Page 81 of The Matchmaker's Cottage

He’d always, deep down, in the most humiliatingly private parts of his brain, thought she looked like a princess. The old-fashioned kind. Not the ones in the movies nowadays who fought the bad guys and knew how to use a sword, but the ones who were stoic and patient, locked in the tall tower, waiting to one day be free. Not to say she wasn’t wise or brave—she’d proven herself to be both on more than one occasion—but because she always seemed to be planning the ideal course of action that would give her the best advantage toward whatever end goal she had.

And in the meantime, she’d wait.

He felt the heaviness settle again, the one that invaded his life too minimally to make note of. The one that seemed to creep in only when he worried about her.

“What are you going to be so rich for anyway?” she said after a few beats. The smile was back in her voice, and with it came the lightness in his chest. “Big-shot actor?”

“Nah, acting was the old dream.” He sat up, looking down at her, that golden hair spread out on the wood like a pale ring of light around her head. “I want to be a photographer now.”

“Photographer?” Her nose crinkled, and she opened her eyes as well, looking up at him. “How are you going to make any money?”

“Well, I’ll obviously be amazing at it,” he scoffed. “People will want to buy my photographs like art that they’ll hang in their homes, really expensive and super nice. I’ll sell them at auctions one day, you’ll see.”

She shrugged, closing her eyes. “Whatever you want to do, Ethan, I know you’ll do it.”

It was weird the way her words filled him with a little glow of pride, more than anyone else in his life could evoke in him. As though her belief in him actually meant something.

The feeling was uncomfortable, like a shirt that fit too snugly, and he needed to do something to break the tension, even if it was self-inflicted.

“Aww, thanks, Jules.”

“Ugh!” She whacked him lightly on the arm. “What’s wrong with you?”

He cackled, satisfied at having irked her with the use of her most hated nickname. “Sorry, I forgot.” “Gem” was what he usually called her, a nickname they’d created when she’d first expressed her disdain for “Jules.”

I’ll call you Gem,he’d said,because it’s like a jewel, but different.

“Yeah, right.” Her lips were quirking and her eyes had closed again. “Loser.”

“Takes one to know one,” he retorted quickly, then felt pleased with himself at the lightning-fast strike.

She just snorted.

He lay back down again, hands crossed over his stomach, eyes skyward now as he took in the tiny pinpricks of glowing light in the inky-black firmament.

The truth was, they were simply fixtures in each other’s lives—neither one putting a fine point on what the relationship could be defined as. Not quite siblings, but more than just friends, they were Ethan and Gem, Gem and Ethan. Even now, getting older as they were, they’d begun to distance themselves from each other at school lest the taunts about crushes and cooties start. But in the summers when they were at the cottage together, they had the dock, the soft swish of the lake, and the comforting sound of the crickets in the grass. They had the quiet midnight hours and moments when they didn’t need to think about or talk about or acknowledge anything unpleasant that was happening in real life.

She looked at him then, and he only knew because he had turned to look at her at the same moment, and she was smiling the shadow of a real smile, and it warmed his chest from the inside out. It gave him some hope—hope that maybe the future wouldn’t be so bad. That things wouldn’t have to change so drastically. Ethan hated when things changed. Especially when they had been so good before. Change meant he’d have to give up the things that made him happy. The things that made Gem happy.

But for now—lying side-by-side, the splintered wood prickling the backs of his bare legs and her breath coming in and out evenly as they looked at the stars together—for now, at least, they had this moment.

At least they had each other.

28

Present day

It was bitterlycold.

Julia sat on the dock, staring out at the lake, a scarf wrapped twice around her face obstructing her nose and mouth from the wind. There was a single Adirondack chair that had been left out from better days, and she had quickly occupied it, needing the comfort of the seat enveloping her as she tried to discern the horizon line from the differing grays of the sky and water. She absently thought to herself that she would need to bring the chair back with her before the snow started.

But maybe not just yet.

She experimentally turned her ankle, moving her foot back and forth. There was no longer any pain, though she did feel a mild twinge on one of the interior turns that reminded her she wasn’t one hundred percent better yet and perhaps never would be. It had been three weeks since the incident, and she mentallybemoaned the idea that she had caused permanent damage to herself.

A laugh interrupted her morose reverie, and she looked behind her to see Katy and Maggie ambling toward the dock, hand in hand. She couldn’t help the smile that formed under her scarf.

“Don’t you two look like you can’t feel this horrendous cold!” she called, causing both women to look up at her in surprise and then giggle at seemingly being caught.