Better Than Chocolate (Sweet Somethings Book 1) Page 6

  Our salads arrive and Ryan twirls his salad fork between his fingers for a moment. “My firm doesn’t get much call for historic preservation. The conference I’m here for is the first chance in, oh, three years to work that angle. But I guess you could say civil engineering pays the bills, so I don’t worry about the historic preservation so much.”

  Something in his tone tips me off. Have I sniffed out the edge of the breakup iceberg? “And we need to pay the bills.”

  It’s not time to play super sleuth, so I get him talking about his conference over the main course. Ryan’s eyes light up, his gestures growing animated, as he talks about the lessons in urban management when historic districts are at play. We get into the nitty-gritty details of some of the sites the conference attendees have to deal with, and while the civil engineering aspect is beyond me, I revel in sharing the history as we dig two spoons into a chocolate-free dessert. We’re both a little euphoric when the waiter brings the bill, and we argue over whether to charge the meal to my room or put it on his corporate card.

  “Let me,” he says, actually plucking my key card out of my hand. “I asked you to dinner, it’s my treat. Well, the firm’s treat. You get the idea.”

  “You paid for lunch and the forbidden chocolate ice cream,” I protest.

  “Which we’ll work off with a walk on the beach.” The waiter returns with Ryan’s credit card. He signs the bill and stands, holding one hand out to me. “There might be steps. I’m ready to prop you up.”

  Chapter 7

  One Side of the Story, Sort Of

  I manage to navigate the pool deck and terrace in my high heels, but before heading out onto the beach, we stash our shoes, Ryan’s socks, and my clutch purse in one of the complimentary lockers near the changing rooms. After we acquire our reentry armbands, Ryan rolls his pant legs up to his knees and his sleeves to his elbows, then we venture out.

  Though almost two hours have passed since sundown, the sand still radiates heat from the day onto the soles of our feet. We turn left and meander between the resort fences and the surf, lights from the hotels shifting in the water and providing just enough illumination to show our path. I twist my hair and hold it over one shoulder in an attempt to keep it subdued in the land breeze, and Ryan shoves his hands deep in his pockets. We plod along in silence for a while.

  “Will you be okay flying by yourself tomorrow?” he finally asks. The hotel lights cast fleeting highlights on his cheekbones. His eyebrows are lowered again, and his jaw looks stiff, like he’s clenching his teeth.

  I slide my bare feet through the sand. “Yeah. It’s only like a thirty-minute flight.”

  “But it’s a puddle jumper. Turboprop.”

  Great. “I guess I’ll have to introduce myself to my seatmate and apologize in advance.”

  He steers me around a gelatinous mass on the tideline that looks a little like a jellyfish. “I don’t have any meetings until one tomorrow. I can go with you to the airport.”

  Frowning, I gaze out at the stars winking above the ocean as clouds dissipate. A full moon hangs in the sky, halfway between the horizon and its zenith, its silver light washing over the beach. “You don’t need to.”

  His hand trails down my arm, brushing my fingers before he lets go. There’s been a lot of lingering contact the past couple days, as if he’s trying to reassure himself, and me, that we still have a connection. He’s always been a little touchy-feely with me, less so since he and Sadie got serious and hardly at all after they got engaged. Sadie’s not the touchy-feely sort.

  “Maybe I want to.” He sounds lost. “Maybe I’d rather ask you to stay here.”

  I grab his sleeve and pull him to a stop. “Stay here?”

  “Maybe I don’t want you to go to St. Croix. Wouldn’t it be better if, I don’t know, you stayed here for the next week? We can go sightseeing, drink rum on the beach, just hang out.” He shrugs. “You know. Like we used to. Before.”

  Before he and Sadie became an item. Even after they got together, there was never any question over Ryan and me hanging out. Best friends don’t put those conditions on each other. Still, it wasn’t quite the same.

  But he’s asking me to choose between him and Sadie now, and I can’t do it. “I’m committed to going. Sadie’s expecting me, I can’t let her down.”

  He rubs one hand over his face, heaving a breath. “I know. Maid of honor. That’s you in a nutshell.” He shakes his head. “No, you’re right. You should go.”

  I press my palm against his shoulder for a second. “She didn’t have to ask me. She could have asked her sister—and I’m not sure why she didn’t.”

  “Because she wants you there. Haven’t you two been planning your weddings since, like, the minute you met each other? She’s always wanted you to stand up with her. Even when―” He breaks off, an odd sound catching in his throat. The rest of his sentence hangs in the air, unspoken but heard.

  Even when Sadie planned to marry him.

  If anything is going to be said, it needs to happen now. He’s cracking.

  “Ryan,” I venture. “I know you said it was a long-time coming, and it was mutual. But what happened?”

  His stillness, the way his eyes glitter in the moonlight, unnerves me. “I wish her the best, I really do. I tried to make Sadie happy, but it was never going to work. Our relationship got to be a habit.”

  I could ask why, could prompt him for more, but I summon all my patience and wait for him to continue.

  “We wanted different things, had different expectations in the end. I wanted to renovate our house. She wanted to move back into downtown Atlanta. She doesn’t want to have kids. Well, that’s not quite it. She’d consider adopting, but not babies. I’m not against adoption, but I’d like kids of my own, too. She came right out and said she never wants to get pregnant.”

  He pauses, his throat working. My palm itches to touch him again, but I busy my fingers in the hair hanging over my shoulder instead. I didn’t know all this, and I should have.

  “I couldn’t give Sadie the life she wants. I make good money. But she doesn’t want to work if she doesn’t have to. Her marketing degree is for show. She’d quit her job in a heartbeat if I made enough money.”

  “Hold on.” I have to stop him here. “Sadie’s not that shallow. She wouldn’t leave you for something that superficial.”

  “She wants the lifestyle her parents had before they got divorced. Exotic vacations, expensive furniture, a certain social standing.”

  “Just because her parents have money―”

  He holds up one hand, cutting me off. “Sadie’s mother has money. The Berkley side of the family is rooted in old Georgia wealth. Sadie wants cotillions and country clubs, not backyard barbecues and trivia night at the local pub.” He shoves his hands into his pockets again, his voice tinged with hurt and a little resentment. “You know what her grandma Berkley called me? An upstart Yankee interloper.”

  Grandma Berkley’s the one whose house I once cleaned. “She always seemed to like me.”

  “Well, you weren’t engaged to Sadie.” He digs his heel into the sand, building a sort of redoubt between us. “It was worse after her parents got divorced. That’s part of why she and her sister aren’t really on speaking terms right now, by the way. Kate sided with their dad, and she’s pissed at Sadie. Called her a few names at the Berkley family reunion.”

  At least now I know why Kate Miller wasn’t invited to the wedding. “But you and Sadie have known each other for almost a decade. I know she’s not the worldliest person, but she’s not that elitist. She wouldn’t leave you just because you didn’t measure up to her family’s old money expectations.”

  “I told you it wasn’t simple.” He turns slightly away from me, away from the moon, his face falling into shadow again. “We were fighting a lot. Not shouting m
atches, not that kind of fighting. Just nagging at each other, stupid things getting blown out of proportion.”

  I let go of my hair at last, not caring if the wind whips it into snarls. “But when I visited in April, everything seemed so normal.”

  “That’s because it’s what we wanted you to see.” He takes a few steps toward the ocean. “I didn’t have a project at work that week. I stayed away on purpose when I could. I didn’t want you to notice―”

  “You didn’t want me to notice how bad things had gotten,” I interrupt, finishing his thought. I shake my head, hugging my arms around myself. “But when you proposed at Christmas, didn’t you . . . Was it already falling apart?”

  He turns back to me. There isn’t enough light from the hotels to see his face anymore. “It was pretty much broken by then.”

  “And you still asked her to marry you?”

  He glances down the beach, back the way we came, and his profile stands in silhouette against the moonlit waves. “It was a last ditch effort to prove I was willing, that I was in it for the long haul. The only reason she said yes was because I proposed in front of everybody. You were more excited than she was. She didn’t even like the ring.”

  “I thought it was beautiful,” I murmur.

  “I know you did.”

  For a moment, only the surf foaming on the sand behind him breaks the silence, along with the distant rhythms of a band from a hotel a half-mile down the beach, the rustle of palm trees along the resort properties, and the chirps of hidden coquí tree frogs.

  I tighten my hands on my upper arms. “But . . . You loved each other.”

  “Not the right way. We were never together for the right reasons.” The finality of his words signals that there’s more to the story, but I won’t get anything else out of him.

  A hard, horrible pain wells up to choke me. I cover my face with my hands and turn away, taking a few stumbling steps. This can’t be right. I thought if Ryan explained what happened, it would make sense. But it doesn’t. I understand every word he’s said—I comprehend it all—but it’s just wrong.

  His hands close over my shoulders, then his arms wrap around me, pulling me close. Without thinking, I wind my arms around his waist and bury my face in his chest. I’m not exactly crying yet, but my body shakes.

  “Carmel-cakes.”

  “I’m going to lose you.”

  He takes a handful of my hair, tugging gently until my cheek, instead of my forehead, is against his chest. “Say that again?”

  I swallow, willing my voice to steady before I repeat myself. “I’m going to lose both of you.”

  “No.” His arms tighten. “No, you won’t.”

  “Ryan, be logical. Sadie’s moving to St. Croix and has this whole new life, and―”

  “You be logical,” he orders. Echoes of the Marines. “Sadie isn’t going to drop you from her life. You underestimate how much she loves you.”

  “And what about you?”

  He’s silent for a second or two. “Maybe I’ll put the house up for sale and move to Savannah. I’d be closer to you if I did that.”

  “Oh, come off it,” I scoff, but my voice quivers with tears.

  “I can deliver cakes for Tess.”

  He’s trying to joke about this? “Your career, your whole life is in Atlanta.”

  “Maybe that’s not important enough to me anymore.”

  I should protest, should tell him he’d be stupid to uproot himself because of all that’s happened. But my voice stops working, and I don’t know why. In the end, he wouldn’t really do it, even though he’s always professed a certain adoration for my adopted hometown. Ultimately, he would suck it up, maybe sell the house, but continue on as usual without complaining.

  After a few minutes, the urge to wail like a thwarted baby passes, and I relax against him. He rests his chin on the top of my head, swaying to the unpredictable ebb and flow of the foaming breakers. The movement calms me, and I close my eyes with a grateful sigh. He gathers my hair and lifts the whole, tangled mass of it, resting his hand at the nape of my neck. His fingers caress, a touch so fleeting I barely notice it.

  “Carmella.”

  There’s a note in his voice I don’t understand, and my defenses flare. With a deep breath to steel myself, I push away from him, thankful the shadows hide both our faces.

  “We should head back. I want to get to the airport early tomorrow, give myself enough time to prepare for the Turboprop.”

  He nods and puts a good two feet between us as we start back to the hotel. We don’t say anything after we gather our shoes and my purse from the locker and rinse the sand from our feet in the spigot by the beach gate. To my relief, his face is calm in the soft light around the pool deck. No traces of the hurt we’ve dredged up, or that weird tone in the way he said my name a little while ago. By the time we get on the elevator, everything seems to be back to normal.

  We stop at the main lobby and Ryan steps out.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  He glances around, leaning against the doors to keep them from sliding shut. “I’m gonna head down to the lounge, have a beer before I hit the hay.”

  “Do you want company?” The words come out of my mouth automatically.

  With an apologetic smile, he shakes his head. “No, that’s okay. I’ll meet you down here for breakfast at seven and take you to the airport.”

  “You don’t need to, really.”

  “I want to. Really.” He reaches out, slinging his arm around my neck, almost a head-lock, and leaves a smacking kiss on the top of my head. “Sleep tight, Carmel-cakes.”

  My mouth hangs open as he steps back, letting the doors slide between us. I barely have time to say goodnight before they shut completely.

  Last night’s weirdness is gone when Ryan meets me for breakfast in the hotel lobby in the morning. I attribute my share in its absence to my exhausted, half-zombie state. Between attempting to order Sadie’s wedding gift and nervousness over flying alone in a Turboprop plane, I didn’t get much sleep. Worst of all, that stupid platter she wanted was already purchased by the time I got my phone’s web browser to connect. I hate going empty-handed to events where gifts are expected.

  Before I know it, the checkout process is complete, and Ryan bundles me, my luggage, and a small travel cup of coffee into a cab. He’d also grabbed a couple pre-packaged bagels and pastries from the a la carte breakfast bar, and now he shoves a paper bag with these goodies into my hand as the taxi pulls up to the airport.

  “Don’t buy anything from the terminal restaurants,” he advises. “It’s over-priced.”

  I nod, draining the last caffeine-laden, life-giving swig of coffee from my cup. Tucking the snacks into my messenger bag, I wheel my way to the ticketing counter. Ryan is still waiting for me when I finish checking my luggage, and I wave my boarding pass at him like a flag of triumph.

  “See, I’ll be fine.”

  He grins, hands shoved into the pockets of his khaki shorts as usual, and accompanies me to the security area. He stops, putting one hand on my arm. “Hey, listen. I don’t know if it’ll come up or not, but . . . Tell Sadie I said best wishes.”

  “Then I’ll have to explain how we ran into each other, and how you told me the whole story . . .” Well, most of it.

  “It might not even come up.” He lifts his baseball hat and scratches the back of his head. “The wedding’s on Saturday night?”

  “On the private-est private beach, owned by the swankiest of swanky hotels in St. Croix.”

  He smirks, settling his hat again. “You’ll be fine.”

  After a brief hesitation, he scoops me up in the patented Wutkowski Bear Hug, lifting me off my feet and squeezing the air out of my lungs. But instead of putting me right back down, he holds me for a m
oment, my toes almost eight inches off the floor. I have no choice but to cling to his shoulders.

  “Email me when you get back to Georgia, okay? I’ll come down to Savannah some weekend, and you can give me an insider’s tour of Fort Pulaski.” He’s asked before, and I’ve offered before, but Sadie always squelched the idea.

  “That would be kind of nice.”

  He sets me on my feet, but I hold on a little longer.

  What am I doing?

  With a final squeeze, he steps back, planting a friendly kiss on my cheek before turning me toward the terminal. “Go, before security gets backed up.”

  A light push sends me on my way. I turn back once to wave before unloading my bag and shoes into the gray x-ray bins. Ryan lifts one hand, smiling, then I lose him in the shuffle of passengers crowding toward security.

  Chapter 8

  Sadie in St. Croix

  Of all the ways to travel, flight by Turboprop plane is the worst.

  I spend most of the short flight with my eyes closed, fingers in a death-grip around the armrests. When we finally touch down in St. Croix, it’s all I can do to keep from barreling past the flight attendant when the plane door opens.

  My suitcase waits for me at the bottom of the stairs, and I follow the handful of fellow passengers to the terminal. By keeping my eyes shut, I missed the view of the Caribbean Sea. Now, I pause to take it in, along with the swaying palm trees lining the shore just beyond the airport property. The tropical sun’s heat disperses in the salt-laden breeze, and a little jolt of excitement builds in my chest. Even though this whole trip could prove a huge disaster, I start to think I might enjoy myself just a little bit.