I blinked at her, my hand permanently fixed over my lips. Nodded once. Yeah, I was in my feelings. All of my feelings.
"This is silver," Annette announced, as if I didn't know.
As if I hadn't selected the most lovely, excessive gifts I could find because that was how I managed my deep feels. I bought ridiculous things and hoped I could store my conflicted emotions inside those objects as there was no room for them within me. That was the reason for most of the shoes in my closet and the Brooklyn townhouse I'd purchased a week after my mother's funeral.
"This is a silver platter that's big enough for a giant Thanksgiving turkey. I mean, a big ass turkey. I could feed the entire town off this platter. And it's silver." She set the tray aside and chose another item from the basket. "What do I do with this?"
"It's a wine canister," I said through my fingers. "You put, you know, a bottle of wine or champagne in there. Mineral water, maybe. To keep it chilled while it's on the table."
Jed chuckled as he ran a hand down his face. "You're somethin' special, Bam."
"Okay." Annette bobbed her head as she set the canister down.
It was the type of "okay" that also said "I'm going to let you think I agree with that" and "In case you didn't notice, this is ridiculous." My soul sister could get away with a packed "okay" and make it sound as pleasant as pie, but I knew what she was thinking. I knew. And I was relieved I'd talked myself out of adding an ice bucket to this purchase.
"These must be coasters. Silver coasters." She grinned up at me, saying, "I take it they were out of gold and platinum options."
Her snark snapped me back into this moment. "Nothing encrusted with jewels either. It was annoying. I wouldn't have this problem in New York."
She glanced back to the basket of silver, shaking her head. "No, probably not, though I appreciate the absence of monogramming. There's some next-level crazy at work here, but I admire your ability to draw the line at engraving 'Jackson and Annette' or some combination of initials. That's how I know this is from the heart."
"It is," I replied softly. Jed squeezed my shoulder. "From the heart, I mean."
"Get over here and hug me." Annette pushed to her feet and held her arms out as she crossed the room toward me. She gathered me up, folding me tight to her body. "Come into the kitchen. I made a cheese plate. We'll handle your feels tomorrow." Leaning away from me, she asked Jed, "Do you like cheese?"
He rubbed his hands over my shoulders as he kissed the crown of my head. "What's not to like?"
"I always knew I liked you," she said, laughing.
Behind me, I heard the door open and then close. Footfalls on the floor. "It's good you learn the truth now, Harniczek. There's no tearing these two apart. The best you can do is hold on and hope for some scraps, even if that scrap means being the ass-end of a group hug."
"I don't think you should be telling anyone how to hold on," I said to Jackson. "Not when you're throwing Annette off beds and nearly cracking her skull open."
"Cheese!" Annette shouted, taking me and Jed by the hands. "It's time for cheese. We're going into the kitchen, we're eating cheese, and we're not talking about bedroom injuries."
"Jesus, Annie. Tell me it's better," Jackson insisted.
"Is that not how dinner parties work?" Jed asked.
"It's fine. Stop asking," Annette replied.
"Well, I'm gonna ask," Jackson grumbled as he made a beeline for the refrigerator. As he swung it open, he jerked his chin toward Jed. "What'll it be? Beer or wine?"
Jed tapped my wrist. "What would you like?"
There they were again, emotions like storm waves against a sea wall.
"I've got Brooke covered, don't you worry," Jackson called. "Beer or wine, Harniczek?"
"Beer," he replied, staring at me with a half-smile that pried something loose inside me. At the rate I was going, it was probably a bone spur or a blood clot. "Thanks."
Jackson popped the tops on a pair of beers, setting one in front of Jed before he busied himself collecting white wine and two glasses. When he'd delivered the wine, he pointed his beer bottle at me and Jed. "All ribbing aside, what's the story here? When did this start?"
At the same time as I said, "Last month," Jed responded with "Last year."
I turned to face him. "That's a bit of a stretch, don't you think?"
He leaned close to me, bent his head, dropped his gaze to my neck. "Yeah, I think it was a stretch," he whispered. "Took some getting used to, didn't it, Bam?"
Heat washed over my face and down my chest. I wasn't sure, but it seemed as though I was blushing all the way to my toes. I'd never reacted that way before and I wasn't keen on doing it again. "You're right and it's good of you to open up about your complete inability to engage in foreplay."
He edged farther into my space, pressed his lips to the base of my throat. Without thinking, my hand went to the back of his head, my fingers sliding through his wavy strands. "You weren't complaining last night."
"That's because I started without you," I replied.
"As if I could stop you," he rumbled.
"That's enough cuddling in my kitchen for now," Annette called as she shoved her hands into oven mitts. "You're melting the buttercream off my cake."
When Jed swung an arm around the back of my chair, Jackson wagged his beer bottle in our direction again. "I suppose we can live without a firm date, though the lack of clarity is concerning."
"Would you stop it?" Annette said to him as she bent to retrieve a dish from the oven. "You're not working a case here, Jackson." She set the dish down, shucked her mitts. "Let's move this into the dining room. JJ, you grab the salad. Jackson, you're responsible for the pasta. Watch out for the sauce, there's a lot on there. I'm taking the bread basket and leaving the extra meatballs in the kitchen because those are for lunch tomorrow."
I held out my hands as the men followed her orders. "What should I bring?"
"The wine, sweetie. You bring the wine. I think you're gonna need it," she replied.
I didn't want Annette to be right about that.
For the first few minutes, we filled our plates and spoke only of passing one thing or another. It was perfect. Jed and I didn't contradict each other. He didn't lick my neck in front of our friends and I didn't touch his hair. No one was yelling and the buttercream was safe.
Then, Annette asked, "What's new at the tavern these days, JJ?"
"The beauty of the tavern is that nothing has been new for decades," he replied. "It saves me the trouble of telling people to go to hell when they complain about hating change."
"I can't fathom why you'd take the humble road now, but it's not true to say you have nothing new in store." I hit him with a stern frown before glancing to Annette and Jackson. "Since he's playing shy, I'll tell you about the distillery he's opening on the grounds of the cider house."
"Brooke," Jed murmured.
"You know the one, it's just north of the village," I continued, ignoring him. "And it's not just a distillery. There's a restaurant and a bar area to sample everything. Gin, vodka. All homemade."
"Brooke," he repeated.
"Oh, and it's all local. Farm to, you know, highball glass. There will be tours and something with bees and a space for parties and wedding receptions. Oh! That's where you can get married. Wouldn't that be perfect?" I asked them. "You can finally set a date."
"Brooke."
I shifted to face Jed and found him with his arms propped on the table, his fingers steepled in front of his lips. "What? What was wrong with that?"
"You're opening a distillery in Talbott's Cove," Jackson said, each word spoken as if he couldn't believe them. "I knew there was work underway on that site and I'd heard about zoning permits being approved, but I didn't realize people would be coming to town for the singular purpose of consuming alcohol."
Jed stared at me for a beat before saying, "Nothing was wrong. I hadn't intended to discuss all of this tonight. Some of it is public, but not all." He tipped his
joined fingers toward Jackson. "True to form, the sheriff has seven thousand questions and he's already setting up his DUI checkpoints—"
"You're damn right I am," Jackson said.
"—but I hadn't expected that to be part of the dinner party festivities," he said. "Then again, I never know what the hell I'm getting into with you."
I heard my heartbeat in my ears, and once again a blush colored my skin. I searched for words to wield like the sharp side of a blade, but only dredged up more confusing emotions. Instead of figuring out these feelings and finding room for them, I wanted to pluck them from the air around me and stow them somewhere far away.
"It's strange that none of this was covered in the dinner party book I read." Annette sent a quiet laugh to her plate. Motioning to Jackson, she said, "You have to practice balancing work and life."
"Annie, you know I can't do that," he replied.
"Shush. It wasn't a question. These are our friends and this is my party and it's not time to get your sheriff on." She lifted her glass in Jed's direction. "Congratulations on this amazing project! I can't wait to hear more about the gin and the bees and the cider house. If we ever finish building this new home of ours, we'll be your first wedding."
"Don't start with if," Jackson remarked. "It's when we finish building the house. When."
"It's going that well, huh?" Jed asked him.
Jackson's answering eye roll and groan said it all. "We thought it would be fun to build a house. We thought it would be better to have everything the way we wanted it rather than fitting ourselves into an existing home. We thought it would cost less than renovating. We knew nothing. Nothing."
"And you," Annette said, shooting Jackson a tolerant grin as she turned toward me. "You are just the most precious mess, aren't you? You can't even help it."
I flipped my hair over my shoulder. "If I have to be a mess, I'd rather be a precious one." While Jackson and Annette laughed, I glanced to Jed, mouthing, Sorry.
Jed reached under the table, curled his hand around my knee. "Don't sweat it, Bam."
I laughed. I sipped my wine. I moved pasta around my plate while the conversation turned to the usual suspects of sports, weather, small town politics, moose sightings. I worked hard at restricting my comments to neutral, widely available information. I wasn't worried about inciting another incident as much as I worried about another wave of emotions dragging me down, driving me to delirium.
That strategy worked well enough until Annette served thick wedges of chocolate cake slathered in chocolate buttercream and Jackson asked, "The three of you grew up together, right? There must be a lot of history."
There was no specific reason for that question to hit me like a tsunami, but it did. It took me to the ground and slapped me with reminders that my relationship with Jed was complicated and tangled up with Annette and my family and this town, and it wasn't as new as I wanted to believe.
Jackson was correct. We had a lot of history.
"Technically, yes, we grew up together," Annette replied, passing a gigantic piece of cake to Jackson. His brows arched up to his hairline as he accepted it. "We lived in the same town and went to the same schools, but we weren't in the same friend groups and we didn't really know each other until later."
Jackson waved a hand around the table, saying, "It's difficult to imagine a scenario where you're not as close as you are now."
"Imagine a scenario where we're the most immature, concentrated versions of our adult selves and that's high school for you," Jed replied. "Surprising absolutely no one, Annette was the model student and the teacher's pet, and she was friendly and outgoing enough that no one held any of it against her."
"She was the favorite. Sweet cheeks through and through," I added.
"JJ was a bit of a loner, but in an interesting, enigmatic way," Annette said. "I remember you going through a Kafka phase. I remember your jacket—"
"The leather jacket." He bobbed his head, a self-effacing smile on his lips. "God, that thing got some use that year."
"You wore it every damn day," Annette said. "Until the Hemingway phase, where you wanted nothing more than to be an ex-pat."
"That's a difficult goal to realize while living in Maine," he said, laughing.
"And then there was Langston Hughes and I think it wrapped up with a Dostoyevsky phase, right? Am I recalling that correctly?" Annette asked.
Before I knew what I was saying, I replied, "Yes, it was Dostoyevsky."
As slowly as someone could move while still moving, Jed turned his head toward me. "You remember that?"
"Yeah." I jerked a shoulder to make sure he knew it was a stray memory from long ago rather than proof of anything meaningful. "You wore a t-shirt with the book cover on the front and a quote on the back and—"
"'Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams,'" he said.
"You wore it all the time." I stabbed my fork into the cake. I refused to take responsibility for knowing the book he glommed all over in high school.
"Yes, I can picture it now," Annette added. "You loved your tortured, broody writer types, didn't you?"
His gaze still locked on me, he said, "That's what happens when you have after-school jobs at the public library and the graphic design shop out near the highway. They had a full screen-printing setup there, which allowed me to experiment with quippy t-shirts before quippy t-shirts were popular."
"Harniczek was a loner with a library card. Annie was a sweet little cinnamon roll." Jackson's brows bent together. "Where does that leave Brooke?"
Annette beamed at Jackson, saying, "She was the princess."
"Oh my god," I muttered to myself.
"It's true," Annette chirped. "She traveled in an opalescent bubble whenever she decided to grace the small people with her presence."
"That doesn't even make sense." I shoved a bite of cake in my mouth. "For the record, I was friends with everyone. I hung out with all the different crowds. The last thing I wanted was to be that spoiled, snotty kid everyone expected me to be. No princess, no bubble."
"There was a party. Junior year, I think," Jed said, his gaze unfocused. "A bunch of chill, low-key kids put it together. Nothing big or special, just one of those times when we got some beers and built a bonfire on the beach. I remember when you arrived. You didn't pop out of a bubble, but damn, that's not far from the truth."
"What does that mean?" I snapped.
"It was a performance," he replied. "Wasn't that what you did in high school? Every day, you were on stage. You didn't want to be the spoiled, snotty kid, but you did want to be the center of attention. A princess of the people is still a princess. That was the role you played."
"Don't you think that sounds a little harsh?" Jackson asked.
Before Jed could respond, I jumped in with, "No, it sounds accurate. I'm sure I'm guilty of all—"
"We're not doing that, drama llama," Annette said.
"I don't think it's drama and I don't think you need to admit any guilt," Jed remarked. "We were kids who struggled and fought and bounced our ways into who we are today. You probably struggled and fought more than either of us."
"That seems overly generous." I went on hacking the cake to crumbs. "Like you said, still a princess."
I felt Jed's hand on my knee again, but I didn't look away from the plate in front of me. The table was silent, save for the metallic slide of Annette's knife against the cake tray. She dropped another slice on Jackson's plate and then one on Jed's.
"Why are you giving me more cake?" Jackson asked.
"It's for you to eat," she replied.
"Do I look like I need to be fattened up, Annie?" he asked.
"Sorry, can't hear you over the pounding in my head. I have a terrible headache because some brute threw me off a bed," she quipped.
While Jackson and Annette volleyed back and forth about sex and cake, Jed edged closer, ducking his head to catch my eye. "I've hurt you and I'm sorry. That wasn't my intention."
"It's fine. Not a problem. We were kids, and kids are assholes. No sweat, right?" I glanced up at him and found his hazel eyes gentle and earnest. It was nearly enough for me to admit it was a role, it was a performance. I was a princess and I was marital glue and I was perfect. But admitting that—saying it out loud to another person and watching while the truth seeped in—was terrifying. It meant acknowledging I'd spent years rotating through personalities as I attempted to be the person everyone else expected me to be. It meant confirming I'd never kept close, true friendships before Annette. And it meant recognizing Jed saw through everything I put between me and the world.
"Don't do that," he whispered. "You've never pretended with me. Don't start now."
Annette yanked my plate out from under my fork and replaced it with a fresh slice of cake. "Try eating this one." Rounding the table, she said, "Remind me where you went after high school, JJ. You saw all the big places. Rome, London, Hong Kong, Paris, Cairo, all of that good stuff. Where else did you go?"
I snapped my head up, blinking at Annette and Jed. "When was this?"
"After high school. After graduation." He forked a chunk of cake from my plate, popped it in his mouth. "I headed out of town, picked up a job with a travel company, and gave tours around Boston for a few months. Don't make me tell you about the Freedom Trail. It's great and important, but I still hear that lecture in my sleep." He claimed another chunk, ate it. "After the company sprung me from Boston, I rotated throughout the United States and Canada for a year. I hear the Grand Canyon lecture in my sleep too, but it gave me a chance to see every corner of the country."
"That sounds amazing," Annette said. "I always think I want to travel for extended periods of time, but I can't manage a weekend trip to Portland without packing my entire closet and then suffering because I forgot the one thing I actually needed."
"Yeah, you can't do that when you live on the road." Jed laughed as he stole another bite of cake. "After leaving North America, I spent a few more years touring overseas. Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania. I had a chance to hit Central and South America, but I decided to live in New Zealand for a year instead."
Far Cry: A Talbott’s Cove Novel Page 18