to keep her dress from flying up and stared down at her feet as they dug a ditch in the sand. “Mostly because I just can’t see myself as a bride . . . or a wife . . . or a lawyer.”
I looked at her, but she stayed focused on her feet. She rested her chin on her knees. “Just not sure if I’ve made any of the right decisions. And now, I’ve been reminded just how short life can be. I want to be sure I’m not making some major mistakes, mistakes that would be complicated to erase.”
“You should definitely be sure before you jump into marriage,” I said far too enthusiastically.
“Trust me, I know. Unfortunately, my mom’s already got wedding fever. I feel bad that my fever just isn’t there yet.”
“Never really pictured you as the big wedding type.”
She looked over at me. “See, you know me better than my mom, and, dare I say, better than my fiancé. Of course he tends to project his likes and wishes onto me. For Jeremy, it’s very much about the image he wants to present, specifically the image that goes along with being a hot shot east coast lawyer.”
I leaned back on my elbows. “I don’t think I’d approve of this guy.”
She turned to look at me. Her hair flowed back off her face, exposing her creamy skin and the sweet smile I always loved. “As I recall, you and Grady never approved of anyone I dated. Especially Grady.” Her focus returned to the hole she had her feet tucked inside. She’d dug deep enough with her toes to find the layer of wet sand beneath the dry. I could tell she’d drifted off to a Grady memory. “Still can’t believe he skipped out on our senior prom just because he hated my date, Doug. It wasn’t like he was going to have to dance with the guy or anything. And Doug was one of the nicest guys in school.”
I watched her as she tried to puzzle out Grady’s complete overreaction to her choice of prom date. She seemed to go right past the obvious.
There were two reasons I’d never told her the truth, the first being that Grady would have been pissed off if I had, and the second because I was hiding the same truth about my own feelings for Kenna. And now Grady was gone, and Kenna would eventually leave to marry some asshole, who, no doubt, didn’t deserve her.
“Damn, Trinket, you really don’t know, do you?”
She looked at me. “Know what?”
“Grady didn’t approve of your date or any date because he was in love with you.”
Her pink lips curled on the sides. She worked hard to tame a long strand of blonde hair back behind her ear. “Grady loved me, but he wasn’t in love with me.”
I gazed at her. There was a tiny flicker in her expression that seemed as if she was page flipping through some of the past to see if there had been something she’d missed, some clues about the way Grady felt about her. But she wouldn’t find anything. He’d kept his true feelings hidden to the point that he’d gotten nearly sick from it. And, all the while that he’d kept this secret from her, I had been keeping one of my own. Not just from Kenna but from my brother too.
She shook her head. “I think you’re just mistaking a close friendship with love.”
The subject seemed to sadden her, and I decided to drop it. None of it mattered now. Grady was gone, and once Kenna was married and practicing law in New York, she’d be gone from my life too.
I stood up and brushed the sand off my jeans. Kenna squinted up into the bright sky as she stared up at me. I reached back to the collar of my shirt.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m going in the water.”
“In your jeans?”
I started lifting off the shirt.
“Wait,” she said, “I need to get into character. What was her name?”
“Kiki Dinklefrost?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Good memory. Kiki Dinklefrost. She was my alter ego to combat the stupid rounds of whistles you guys would taunt me with when I stripped down to my bathing suit. Let me see if I can remember my lines. I need my invisible microphone.” She held her fingers in a circle around a pretend mic and lifted it to her mouth. “And a stunned, awe-filled hush falls over the female half of the crowd