottage

Enough was enough.

“I don’t need your armchair psychologist bullshit, Ethan.” She knew she was falling right back into old habits, right into that trap she also knew would catch her, no matter how self-aware she was. But the alcohol was flowing through her bloodstream, too, and she just didn’t have the wherewithal to keep all the emotions bubbling to the surface at bay.

“It’s not bullshit, dummy.” It seemed like Ethan was falling back into old familiar behaviors as well, back to a time when semi-affectionate name-calling had been the norm between them. “It’s the truth. You bring yourself down for nothing, when you should actually be really fucking proud of all the things you do.”

“Iamproud,” she insisted, annoyed that she even had to defend herself. “I just know what my strengths are, and cooking full, multicourse dinners is not it.”

Ethan shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “You used to make a mean moussaka back in the day. I’m sure you could figure it out if you really wanted to.”

Julia sighed and stood, gathering the last few place settings just to give herself something to do.

“Well, if Spiros and crew from Kouzina ever come back to eat here, I’ll whip up the old recipe.”

Snatching up the leftover cloth napkins and throwing themonto a plate, she began to turn before placing everything in her hands back down with a loud clatter.

“You know what? You actually know nothing about me, and maybe you never did. I know what I’m doing with this place. I hired Maggie for a reason, and I have my own strengths and things I do well to help support us. I don’t need you popping in here like a fucking Monday-morning quarterback and telling me tobelieve in myself. The ship that gave you the right to do that has fucking sailed, buddy. I suggest you find a life jacket and set off a few flares. Ordrown.”

With that, she grabbed the miscellaneous dinnerware left on the table and stalked out of the room. On her way out, she brushed past Noah, who had returned from his forced foray into the kitchen. She didn’t even bother to greet him like a good innkeeper and host would have, too incensed and drunk to do what was right, her heart beating hard and fast, and continued past him at a quick pace.

She was not, however, moving quickly enough to miss hearing him say to Ethan: “Bigex-friends-with-benefits vibes. Huge!”

18

Ethan watched Juliastalk out of the room, barely hearing Temu Harry Potter with his friends-with-benefits bullshit commentary.

Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed as hard as he had, especially with her words ringing in his ears—You actually know nothing about me, and maybe you never did—and he felt almost guilty about bringing it up at all. Though he would never agree with the sentiment that he didn’t know her, it was true that he had a tendency to push when things should be let go. To force things to bend just enough that sometimes they broke. He wasn’t proud of that quality in himself or his bullish, ill-advised ways of achieving what he wanted, whether it be confirmation, answers, or validation.

In this instance, however, all he’d managed to achieve was a vaguely sick feeling as he watched her go. It lingered with him even as Noah tried to make conversation, perhaps feeling uneasy about his own assumptions, or when Katy and Maggiereturned, faces flushed from the heat of the kitchen and their shared laughter.

Maggie had brought in a chocolate cake, and both women inquired about Julia, to which Noah and Ethan shrugged and made up slightly contradictory excuses, but their answers appeared to be satisfactory enough that it wasn’t brought up again.

Trying to avoid further suspicion, Ethan willed himself to stay seated and smile and eat a piece of cake once it was offered to him.

Julia had baked it that morning before their outing, Maggie said as she was serving up slices, that flush still present in her cheeks. Maggie had just done the frosting while preparing dinner. She talked about how she’d gone shopping in town herself, off to the farmers’ market down the street, a part of town they hadn’t explored.

Katy and Noah bemoaned the thought of missing out on the quaint farmers’ market, the pictures they could have gotten there exploring—“Smelling flowers and shit,” as Noah put it, with which Katy vehemently agreed.

I can’t think of everything, Ethan wanted to snap, feeling the caustic remnants of the still-simmering thoughts of his interaction with Julia. But the fact was, heshouldbe thinking of everything. He should be planning these things with more care and attention to detail. He’d flown them out here, for Christ’s sake, with his fucking job on the line, to make it look like they were falling in love in fucking wine country, with no one to witness it except for a few locals with popular social media accounts. One false move, one image that had even a mild aura of insincerity, and he was going to be fucking toast.

So yeah, he did need to be thinking of everything, and not letting an ancient fight interfere with his present-day goals. Even if it was over a decades-old friendship he hadn’t been able to let go of or forget.

He needed to stay focused.

“You’re right, we should have walked through there. Better photo ops. Maybe we can try heading there tomorrow?”

“No can do!” Maggie said, a little too cheerfully considering she was crushing his plans beneath her excessively large soup ladle. “It’s only open Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“Ah.” The lack of consonants between his teeth meant that no one in the room could hear him grinding them. “In that case, we’ll just go down to the lake tomorrow, as planned.”

“The pier in town or just staying here?” Maggie interjected again, handing Ethan a piece of cake that was double what he’d expected.

“I mean…” He was flummoxed by the question. He’d assumed they would go down to the dock by the cottage, take some sunset shots, maybe use those for official pictures once the “relationship” had leaked. He knew he couldn’t get away with treating lake pictures as candids necessarily, but at least he could get some good photographs in.

“Which is the better side of the lake?” Katy asked, completing the sentence that Ethan couldn’t.

“Oh, here, for sure,” Maggie replied enthusiastically. “I live just down the way, and my favorite way to get to the lake is through the trees just at the edge of the driveway. It takes you to the best side with the most gorgeous views.” She sighed wistfully. “Julia and I keep talking about it as a place to take some pictures to post on the website, but it’s always under construction—”

“The lake?” Noah interjected, confused.