“Lucy?” Taylor touched her arm, dragging her away from her thoughts of what if. “What’s going on?”
“That was not the face I expected you to make when I mentioned Miami,” Willow added.
Thankfully, the Scuttlebutt was empty but for the three of them, because Lucy burst into tears. Napkins were shoved into her hands, and she buried her face in them as Willow and Taylor took turns rubbing her back.
When the crying jag passed and she’d dried her face with a fresh wad of napkins, Lucy took a shuddering breath. Then she sipped the water Willow brought her.
“What’s going on?” Taylor asked again.
She wanted so badly to tell them everything. They were her friends—Taylor was hersister—but that was exactly the problem. If she told them the truth of how she felt about Nick and how it would hurt to leave him, but he hadn’t even hinted at not wanting her to go, they’d be upset on her behalf. And he lived in this town. With them.
And even though he hadn’t done anything wrong, Willow and Taylor might hold it against him.
“I’m going to miss you both so much,” she finally settled. And it was the truth, even if it wasn’t the whole of it.
As expected, they buried her in promises to call and text and FaceTime constantly. And they talked about how Lucy would have to come back when the baby was born. Plus, when the baby was a little older, they could all come visit her in Florida.
A lot of promises were made, though Lucy knew traveling from Maine to Florida wasn’t cheap.
She smiled and nodded along with everything they said because they wanted her to feel better. But they didn’t know there was only one person who could do that.
After parting ways with them, Lucy went home and found the driveway and cottage empty. It took her a moment to remember it was one of Helen’s club meetings at the library—book club, knitting club, or maybe a talking about books while knitting club—and they usually went to Jenna’s for supper after.
Since she was going to be alone for at least a few hours, Lucy dug out her Bluetooth speaker and plugged it in so she could blast a fun, upbeat playlist and get to work.
The first thing on her list was emptying the dryer. It had buzzed before she left for the Scuttlebutt, but she’d just popped the door and left it for later. It was a load she’d thrown in of heavier items—jeans, sweatshirts and cardigans that probably should be hand-washed, but she couldn’t say because she deliberately didn’t read care labels—and the last thing she pulled out was Nick’s favorite hoodie.
Sitting back on her heels, Lucy pressed it to her face and inhaled. It didn’t smell like Nick, of course, but there was still some comfort in picturing him wearing it. And that was the problem.
If she was going to embrace a fresh start, she couldn’t take it with her. There was no denying she was going to miss Nick painfully, and she could see herself sitting in her car with the air conditioning on blast so she could wallow in his hoodie. It would be the same as hiding under Gran’s blankets, and she wasn’t going to do that anymore.
After turning off the music, Lucy grabbed her bag and the hoodie, and she was in her car before she could talk herself out of driving to Nick’s house. If there was ever a moment he might ask her to stay—to give her even a glimmer of hope Nick didn’t want her to leave—it would be when she gave him back the hoodie.
He would know she was in the final stages of getting ready to head south.
But once she was parked in front of his house, she couldn’t bring herself to get out of the car. Agreeing that what was between them was only a temporary fling had been a lie, and confessing that to him was daunting. She sat with her hands squeezing the steering wheel until her knuckles ached.
Then Nick stepped out onto the front porch and watched her, his head tilted as if waiting to find out what she was doing.
After taking a deep breath that did nothing to calm her nerves, Lucy grabbed the hoodie from the passenger seat and got out of her car. His gaze dropped to the sweatshirt in her hand as she walked toward him, and his body stiffened.
He didn’t come down the steps to meet her, either. Instead, he moved to one side to make room for her to join him, but that grumpy face was back. Nick’s spine was rigid and his jaw was tight. She wasn’t sure what it meant, but he certainly wasn’t happy to see her right now.
“Sorry to just drop in without texting first,” she said, in case he’d been in the middle of something.
“It’s not a big deal. My brothers and I were out back, but we have cameras and it alerts me when somebody pulls in, so I saw your car.”
“Right. Well, I’m sorting through my stuff and I thought I’d give this back,” she said, dropping the folded hoodie onto the nearest chair. “Because it’s not actuallymystuff.”
“You can keep it if you want,” he replied, his voice tense. “We’ll be getting more.”
“I probably won’t need it in Miami.”
His jaw tightened even more as he gave a sharp nod. “Probably not.”
Lucy resorted to teasing to break through that mask because it had worked for her in the past. “Are you going to miss me?”
Nick didn’t respond for so long, she actually thought he was going to ignore the question. But after pressing his lips together and swallowing hard, he looked into her eyes, and Lucy knew that, even though it was clearly hard for him, he was about to admit he didn’t want her to go.