“Want to sit?” Jen asked, as if reading his mind. She motioned to a crop of rocks.
“Sure.”
He found a seat in a smooth curve of rock. She settled herself a few feet away and wrapped her arms around her knees. His head still spun with the sensations of her mouth on his. What the hell was that? he wanted to ask, but he wasn’t sure how.
“Have you been in town this summer?” he asked. “Haven’t seen you.”
She shook her head. “Not since Memorial Day. You?”
“On and off. I’m doing some consultant work for a firm up in Bluffet Edge, so I’m living with my parents for the time being.”
“Nice.” She reached over and squeezed his arm. “It’s so good to see you again. Where’d you end up going to school?”
“RPI. Outside of Albany.”
“Good for you. You always were a brainiac.”
And Jen always was the life of the party, the center of attention, dating one guy this week and another guy the next. He used to watch her in school, the way she talked to anyone and everyone with ease. He ran his fingers over the edges of the rocks beneath his legs. It had taken him four years of college, two years of grad school, and summers of internships to work up the confidence simply to carry on a conversation without over-analyzing every word. Forget a kiss that came out of nowhere. He had no freakin’ idea how to analyze that.
“So tell me about Mikayla,” Jen said. “What’s the deal?”
He shoved up his glasses and examined the thin dark line of horizon across the water. “She works in the office building next door to the firm in Bluffet Edge. We see each other a few times a week.”
“And she invited you down here tonight.”
He nodded. Party on the beach tomorrow night! she’d called out as they walked to their cars at five o’clock. She’d seemed sincere enough then, but maybe he’d read the situation wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. It wouldn’t even be the tenth.
“Can I be honest?” Jen asked. “She’s not worth your time, even if she was kidding around. You deserve someone better than that.”
“Is that why you kissed me?” For an instant, embarrassment heated his face. He’d needed someone else to rescue him from another awkward moment in his life. Terrific.
She gave him a coy look. “Maybe.”
“Well.” He cleared his throat. “Thanks. I guess.”
“You’re welcome.”
He wanted to reach over and touch her, just casually, just to let her know how much he appreciated the gesture, but he didn’t know how.
Jen studied him for another minute. “You like her.”
He drew invisible lines on the rocks. “Stupid, right?”
“Not at all. The heart wants what it wants.”
A hundred yards in front of them, waves splashed against the shore. To their left, people continued to party. To their right, the woods sat in silence. “Think I have a shot with her?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Is she really what you’re after?”
He thought about that. Sometimes it seemed as though he’d been after Mikayla for so long, the wanting had become part of him. “I had a crush on her all through school. From middle school on up. She was in most of my classes, and she was always nice to me.” He shrugged. “To everyone, really.”
That was the Mikayla he thought of most often, the one who never failed to smile at him in the halls, who asked him for help on her math homework, who beeped whenever she drove past his house in her little red sports car.
“I finally got up the nerve to ask her to prom,” he went on, “and she said yes.” He still couldn’t believe that, even today. “But then she got measles.”
“Oh, my God, I remember that. Half the junior class came down with it, right?”
He nodded. “The Foreign Language club went to Spain that spring break and came back with it.”
“We all had to get the vaccination,” Jen said with a smile. “Remember half the high school lining up outside the nurse’s office? Pat Valentine passed out as soon as the nurse showed him the needle.”
Max laughed. “I forgot that.”
“Aw. So after all that time pining for her, you finally got her, and then she couldn’t go.”
He nodded and adjusted himself on the rocks. The wind picked up, warm and heavy in late-summer fashion. “After graduation, I didn’t see her again until a few months ago.”
“And all those good ol’ high school feelings came back,” Jen said.
“Something like that.”
“Old flames die hard.”
“Not for you, I bet.”
She laughed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He scrunched up his shoulders. “Just that you always seemed comfortable in your skin. You never seemed upset, or heartbroken, or mad, or anything. Just happy. I wouldn’t think anything from high school would bother you.”
She looked at him for a long moment without speaking. “That, my friend, is one of the nicest things I’ve heard in a long time.” She looked back out to sea. The voices on the beach grew fainter, and Max checked his watch with surprise. Almost eleven.
“I have a proposition for you,” Jen said.
A – what? Was she about to kiss him again? Maybe do something else, something more, something ten times sexier? Max leaned forward to hear Jen’s next, throaty words and promptly lost his balance. His glasses slid down his nose and tumbled across the rocks. Shit.
Jen picked them up and handed them back. Their fingers brushed, and little sparks of desire jumped between them. Or maybe not. Maybe that was just his imagination. He shoved them back onto his face and cleared his throat. “Ah, a proposition?”
“You want to win her over? Mikayla?”
“Sure.” He ducked his chin. “I just don’t know how.”
Jen put her hand on his bare leg. “You’re a catch.”
Max frowned.
“You are. But I have a feeling that all Mikayla sees is that guy from high school, the guy she can lead along by waving or beeping when she drives by. Not the good-looking, smart guy with the awesome job and the awesome body…” She trailed off as if to let him absorb the words. “So we need to show her what she’s missing.”
Good-looking? Awesome body? For a minute Max wanted to ask Jen if she’d mistaken him for someone else. Instead, he swallowed the words and decided to humor her. “How do we do that?”
The moon peeked from behind the clouds as Jen’s blue eyes brightened with excitement. “I have a plan. Are you in?”
Chapter Four
Jen pulled her chair up to the poker table as Lucas reshuffled the deck for five-card stud.
“So how was the beach party?” he asked.
Finn Cavallo, his best friend since childhood, grinned. Massive arms rested on the table, with a beer in one hand as he examined his cards. “Pretty damn good. Missed you.”
Lucas shrugged. “Filled in at the 911 station.”
“Any calls?”
“Just one. Domestic disturbance out at the Perinos. Mrs. caught the Mr. sneaking out to visit his girlfriend. Hit him upside the head with her Bible.”
The other guys at the table, Rich and Neil, laughed. “Shit. Doesn’t he know by now he’s gonna get caught?”
“How many stitches this time?” Finn asked.
Lucas chuckled. “Not sure.”
Finn turned to Jen. “Thought I might see you on the beach last night.”
She pulled her cards close to her chest. “I was there.”
“Yeah? Must ‘a been lookin’ in the wrong place.” Finn turned back to his buddies. “Guess what? The Watering Hole is for sale.”
“That dump on Main Street?” Mick asked.
Finn nodded. “Had my eye on it for the last year, ever since the bank took it over.”
“You want to own a bar?” Jen asked. She had to admit, Finn would be the perfect guy for it. He’d worked in a few different places around town since high school, first as a bouncer and then as
a bartender.
“Sure, why not? Just gotta see if I can afford it.” Finn started the betting. Around the table they went, with Neil calling, Rich doing the same, and Lucas raising. For as long as Jen could remember, the four high school friends had met on Friday nights to play poker. Once in a while she joined them, the token female allowed in an otherwise tightly closed game.
“I’m out,” she said. She shoved her cards aside and took a long pull on her beer.
“Heard you were havin’ a pretty serious conversation with Max Wainfield last night,” Rich said as Lucas dealt new cards.
“No secrets in this town, huh?”
“You should know that by now.”
The guys laughed and opened fresh beers. Empty bags of chips and pretzels lay strewn around the table and on the floor of Rich’s garage. The stub of a cigar had been stubbed out in a makeshift ashtray at Finn’s feet.
“Heard that guy’s making big bucks in Bluffet Edge,” Lucas said. He called, then showed a full house with aces high, to the groans of the others.
“I don’t know how much he’s making. He just told me he’s working as some kind of consultant,” Jen said. But hearing that news, she was secretly glad. Every time she’d thought about Max today, something in her warmed. She wanted him to be happy, successful, the stud he’d never been in high school. (All right, maybe Max Wainfield reaching stud status was a little far-fetched, but still.)
Rich flipped on the flat screen television in the corner and tuned in a ball game. At the inning break, the station cut to a commercial, and campy music began to play as scenes of rolling hills and dirt roads scrolled across the screen. Small Town Secrets flashed over the rural landscapes. A moment later, a female voice began to speak.
“Do you believe in ghosts? Because the residents of this small town certainly do…”
As the hills and roads faded to gray, the camera focused on a petite woman who leaned against a barn and smiled into the sun. She wore tight jeans and a tight green sweater and beamed at her viewers. “Today we’re visiting a small town on the border of New Hampshire and Maine. And just wait until you see what brings us here…”
Finn licked his bottom lip. Neil whistled under his breath. Lucas was the only one not drooling.
Jen laughed. “You guys have a hard-on for the host of some corny travel show?”
Rich lifted his beer in appreciation. “Sure, why not? Look at her.”
The woman, Sophie something according to the byline on the bottom of the screen, walked down a narrow lane, pointing first at the barn and then at a fence across the road.
“So what’s the show about?” Jen asked.
Finn pulled his gaze from the television. “I watched it once. She goes to a different place each week and talks about whatever weird thing’s going on there. Ghost stories, old family feuds, hoarders who chase people off their property.”
“Hell, she should come here,” Jen said. “We’ve got ourselves a world-famous haunted lighthouse and a murder mystery to boot.”
Finn finished his beer. “Shit, can you imagine Sophie Smithwaite comin’ to Lindsey Point?” He patted his lap. “I’ll volunteer to be the welcoming committee.”
The guys laughed and Finn dealt a new hand of cards. Two games later and twenty bucks in the hole, Jen finished her beer and pushed back her chair. “I’ll see you guys later.”
“Leavin’ already?” Finn asked.
Jen nodded and waved goodbye. She had plans to work on, a web to weave to help Max finally get his prom date, and with only three weeks before she headed back to Boston, they needed to start as soon as possible.
Chapter Five
“How did you know she’d be here?” Max asked. He and Jen sat in a corner booth at Shenanigan’s on Main Street. One block up was The Watering Hole, boarded up and vacant. Since that place had gone under, everyone under the age of forty flocked to Shenanigan’s. Even Jen knew that.
“It’s Ladies’ Night,” she said. “And karaoke starts at ten.” A quick check of her high school yearbook earlier that day had confirmed that Mikayla had not only been in the choir back then, but held roles in the school musical. It was funny how quickly Jen slipped back into the atmosphere of her youth whenever she came home. Sometimes she couldn’t believe she’d crossed the threshold of twenty-five and was staring down thirty. “I wasn’t sure she would be here,” she added, just so Max didn’t think she’d spent the day stalking his crush. “I just thought the odds might be good.”
She took a sip of her rum and Coke and tapped her finger against Max’s pint glass. “You going to nurse that beer all night?”
He flushed and took a drink.
Mikayla, Lucie, and two other women Jen didn’t recognize sat at a table in the middle of the bar. Perfect. Jen laughed loudly and then got up. She wore a tight white T-shirt and camo shorts paired with wedge heels that added three inches to her five-ten frame. She let her hand rest on Max’s shoulder and laughed again.
This time Mikayla looked over. Her gaze went up and down Jen in the span of a breath. Then it moved to Max. Is she jealous? Or at least curious? Jen tried to get a read on the situation. If Mikayla didn’t care who Max was having drinks with, Jen’s plan would be a lot harder to put into place.
But then there it was, a quick furrow of the brow and a flash of curiosity before Mikayla tossed her hair and turned back to her friends.
She does care, Jen thought as she headed across the crowded room. At least a little. She’s used to having Max’s undivided attention, and all of a sudden, she doesn’t. Jen took her time walking to the bar, stopping along the way to greet friends she hadn’t seen in a long time. Nothing here changes, she thought happily, as she hugged Archer Sinclair and kissed Finn’s sister Patty on the cheek.
As she passed Mikayla’s table, she slowed and gave a bright smile. “Hi there!” She rested one hip against the table. “Any of you guys singing tonight?”
Mikayla narrowed her eyes the tiniest bit, as if trying to figure out what Jen was up to. “Maybe,” she said. She pointed at her friend. “Tina here auditioned for American Idol last year and got all the way to the final round. She always sings on Tuesdays.”
“I’ll look forward to it.” Jen turned, then stopped as if a thought had just occurred to her. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” Mikayla folded her fingers together, painted pink with glittery silver stars on each ring finger.
“You and Max aren’t, well, together, are you?” Jen took a pointed look back at her booth, where Max sat. When he saw the others also turn and look, he ducked his head and stared at his beer. “Because I thought there was something between you back in high school, and the other night on the beach…” She trailed off and bit her bottom lip in mock concern.
“You’re here with…” Mikayla looked from Jen to Max and back again. “No,” she finished. “Max and I aren’t together.”
Jen smiled. “He’s a great guy.” She winked and continued to the bar, letting her hips sway as she crossed the room.
“Damn, Jen,” Finn said as she squeezed her way beside him. “What’s got you all dolled up tonight?” His gaze roamed her curves. “If you weren’t my best friend’s big sister…”
“And if I hadn’t know you since you were in diapers…” Jen responded, the way she always did.
He grinned and waved down the bartender. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but you’re lookin’ fine. You always were the brightest star in this damn town.”
***
Max tried not to stare as Jen made the rounds of Shenanigan’s. It seemed like every guy in the place had his eyes glued to either her ass or her sunny smile. He couldn’t blame them. She was that rare combination of beautiful and nice. By the time she slid back into the booth opposite him, he was beginning to wonder whether all this was some kind of dream. Only knowing that Jen was playing a role, trying to make Mikayla jealous, kept his head on straight.
Jen set a fresh beer in front of him. “Drink up. We ha
ve songs to sing.”
“Oh, I don’t…ah, no, I don’t sing,” Max stuttered.
She winked. “Tonight you do.”
Fear lanced through him. “And how exactly is that going to make Mikayla interested in me?” The minute he opened his mouth, the bar would empty. He shook his head for emphasis. “No singing.”
Jen leaned back and gave him a coy grin. “Trust me. She’ll be more than interested by the time we walk out of here tonight. Just follow my lead.”
But he wasn’t sure he could do that. “Why are you doing this again?”
“Because you’re a decent guy. You were back in high school, anyway, and I don’t imagine that’s changed.” She sipped her drink. “Has it?”
He shook his head, suddenly very glad he was sitting down, though he wasn’t sure if his hard-on came from thinking about Mikayla or looking at Jen. Damn. Every guy in the place probably wondered what he’d done to get Jen Oakes here, and the truth was, he didn’t even know.
“What’ve you been doing since we graduated?” he asked to distract himself from the growing tightness in his groin. “I mean, I know you went to school in Boston. And then medical school, right?”
She nodded. “Surprised?”
A little, he wanted to say. He hadn’t ever thought of Jen as the academic type. But even he wasn’t a big enough geek to say that out loud. “Not really. Think it’s pretty awesome.” Awesome? How old are you? Fourteen? He blushed furiously and reached for his beer. “What are you going to specialize in?” he asked when his tongue untied itself.
“Actually, I decided after all that I wasn’t interested in practicing medicine.” She was playing with the ice cubes in her glass, tapping them with one finger.
“Wow. So, um, what now?”
“I tutored all through college. And I loved my psychology classes. I finally realized that what I’d really like to do is teach. So I’m doing postdoctoral work right now.” She grinned. “I love human behavior. I’m hoping to eventually get a position teaching at the college level.”
Summer on Main Street Page 78