He turned and slung his arm over her shoulders. “That’s a deal. Hey, this is Bree. She made the most incredible cupcakes. Bree, this is Kennedy.”
“Nice to meet you,” Kennedy said.
“Hi,” she mumbled.
Kennedy was tall and thin with light blue eyes and long hair that was so straight, it was as though someone had ironed it. Her shorts were supershort and Bree could see the tops of her boobs sticking out from her tank top. Plus, her skin was pale—almost white—and so pretty it made Bree wish she didn’t tan so easily, that her own arms and legs weren’t so brown. That her pants weren’t so dumpy-looking, that she hadn’t spilled mustard on her shirt when she’d had a second hot dog.
Made her wish she was someone else. Someone pretty, thin and confident.
“I claimed the ball court,” Kennedy told Luke. “You up for a little one-on-one?”
“I think I can take you.” He looked at Bree. “What do you think, B?”
B. He called her B. Like a nickname, something between the two of them. Feeling brave for a moment, she met his eyes. “I think you can, too.”
He winked. “That’s my girl.”
But she wasn’t his girl. Because she wasn’t the one he held close to his side and walked off with.
She was the one he left behind.
* * *
“JAMES SAYS YOU’VE GOT a long way to go at Bradford House, baby girl,” Frank Montesano said to Maddie as they sat on her parents’ patio.
The setting sun cast shadows across her parents’ neatly trimmed backyard, early summer flowers blooming in her mother’s gardens. A warm breeze caressed Maddie’s bare shoulders, reminded her of a lover’s touch.
Neil’s face floated into her mind. She shoved it right back out again.
“James is the king of stating the obvious.” She dragged a cracker through the bowl of hummus her mother had brought out. “Next thing he’ll be telling us the color of the sky and the boiling point of water.”
Frank sipped his red wine, his thick eyebrows lowered over eyes the same color as Maddie’s. “Does he exaggerate?”
She sighed. Bit viciously into the cracker. “No.”
“Tell me.”
“The parlor’s almost done. We ran new electrical, insulated the outside walls and hung and taped the drywall. Next week the bricklayers are coming to refinish the fireplace.”
“The same fireplace I told you was unsalvageable?”
She smiled. Tossed the remainder of the cracker into her mouth. “Yep.”
“What did you do and how much did it eat into our profit?”
“I raised the fireplace.” She’d had to. It was sinking into the floor. But there was no way she could get rid of it. Marble and original to the house, it was a work of art. And worth every penny she’d spent making sure it stayed that way. “I rented a lift and shored up the beams in the basement and added new support columns. And it didn’t cut into our profit for the job because Neil Pettit has more money than he knows what to do with.”
“Now that sounds like sour grapes,” Rose said as she carried out a tray of thinly sliced meats and cheeses and cut fresh fruit.
“It’s not,” Maddie insisted. Her parents exchanged a loaded glance. “I hate when you do that,” she muttered.
Rose set the tray on the glass-topped table. “Do what?”
“Communicate without saying a word. It’s freaky.”
“It’s the only way we could get a word in edgewise,” Frank said. “We were outnumbered two-to-one, you know.”
“Whose fault was that?” Maddie asked, wrapping prosciutto around a slice of cheese.
He pulled Rose onto his lap. “Your mother’s. She never could keep her hands off me.”
“So true,” Rose said, wrapping her arms around her husband’s neck. “So very, very true.”
They kissed. Pulled back and kissed again.
“Hello?” Maddie said. “I’m still sitting here. Right here.” They kissed once more. “I’ve got a front-row seat to this and am about to gouge out my eyes if you don’t knock it off.”
Still holding on to Frank, Rose leaned back. “I think you’ll survive. It’s not the first time you’ve seen your parents be affectionate.”
No, it wasn’t the first time, or even the hundredth. Maddie and her brothers had been firsthand witnesses to their parents’ love. The secret smiles they had for each other. The way their gazes would lock and hold. How their dad would brush their mom’s hair back, his touch gentle and reverent. How she’d cup his cheeks each morning after she kissed him goodbye, her fingers trailing across his jaw as they stepped apart.