Page 16 of Some Sort of Happy (Happy Crazy Love 1)
I gasped. “What? No way. You guys have been together forever.”
She shrugged. “That doesn’t mean anything. I saw some text messages on his phone from a girl at his office that have me wondering.”
Dan was like a brother to me, since he and Natalie had been together since high school, but I’d kill him if he hurt her. “You need to talk to him. Right now.”
“I will. Maybe it’s nothing.” Her expression said otherwise. “Anyway, we were talking about you. Are you going to be OK?”
“Yeah.” I sniffed. “I need a tissue.”
Natalie reached for the napkin dispenser and slid it over to me. “You still have plenty of old friends here. Why don’t you look them up? You work all day and spend all your downtime working on those guest houses. You should get out a little.”
Plucking a napkin from the dispenser, I blew my nose. “I don’t know. I only stayed in touch with a few people after I left. And everyone who stayed around here is either married and pregnant or married with kids. It’s hard to relate.”
“Well, then, I think you should make a new friend.” She flashed a meaningful look out the door.
I considered it. He was cute, and smart, if a bit socially awkward. Maybe I could draw him out. That was one thing I was good at, talking to people. “I could ask him if he’s going to the reunion, I guess.”
“There you go.” She stood and picked up the broom again, resumed her sweeping.
“How can I find him?”
“He’ll probably be back in here first thing tomorrow looking for that notebook. I’m surprised he’s not here already.”
I thought for a second. “I do need a job. Want to hire me?”
“You know what?” She stopped sweeping and looked at me, resting her chin on the top of the broom. “I was planning to hire someone part time since the tourist season is picking up. I can’t pay you what Rivard paid you, and you won’t like the hours, but the job’s yours if you want it.”
“I’ll take it. At this point, I don’t even care what it pays, I just need something to do while I figure my life out.” I picked up my half-eaten cookie. “These are amazing. I’m going to get fluffy working here.”
Natalie groaned. “They are, and I’ve eaten way too many today so I’m heading to the gym after this. Want to go for a swim with me?”
Natalie had been a champion swimmer in high school. Her definition of “go for a swim” was not the same as mine, which involved more floating than laps, preferably on a raft with a cupholder for my frozen daiquiri.
“No way,” I said. “I’m too out of shape to swim with you. But I’ll get on a bike or a treadmill or something.”
“Great. You can come for dinner if you want too. We’re grilling kebabs.”
“The chicken wrapped in bacon?” I asked hopefully.
“Yep.”
“Sold.” I felt a little better. Nothing makes a bad day better like bacon. “What can I do to help you close?”
“Why don’t you sweep, and I’ll do kitchen duty?” She held the broom out to me, and I saluted before taking it from her.
But after she’d gone into the kitchen, I remained on the stool with the broom in my hand, staring at the notebook on the counter.
Sebastian Pryce. After all these years, he was a hot, mysterious lawyer with a firm handshake and a tragic past. Was his standoffish demeanor just a defense mechanism? He’d jumped up to help me at the beach this morning in a heartbeat, so I knew he had manners somewhere under the icy exterior. And those eyes. When he’d taken his glasses off and looked at me, there was something other than anger in them. Was it fear? Sadness? Was he still afraid of being rejected? I flattened one hand on the notebook’s front cover. What was in here?
For a moment, Sebastian’s right to privacy warred with my insane curiosity about him…
How wrong would it be to take a peek?
Totally wrong.
But maybe there was an address or phone number in it? I could justify it that way, right?
You just want to get up in his business.
