It Happened One Summer

by Tessa Bailey

  But he hadn’t wanted to be anywhere else. Not serving penance for being a shit husband. Not paying respect to his in-laws, who still lived as if their daughter had died yesterday. Not even plotting courses or hauling pots onto his boat.

  No, he’d wanted to be sitting there with the girl from Los Angeles.

  With that truth admitted to himself, wearing the ring was no longer right.

  It made him fraudulent, and he couldn’t allow that. Not for another day.

  The tide had changed, and he wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice. He wouldn’t stay so firmly rooted in his practices and routines that a good thing would come along and slip away.

  As he slid off the gold band and tucked it into a safe place in his sock drawer, he said good-bye and apologized a final time. Then he turned off the light.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Deciding to make over the bar and actually doing it were two very different things.

  The sisters quickly decided there was no way to salvage the floor in the bar. But thanks to an abundance of foot-sized holes in the hardwood, they could see the concrete beneath, and thus, their industrial-meets-nautical-chic vision was born.

  Ripping up floorboards was easier said than done. It was filthy, sweaty, nasty work, especially because neither one of them could manage to pry open the windows, adding stagnant air into the mix. They were making progress, though, and by noon on Saturday, they’d managed to fill an entire industrial-sized garbage bag with No Name’s former flooring.

  Piper tied up the end of the bag with a flourish, trying desperately not to shed tears over the abysmal state of her manicure, and dragged it toward the curb. Or she tried to drag it, anyway. The damn thing wouldn’t budge. “Hey, Hanns, help me get this thing outside.”

  Her sister dropped the crowbar she’d bought that morning at the hardware store, shouldered up beside Piper, and took hold. “One, two, three.”

  Nothing.

  Piper stepped back, swiping her wrist across her forehead with a grimace. “I didn’t stop to think about the part where we actually had to move it.”

  “Me either, but whatever. We can just disperse it among a few bags that won’t be so hard to carry.”

  A whimper bubbled out of Piper’s lips. “How did this happen? How am I spending my Saturday dividing up garbage?”

  “Reckless behavior. A night in jail . . .”

  “Rude.” Piper sniffed.

  “You know I love you.” Hannah peeled off her gloves. “Want to break for lunch?”

  “Yes.” They took two steps and slumped onto side-by-side stools. As exhausting and difficult as this bar makeover was shaping up to be, with a little distance, the amount of work they’d done in just a few hours was kind of . . . satisfying. “I wonder if we could paint the floor. Like a really deep ocean blue. Do they make paint for floors?”

  “Don’t ask me. I’m just the DJ.”

  Now that the idea was in Piper’s head, she was interested in getting the answers. “Maybe I’ll go with you to the hardware store next time. Sniff around.”

  Hannah smiled but didn’t look over. “Okay.”

  A minute of silence passed. “Did I tell you I crashed a memorial party for Brendan’s wife last night? Walked in with a tray of shots like it was spring break in Miami.”

  Her sister turned her head slowly. “Are you shitting me?”

  “Nope.” She pulled an imaginary conductor’s wire. “The Piper train rolls on.”

  To Hannah’s credit, it took her a full fifteen seconds to start laughing. “Oh my God, I’m not laughing at . . . I mean, it’s a sad thing, the memorial. But, oh, Piper. Just, oh my God.”

  “Yeah.” She smacked some dust off her yoga pants. “Do you think my lipstick purse is ugly?”

  “Uhhh . . .”

  Hannah was saved from having to answer when the front door of No Name opened. In walked Brendan with a tray of coffees in his hand, a white, rolled-up bakery bag in the other. There was something different about him this morning, but Piper couldn’t figure it out. Not right away. He was wearing his signature sweatshirt, beanie, and jeans trifecta as usual, looking worn in and earthy and in charge, carrying in with him the scent of the ocean and coffee and sugar. His silver-green eyes found Piper’s and held long enough to cause a disturbing flutter in her belly, before he scanned the room and their progress.

  “Hey,” he said, in that raspy baritone.

  “Hey back,” Piper murmured.

  Piper, I don’t just go putting my arms around girls.

  She’d lain awake half the night dissecting that statement. Pulling it apart and coming at it from different angles, all of which had led to roughly the same conclusion. Brendan didn’t put his arms around girls, so it meant something that he’d put them around her. Probably just that he wanted to have sex with her, right? And she was . . . interested in that, it seemed, based on how her nipples had turned to painful little points the second he ducked into No Name with his big gladiator thighs and thick black beard. Oh yeah. She was interested, all right. But not in the usual way she was interested in men.

  Because Brendan came with a whole roll of caution tape around him.

  He wasn’t a casual-hookup guy. So what did that make him? What else even was there? Apart from her stepfather, she’d come across very few serious-relationship types. Was he one of them? What did he want with her?

  There was a good chance she was reading him wrong, too. This could very well just be a friendship, and since she’d never had a genuine friendship with a man, platonic intentions might be unrecognizable to her. This was a small town. People were kind. They tipped hats.

  She’d probably been in LA too long, and it had turned her cynical. He’d just put his arms around her last night to be decent. Relax, Piper.

  “Is that coffee for us?” Hannah asked hopefully.

  “Yeah.” He crossed the scant distance and set the tray down on the barrel in front of the sisters. “There’s some sugar and whatnot in the bag.” He tossed the white sack down, rubbed at the back of his neck. “Didn’t know how you took it.”

  “Our hero,” Piper said, opening the bag and giving a dreamy sigh at the donuts inside. But first, caffeine. She plucked out a Splenda and one of the non-dairy creamers, doctoring the coffee. When she glanced up at Brendan, he was following her actions closely, a line between his brows. Memorizing how she took her coffee? No way.

  She swallowed hard.

  “Thank you. This was really thoughtful.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Hannah chimed in after taking a sip of hers, black, then riffling through the white bag for a donut. “It’s not even made out of cauliflower. We really aren’t in LA anymore, Pipes.”

  “Cauliflower? Jesus Christ.” Brendan pulled his own coffee out of the tray—and that’s when Piper realized what was actually different about him this morning.

  He’d taken off his wedding ring.

  After seven years.

  Piper’s gaze traveled to Brendan’s. He knew she’d seen. And there was some silent communication happening between them, but she didn’t understand the language. Had never spoken it or been around a man who could convey so much without saying a single word. She couldn’t translate what passed between them, or maybe she just wasn’t ready to decipher his meaning.

  A drop of sweat slid down her spine, and she could suddenly hear her own shallow breaths. No one had ever looked her in the eye this long. It was like he could read her mind, knew everything about her, and liked it all. Wanted some of it for himself.

  And then she knew, by the determined set of his jaw and his confident energy, that Brendan Taggart did not think of her as a friend.

  “This donut is incredible,” Hannah said, her words muffled by the dough in her mouth. “There’s caramel in this glaze. Pipes, you have to try—” She cut herself off, her gaze bouncing back and forth between Piper and Brendan. “What’s happening here?”

  “N-nothing,” Piper said in a high-pitched voice. “I don’t k
now. Um. Brendan, do you know if it’s, like, possible to paint concrete?”

  Her flustered state seemed to amuse him. “It is.”

  “Oh good, good, good.” Exasperated with her own awkwardness, she hopped off the stool. Then she knocked into another one in an attempt to give Brendan a wide berth. “We’ve decided to go with an industrial-meets-nautical theme. Kind of a chic warehouse vibe, but with like, fisherman-y stuff.”

  “Fisherman-y stuff,” he repeated, sipping his coffee. “Like what?”

  “Well, we’re going with darker colors, blacks and steels and grays and reds, but we’re going to distress everything a little. Most of the boats in the harbor have those muted, weathered tones, right? Then I was kind of thinking we could integrate new and old by hanging nets from the ceiling, but I could spray-paint them gold or black, so it’s cohesive. I’m just rattling all of this off, though. It might be . . .” Her hands fluttered at her waist. “Like, I might have to rethink everything . . .”

  Brendan’s expression had gone from amused to thoughtful. Or maybe . . . disapproving? She couldn’t tell. It seemed like weeks had passed since the first night she’d walked through the doors and he’d made it clear No Name belonged to the locals. So he probably hated her ideas and the fact that she wanted to change anything in the first place.

  “Right,” he said, rolling the word around his mouth. “Well, if you want nautical, you’re not going to overpay for anything in the tourist shops up at the harbor. There’s a fishing supply store in Aberdeen where they throw in netting for free with most purchases and everything doesn’t have a goddamn starfish glued onto it.” His lips twisted around a sip of coffee. “I can’t help you with gold spray paint.”

  “Oh.” Piper let out a breath she wasn’t aware she’d been holding. “Thanks. We’re on a budget, especially after our little trip to the winery, so that’s helpful.”

  He grunted and walked past her, stepping over the gap in the floorboards. It seemed like he was heading toward the back staircase, so Piper frowned when he continued past that, stopping in front of yet another piece of plywood that had been nailed over holes in the wall. Only, when he ripped off the wood with one hand and tossed it away, there was a door behind it instead.

  Piper’s mouth fell open. “Where does that lead?”

  Brendan set down his coffee on the closest surface, then tried the rusted knob. It turned, but the door didn’t open. Not until he put his big shoulder against it and shoved . . .

  And Piper saw the sky.

  A fallen tree and, of course, more spiderwebs, but there was sky. “An outdoor space?”

  Hannah hopped up, mouth agape. “No way. Like a patio?”

  Brendan nodded. “Boarded it up during a storm a few years ago. Wasn’t getting much use anyway, with all the rain.” He braced a hand on the doorjamb. “You want this cleared out.”

  The sisters nodded along. “Yeah. How do we do that?”

  He didn’t answer. “Once the tree is gone, you’ll see the patio is a decent size. Dark gray pavers, so I guess that’s in keeping with . . . What is it, your theme? There’s a stone hearth back in the corner.” He jerked his chin. “You want to put up a pergola, get a waterproof cover. Even in damp weather, you’ll be able to use it with a fire going.”

  What he was describing sounded cozy and rustic and way outside their capabilities.

  Piper laughed under her breath. “I mean, that sounds amazing, but . . .”

  “We’re not leaving for crab season until next Saturday. I’ll work on it.” He turned and strode for the exit, pausing beside the impossible-to-lift trash bag. “You want this on the curb?”

  “Yes, please,” Piper responded.

  With seemingly zero effort, he tossed it over his right shoulder and walked out, taking the smell of salt water and unapologetic maleness with him. Piper and Hannah stared at the door for several long minutes, the wind coming in from the patio cooling their sweaty necks. “I think that was it,” Hannah finally said on a laugh. “I don’t think he’s coming back.”

  Brendan did come back . . . the next day, with Fox, Sanders, and a man named Deke in tow. The four of them hauled the tree out through the front of the bar, and with an indecipherable look in Piper’s direction, Brendan promptly left again.

  Bright and early on Monday morning, he was back. Just strolled in like not a moment had passed since his last dramatic exit, this time with a toolbox.

  Piper and Hannah, who were in the process of prying sheetrock off the perfectly good brick wall, glanced through the front door to see a pickup truck loaded with lumber. One trip at a time, Brendan brought the wood through the bar to the back patio, along with a table saw, while Piper and Hannah observed him with their heads on a swivel, as if watching a tennis match.

  “Wait, I think . . .” Hannah whispered. “I think he’s building you that freaking pergola.”

  “You mean us?” Piper whispered back.

  “No. I mean you.”

  “That’s crazy. If he liked me, why wouldn’t he just ask me out?”

  They traded a mystified look.

  Hannah sucked in a breath. “Do you think he’s, like, courting you?”

  Piper laughed. “What? No.” She had to press a hand to her abdomen to keep a weird, gooey sensation at bay. “Okay, but if he is, what if it’s working?”

  “Is it?”

  “I don’t know. No one’s ever built me anything!” They hopped back as Brendan stomped through the bar again, long wooden boards balanced on his wide shoulder. When he set the lumber down, he grabbed the rear neck of his sweatshirt and stripped it off, bringing the T-shirt underneath along with it, and sweet mother of God, Piper only caught a hint of a deep groove over his hip and a slice of packed stomach muscles before the shirt fell back into place, but it was enough to make her clench where it counted. “Oh yeah,” Piper said throatily. “It’s working.” She sighed. “Shit.”

  “Why ‘shit’?” Hannah gave her a knowing smirk. “Because Mom made that ominous warning about fishermen?” She made a spooky woo-woo sound. “It’s not like you’d let it get serious. You’d keep it casual.”

  Yes. She would.

  But would Brendan?

  Builds a Pergola Guy didn’t seem like the casual type. And his lack of a wedding ring was almost more a presence than the actual ring had been. Every time their eyes met, a hot shiver roared down her spine, because there was a promise there, but also . . . patience. Maturity.

  Had she ever dated a real man before? Or had they all been boys?

  * * *

  It was Wednesday afternoon during their lunch break. Brendan, Deke, Fox, and Sanders ate sandwiches from paper wrappers, while Hannah and Piper mostly listened to the crew pitch theories about their upcoming crabbing haul—and that’s when it hit Piper.

  She pulled out her phone just to be sure, blowing sawdust off the screen.

  And decided the oversight couldn’t stand for another moment.

  “Brendan,” she called, during a break in the crab conversation. “You still haven’t posted your first picture on Instagram.”

  His sandwich paused halfway to his mouth. “That’s not required, is it?”

  Fox gave her an exaggerated nod behind the captain’s back, urging her to lie. “It’s totally required. They’ll delete your account otherwise.” She studied her phone, pretending to scroll. “I’m shocked they haven’t already.”

  “Can’t look at pictures if your account is gone, boss,” Deke said, so nonchalantly Piper could only imagine how accustomed these guys were to pranking each other. “Just saying.”

  Brendan flicked a look at Piper. If she wasn’t mistaken, being called out for stalking her Instagram account had turned the very tips of his ears a little red. “I can put up a picture of anything, right? Even this sandwich?”

  How far could they take this without him calling bullshit? Already it was an unspoken game. Get the captain to post a picture on the internet by any means necessary. “Has to be your fac
e the first time,” Hannah chimed in, scrubbing at the hair beneath her baseball cap. “You know, facial recognition technology.”

  “Yup.” Sanders pointed his sandwich at Hannah. “What she said.”

  “The light is perfect right now.” Piper stood and crossed the floor of No Name toward Brendan, wiggling her phone in the air. “Come on, I can pose you.”

  “Pose me?” He tugged on his beanie. “Uh-uh.”

  “Just give in. We all do it, man,” Sanders said. “You know those engagement photos I took last year? Two hours of posing. On a goddamn horse.”

  “See? You only have to pose with a sawhorse.” Piper put a hand on Brendan’s melon-sized bicep and squeezed, loosing an unmistakable flutter in her belly. “It’ll be fun.”

  “Maybe we don’t have the same idea of fun,” he said dubiously.

  “No?” Aware she was playing with fire but unable to stop herself, Piper leaned down and murmured in his ear, “I can think of a few fun things we’d both enjoy.”

  Brendan swallowed. A vein ticced in his temple. “One picture.”

  “Fabulous.”

  Piper pulled Brendan to his feet, tugging the reluctant giant outside, his boots crunching through the construction debris. A rapid shuffling of barrels told her Hannah and the crew were following them to the patio, eager to catch this rare, sparkling moment in time.

  “Everyone is going to remember where they were when Brendan took his first picture for the gram,” Deke said with mock gravity.

  “First and last,” corrected the captain.

  “Who knows, you might form a habit,” Piper said, coming up beside Brendan where he stood behind the sawhorse. “Okay, so shirt on? Or off?”

  Brendan looked at her like she was insane. “On.”

  Piper wrinkled her nose at him. “Fine, but can I just . . .” She pinched the sleeve of his sweaty red T-shirt between her fingers and tugged it up, revealing the deep cut of his triceps. “Ooh. That’ll work.”

  He grunted, seeming annoyed at himself for being flattered.