Cure for the Common Breakup

by Beth Kendrick

  “You haven’t really been snubbed till you’ve been snubbed by Miss Huntington,” Jenna agreed. “You must have charmed the Hermès handbag off her. What’s your secret?”

  Summer shrugged. “Oh, I told her it’s fine to wear flip-flops and to get the hell out if she didn’t like the ambience. Same old, same old.”

  Hollis’s jaw dropped. “And you’re still alive?”

  “Bossy people secretly liked to be bossed,” Summer informed them. “All that scraping and bowing gets old. And she doesn’t like me; I just took her off guard.”

  “If you’re still alive, she likes you.” Jenna blew out her breath. “So what did she order?”

  “The Stag’s Leap.”

  “Of course she did.” Jenna rubbed her temples again. “I think we have one bottle left, but it’s going to take me forever to find it.”

  “Have no fear. We’ve got you covered.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Jenna had located the wine, uncorked the bottle, and approached Miss Huntington with the demeanor of a wayward puppy expecting to get a rolled-up newspaper to the nose.

  “I’m pretty sure she turned that wine into vinegar with her look of death,” Jenna said when she retreated to safety behind the bar. “But at least she didn’t talk to me. Thank God I’m part of the unwashed masses.”

  A few minutes later, Summer looked up and noticed that Hattie was no longer seated at the wrought iron table. The elderly lady was standing, swaying on her feet, both hands braced on the tabletop. She wasn’t sneering or berating anyone. She wasn’t even breathing.

  “Oh shit.” Summer slammed down her wine bottle. “She’s choking.”

  She vaulted over the bar, charged through the sea of customers, and placed her hand on Hattie’s shoulder.

  “Are you all right?” she yelled into the elderly woman’s face. “Can you breathe?”

  Hattie didn’t respond, just kept clutching the table and gaping at Summer with wide, terrified eyes.

  The crowd went silent for a moment, then erupted into a flurry of gasps and murmurs and worried questions:

  “Is she okay?”

  “What should we do?”

  “Hang on—the bartender looks like she knows what to do.”

  And indeed, Summer knew exactly what to do.

  “Brace yourself.” She stepped behind Hattie, wrapped her arms around the old woman’s rib cage, and made a fist with her left hand. She covered her fist with her other hand, then pulled sharply upward and inward on Hattie’s sternum, hoping she wouldn’t snap any brittle ribs.

  Hattie made a low gurgling sound, then went back to silence. Summer positioned her hands for round two, but then Hattie’s entire body shuddered with the force of a coughing fit.

  A small, dark chunk flew out of Hattie’s mouth and landed on somebody’s bedazzled flip-flop.

  Summer got right up in Hattie’s face and again demanded, “Are you okay?”

  Hattie shoved her away. “Yes! For heaven’s sake, yes! Stop accosting me!”

  Summer exhaled with relief. “Oh, good. I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to do an emergency tracheotomy with a corkscrew.”

  “I’ve got half a mind to have you arrested for assault and battery.” Hattie patted her ribs with a grimace. Her pallid complexion regained a touch of pink.

  Summer offered her hand to Hattie. “You’re welcome. Why don’t you sit down and I’ll bring you some ice water?”

  “Not so fast.” Hattie raised one bony index finger. “I want to know what I choked on.”

  The owner of the sequined flip-flop crinkled her nose and used a napkin to collect the evidence. “Here.”

  She passed the napkin to Summer, who unfolded it to reveal . . .

  “Oh no,” Summer murmured.

  “A piece of cork!” Hattie snatched the napkin away and bundled it into her handbag. “I nearly died because of somebody’s carelessness. Inexcusable.” The crowd parted before her as she marched up to the bar.

  “Who poured this drink?” She brandished her wineglass, spilling a few drops of the dark red liquid on her sleeve.

  Jenna stepped forward. “I did.”

  “Do you make a habit of serving your patrons chunks of cork?”

  “No, Miss Huntington. I am so sorry. It was an old bottle, and the wine was so dark. . . .” Even in the dim lighting, Jenna’s cheeks glowed red. “But that’s no excuse.”

  “It certainly is not.” Hattie’s eyes gleamed.

  “Truly, I am so, so sorry.”

  “Don’t blame her.” Hollis stepped in front of her friend. “Blame me. I was distracting her with questions and jostling her and stealing her corkscrew since I dropped mine. That’s why she didn’t notice the bottom of the cork had fallen off.”

  “Gross negligence on both your parts,” Hattie concluded with grim satisfaction.

  Summer cleared her throat. “But luckily, it all turned out fine. And FYI, the next time someone asks you if you can breathe, and you can’t, you should shake your head no. Takes the guesswork out of it.”

  Hattie kept glaring at the bartenders.

  Jenna’s lower lip trembled. “Please, let me pay for your dry cleaning.”

  “Oh, you’ll pay for my dry cleaning,” Hattie assured her. “You’ll pay for much more than that.”

  Summer put her hands on her hips and asked Hattie, “Are you going to pay for that woman’s flip-flops? Because you totally spat on them.”

  “You haven’t seen the last of me,” Hattie proclaimed, then stalked toward the door.

  And before the door finished closing behind the biggest bully in Black Dog Bay, the mayor walked in.

  —

  “Well, well, well.” Summer wound a strand of hair around her index finger. “Look who’s back.”

  “Twice in one week?” Hollis said. “That has to be a record.”

  “Oh God. Why is he here?” Jenna launched into a second nervous breakdown. “He’s going to cite me and shut the whole place down. Unless Miss Huntington beats him to it.”

  “No one’s shutting the place down,” Summer said.

  “Miss Huntington will,” Jenna predicted. “That’s how she is.”

  “Should I go ask him if he wants a drink?” Hollis asked.

  “I’ll do it,” Summer said. “As long as he’s here, I might as well ask him out again.”

  Jenna stopped hyperventilating long enough to ask, “Didn’t he turn you down before?”

  “Yep.”

  “He’s looking at us!” Hollis spun around so quickly, the paperback fell out of her apron pocket. “Be cool! Be cool!”

  Jenna was still staring at Summer. “So all these women have asked him out, and he’s said no. And you asked him out and he said no.”

  Summer nodded. “Correct.”

  “But this time, he’s going to say yes?”

  “Correct.”

  “And it will go differently this time because . . . ?”

  “Because, um . . .” Because I’m the girl who can always get the guy. I can’t keep him, but I can get him. “I heard from a reliable source that it was worth trying again. So break out your marshmallows and your sleeping bags, because this girl is on fire.” She rummaged through her handbag until she located a small paper bag. “Jenna, would you kindly set the mood with some appropriate music? Something sultry and slow? Maybe Nina Simone?”

  Jenna changed the soundtrack to “Call Me Maybe” and Hollis started lip-synching.

  “I hate you both,” Summer told them.

  Dutch caught her eye and started toward the bar, but every few feet, he was waylaid by a friend or a concerned constituent.

  Summer helped herself to a clean wineglass, added the finishing touch, then handed it over to Jenna.

  “Give that to Dutch,” she instructed. “Tell him it�
�s compliments of the hot blonde on the other side of the bar.”

  Jenna looked at the glass and burst out laughing. “You really want to do this in front of everyone?”

  “Hell, yeah. This is the Summer Benson school of courtship. Go big or go home.”

  Hollis whispered to the woman next to her, who exclaimed to the person next to her, and a crescendo of chatter swelled through the crowd. All eyes were on Dutch by the time Jenna arrived with the wineglass in hand.

  The moment Jenna opened her mouth, all conversation ceased, though Carly Rae Jepsen kept singing in the background.

  “This is, uh . . .” Jenna almost dropped the glass. “From her.”

  Dutch reached into the glass and pulled out the lacy red panties Summer had tucked inside.

  He looked at her. She looked at him.

  The registered voters of Black Dog Bay scrambled to clear the way as he strode across the room.

  He stood directly in front of her, blocking her view of the bar and backing her up against the wall. She could feel tension radiating from his chest and shoulders. He was obviously struggling to keep himself in check. But she couldn’t figure out if he was angry or exasperated or . . . something else.

  Finally, he spoke. “Thanks for the drink.”

  Definitely something else. She caught the undercurrent of heat in his voice.

  “Oh, you’re welcome. I know you like reds.” She tilted her head and smiled. “I considered writing ‘Will you go out with me?’ on them in glitter, but I thought that might be overkill.”

  His expression shifted just a bit. “You’re a master of understatement.”

  “Exactly. So!” She glanced down at the undergarment clutched in his hand. “Ready to die of embarrassment yet?”

  “Summer.” He said her name low and rough. “Do I look like I give a damn what anybody else is thinking right now?”

  She stopped sassing him and glanced down, feeling suddenly shy. “No, you do not.”

  “Okay, then. You want to go out?” His slate gray eyes darkened. “Let’s go.”

  “Right now?” Her throat had gone dry.

  “Right now.”

  “Oh, I . . . Okay.” She started toward the door, but he pressed his palm against the small of her back.

  “Allow me.”

  She let him lead the way, feeling more flustered with every step as they headed out into the night.

  And as she fell into step behind the levelheaded, responsible small-town mayor, she knew that he was about to give her more trouble than all the bad boys she’d ever been with.

  chapter 13

  “So, um, where are we off to?” The air outside the Whinery felt cool and still. The town square was illuminated by only a streetlamp and the white moon over the ocean.

  Dutch never took his gaze off her face. “You tell me—you asked me out. Or would you like me to take over from here?”

  I love it when he tells me what to do.

  Summer shook off the memory from the flight to Paris, determined to stay in the moment.

  “No curfew?”

  “Not tonight.” He smiled. “My sister’s at a sleepover.”

  “Ingrid,” she said. “I met her.”

  “She may have mentioned that.” Before he could say more, his cell phone buzzed. “Speaking of Ingrid, I’m sorry, but I have to take this.”

  “Of course; go ahead.” Summer hung back to give him privacy, but she couldn’t help overhearing bits of the conversation over the strains of music from the Whinery.

  “Wait, where are you?” Dutch hunched over the phone. “I thought you were at Hayley’s house. Ingrid, stop. Take a breath. I can’t understand what you’re saying.” He pulled his car keys from his pocket with his free hand. “Start over. You’re where? Sit tight. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” He straightened up, his expression grim as he turned back to Summer. “Let me walk you to your car.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “My sister, who is supposed to be at her friend Hayley’s house, is apparently out with a bunch of college kids at some eighteen-and-over club in Ocean City.”

  Summer pulled out her own phone and started tapping away on the screen. “What’s the name of the club?”

  He rubbed his forehead. “The Cheeky Tiki.”

  Summer laughed. “I’m sorry. I know this is serious, but—”

  He rolled up his shirt cuffs. “I should have known this was coming. All those years of straight A’s and common sense had to end eventually.”

  Summer couldn’t help noticing that Ingrid’s inner problem child had emerged the week she’d met Summer. “Want me to come along? I can navigate.”

  Dutch jingled his keys, then nodded and led her across the street to a dark sedan. “Can you talk sense into a bunch of adolescents sloshed on Alabama slammers?”

  “Like a professional hostage negotiator.”

  He opened the car door for her, and Summer slid into the passenger seat and buckled her seat belt.

  “When I was seventeen, clubs like the Cheeky Tiki were my second home. Although I think the one I went to was called Risqué.”

  “She shouldn’t even be there.” Dutch backed the car out and turned onto the main road that led to the highway. “She’s only seventeen.”

  The overhead sodium lights illuminated the car’s interior as they drove down the coastal highway. Although the radio was turned way down, Summer could make out the intonations of an NPR broadcaster reporting on mounting international hostilities. “She must have borrowed an ID from an older friend.”

  “My sister would never do that.”

  Summer hid her smile. “Maybe they didn’t even check her ID. When I used to go to these places, they’d just take pity on me and wave me through.”

  Even as he fumed, Dutch abided by all posted speed limits and traffic signs. “That’s illegal.”

  “That’s reality.” She checked their progress on her phone map as they crossed the state border into Maryland. “Although Ingrid doesn’t strike me as a normal, rebellious teenager.”

  “She’s not.” Dutch scrubbed his jawline with the back of his hand.

  A few minutes later, they located the Cheeky Tiki in a run-down strip mall bedecked with pink neon, blazing tiki torches, and real palm trees.

  “Wow.” Summer rolled down the window, the better to hear the Bob Marley cover band and smell the cigarette smoke wafting through the air. “I feel like I’m back in high school.”

  A tall, shaggy-haired boy lurched across the parking lot, pausing just long enough to throw up on Dutch’s car headlights.

  “Oh my God—I am back in high school.”

  Dutch opened the door and got out. “Back in a minute.”

  But as Summer scanned the teens milling in front of the club’s entrance, she spotted a slender, shuddering silhouette near a trio of tiki torches. “I see her. She’s right there.” She stuck the upper half of her body out the window and waved. “Ingrid!”

  Ingrid jerked to attention and hurried toward the car, stumbling over every crack and pothole in her high heels. Her hair seemed different than the last time Summer had seen her, but Summer couldn’t be sure because she couldn’t stop focusing on the teenager’s outfit.

  “What the hell is she wearing?” Dutch said.

  “Don’t say anything,” Summer instructed. “It’ll only make it worse. Let me do the talking.”

  Dutch reached into the car’s backseat and grabbed a box of tissues, which Ingrid seized as soon as she was within arm’s reach. She was crying and ranting and shivering all at once.

  No surprise, given the amount of exposed skin.

  “Hayley left without me, and Mattie’s making out with her boyfriend on the patio, and . . . and . . .” She blew her nose and turned to Dutch. “I lied to you.”

  He nodde
d and indicated she should get into the car.

  “I know I’m not supposed to be here.” Honk, sniffle. “Are you going to have them shut down for letting me in when I’m not eighteen?”

  Dutch slid into the driver’s seat and rolled up the car windows. “No.”

  “Thank you.”

  Summer shifted in her seat and gave Ingrid a sympathetic look.

  “Go ahead and yell at me.” Ingrid hung her head. “I deserve it. I know you’re disappointed.”

  At this, Dutch turned off the ignition and gave his sister his full attention. “I’m not disappointed. I always told you to call me if you need a ride home, and you did. I’m proud of you.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes. Plus, Ocean City’s not my jurisdiction.” He started the car again, drove out of the parking lot, and pulled into the gas station across the street.

  “Why are we stopping?” Ingrid asked.

  Dutch swore under his breath as he unbuckled his seat belt. “I have to wash off the headlights.”

  —

  “So? What’s his name?” Summer twisted around in her seat and grinned at Ingrid.

  Ingrid was going through three tissues at a time. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Dutch and I were just . . .” Summer narrowed her eyes. “Oh, no you don’t. I’ll be asking the questions tonight, missy. What’s his name?”

  Ingrid scrunched up her body even tighter. “Whose name?”

  “The guy you got all tarted up for.” Summer reached back and patted Ingrid’s knee. “Please. I know that no woman puts on heels that high and a skirt that short unless she’s man hunting.”

  Ingrid gazed down at her neon pink halter top, zebra-print miniskirt, and S&M shoes. “I look ridiculous.”

  “You don’t look ridiculous. You look . . .” Summer struggled to find the right word. “Listen, ain’t nothing wrong with flashing a little flesh. But it’s an art form. You have to feel good about yourself. Own it.”

  Ingrid tugged at her skirt hem. “These aren’t my clothes.”

  “I figured.”

  “I borrowed them from my friend Mattie.” Ingrid tossed another crumpled tissue to the floor mat. “And his name is Maxwell.”