Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87142 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87142 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
“Don’t shh me. I’m not Douchebag Dan up there.”
“Peter,” she corrected me. “And I haven’t talked to him since we graduated. I’m sure he’s grown up by now. Shit. Mrs. Whitcomb’s cake is already up to two hundred and fifty. She’s going to win, just like she does every year.” Her face fell, and she walked off, her shoulders slumped.
Just chalk that up to yet another small-town thing I didn’t understand. At least in the music industry, no one got pissed about easily bought cakes. But Whitcomb was the same last name as her ex, right?
“If you want the cake, I’ll buy you the cake.” I followed Zoe to the ninth table, where she stared at another tiered cake, but this one was golden vanilla, edged with fudge and strawberries. The sheet next to the cake read A. Shannon.
Alice Shannon. Zoe’s Mom.
Okay, cakes were something I didn’t get, but rivalry? I sure as fuck understood that.
“Bid.” I motioned to the sheet.
“I can’t,” she muttered. “Mom would kill me. She always says that if the last bid is by a Shannon, she won’t speak to us until Christmas.”
“Harsh.”
“That’s Mom for you.” She blew her breath out slowly with a rumble through her lips. “There’s always next year.”
Someone called her name, and Zoe was engulfed in another group of hugs, this time from women her own age. Thank God she had friends—I’d been on the brink of actually worrying about her. I’d taken at least a dozen calls from Quinn and Jonas in the last few days, but Zoe’s phone had been silent, other than her family and Ben. Even little Type A’s like Zoe needed friends.
I was introduced, and a quick flare of their eyes told me they knew exactly who I was but neither of them mentioned it, which made me like them. Then they ignored me completely and asked Zoe about how she was, which made me like them even more.
“Go ahead,” I urged her when they asked about cider. “I’ll be there in a second.”
Zoe’s forehead crinkled. “Are you sure?”
“There’s zero alcohol at this family-filled festival, and now that someone has finished strangling an animal on stage, I think I just might make it. You can trust me for five minutes. Go hang with your friends. I’m going to place a couple bids. I’m in the mood for Devil’s food.”
“Of course you are.” Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she finally nodded. “It’s the booth right next door. Just walk out of the tent and you can’t miss it.”
“I think I’ll be able to find it,” I drawled slowly.
She rolled her eyes but just about vibrated with excitement as she took off with her girlfriends.
I ignored the stares that followed me as I took myself back to the tables and three more bids. Once that was done, I bought a cupcake from the table of bake sale items and wandered out of the tent.
The high school choir sang from the stage as the crowd varied between watching the show and meandering toward other booths. Thank God, Zoe’s ex wasn’t the main event. Jesus, how long had it been since Hush Note had been anyone’s opening act? Seven years? Eight? We’d been selling out stadiums for the past few years—long enough for me to take what had been years of struggle for granted.
I glanced over at Zoe with her friends, marveling at her carefree smile, and the ache in my chest sharpened. For all the time I’d spent with her, I didn’t know her nearly as well as I should have.
I ripped my eyes away from Zoe, and then really took in the crowd. Couples swayed on the night-chilled grass as rambunctious toddlers ran happy circles around them. Guys in letterman jackets puffed out their chests for the girls they’d mucked up the courage to talk to. An older couple looked after their grandchildren. There were countless little moments happening in the park, and I tried to catalog them all, to file them away with the scent of apple cider and the taste of lemon cake and raspberry buttercream in my brain to be accessed when I was writing.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Zoe approach without her friends and started toward her, but her ex got there first. Whatever he’d said had her mouth hanging open, but she hadn’t tossed either of those cups of cider in his face, so he had that going for him.
It was probably my duty to warn the guy her temper was pretty vicious.
“You didn’t even make it to LA?” he scoffed, and my hackles rose.
Zoe winced. It was slight, but it was there.
I stilled. This fucker wasn’t allowed to make her flinch like that.
“Nope. The management firm I work for has a branch in Seattle, so I stayed there,” she said calmly, keeping her cool just like she always did.