the bathroom where Jocelyn had gone for her precious space.
“Who’s the Will Palmer guy?” Tessa asked.
“It’s not about him,” Lacey said. “At least I don’t think so. Remember how weird she was with her father at her mother’s funeral all those years ago? This has to do with him and, honestly, I just don’t know how much we should push.”
“Thank you,” Zoe said, blowing out an exasperated breath. “She’ll tell us what she wants us to know when she’s ready.”
And so, Lacey assumed, would Zoe. “Then maybe that’s what friends really do for other friends,” she said, leaning her head on Tessa’s shoulder.
“What’s that?” Tessa asked.
“They wait for each other.”
The bathroom door popped open and Jocelyn emerged, her face completely empty of the pain she’d worn when she’d gone in there. Her dark eyes were clear and her color was normal.
“By the way,” Zoe said. “We need you to break a tie for us, Joss. We’re voting on whether or not Lacey should go to the beach to meet the building stud.”
“Do you know what happened?” Lacey asked Jocelyn.
She nodded. “They texted me. Why would you go?”
She closed her eyes. Did they have to know everything? Only if they could really help her decide, and, face it, she’d made the decision a while ago. Now she just needed to rationalize it. “I feel like there’s a chance for something different with him.” Zoe rolled her eyes, but Lacey ignored her. “And I’ve never wanted anything so much in my whole life. I really care about him.”
At their silence, she laughed softly. “I’m making excuses to do something. Is that the same as making excuses not to do something?”
Jocelyn didn’t answer at first, but started straightening clothes, methodically folding already crisply ironed khaki shorts. “I think,” she finally said, “that you should do whatever you want and not worry about what we think.”
“But I need your opinion.”
“You need our blessing,” Jocelyn continued. “Which you know you’ll get for whatever you decide to do. But what’s really important is that whatever you decide to do, we’ll be there to cheer you on or pick up the pieces.” She smiled at the others, a hint of tears in her eyes. “That’s what friends do for each other. Even when they don’t understand everything.”
No one argued with that.
“So,” Tessa asked, “what are you going to do?”
“I’m going. And when I get there, I’m going to…” She let her voice trail off.
“Do something that starts with an f and has four letters,” Zoe said.
“Right,” Jocelyn said. “Fire him.”
Lacey just laughed. “One way or the other, somebody’s going to get burned.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Clay lay flat on the hard-packed sand, close enough to the water that the occasional wave passed under him, soaking his clothes and digging a sinkhole for his body.
A sinkhole. The perfect metaphor for this mess.
He’d been out here long enough that his eyes had completely adjusted to the darkness, allowing him to see the Milky Way in all its celestial glory. A nearly full moon hung in a cloudless sky, cutting a river of silver over the calm waters of the Gulf. Nothing but the sound of the steady surf and the distant buzz of cicadas interrupted his miserable thoughts.
Thoughts that had turned dark, cynical, and circular as each moment passed and he accepted that Lacey wasn’t going to show.
A warm wave punctuated the realization, seeping around his body again, leaving him wet and chilled, sucking him deeper into the sand.
Who could blame her? He’d lied, even if it was a lie of omission. Sure, he had plenty of reasons—she’d back out, he wanted the affidavit, the allegations were false, the charges dropped—but that didn’t change the truth.
And he’d given her a hard time for having excuses.
Who could blame her for blowing him off tonight? For staying with her friends and family, or letting her ex-boyfriend work his magic and convince her that he could be a real father to Ashley? Because Clay sure as hell didn’t want that job. Did he?
He slapped his hands on the wet sand and pushed up, wanting to wash away the thoughts and the sticky muck that had turned his skin and clothes into forty-grit sandpaper.
Popping open his button-down shirt, he shimmied free of the wet sleeves and threw the shirt on the sand. Then he stripped off his sopping wet pants and boxers and tossed them on the pile with the shoes he’d long ago abandoned.
Naked, he strode into the surf, instantly relieved of the sand but