Page 78 of Hearts Adrift
Anya believes not all villains deserve redemption arcs.
In the case of Trent Embers, I’m inclined to agree.
“So you’re really trading theHollyforDream, huh?”
She’s been ranting about Trent for so long, I barely notice the shift in topic. “Trading what for what?”
“Holly-wood.Dream-wood. Seriously, you gotta pick it up when I put it down, Riv, I’m so much cleverer than you ever give me credit for.”
“It’s a cute play on words, I’ll give you that.”
“People underestimated Cissy, too, but look what she did with so little. Solved a whole murder and got the girl in the end, too—Wait. Did you watch it yet? Did you—Riv!” I guess she can sense my guilty wince. “It’s been months!Months!How have you not watched the dang show yet?!”
Finally, the long-awaited exit looms ahead. I catch my mouth twisting into a giddy smile. “Maybe I was missing the right show-bingeing companion.”
Anya’s sigh whistles through the phone. “Oh, Riv … you are so hopelessly smitten by that boy toy.”
That is a fact I will never deny.
Wholeheartedly. Unequivocally. Definitively smitten.
The first thing I do when I arrive in Dreamwood Isle is swing by this cute flower shop I noticed across the street from the Quicksilver Strand. It smells like salt and jasmine, and the (literally green-haired) cute young guy behind the counter doesn’t blink twice when I ask for the biggest and brightest bouquet he has. “Celebrating something special, Mr. Wolfe?” he asks with a playful smirk. Everyone on the island knows me now. I’m so not a big deal here anymore, and I fucking love it that way. “Yep,” I reply, whipping off my shades and tucking them into a pocket. “Homecoming.”
With the bouquet riding shotgun, I cut across the isle to the bungalow, nestled on the northernmost, coziest street. The pics Finn sent me of the beautiful bushes and flowers now bordering the bungalow on all sides don’t compare to seeing them with my own eyes. It looks ten times more like home than it already seemed before. I swear, this crooked, old bungalow with the undeniable charm has grown on me in ways I couldn’t have dreamt of months ago.
What once was just an affordable, haunted hideout is now (literally) blooming into what I can call home.
I barely make it to the first step of the porch when the door flies open—and there Finn appears, as if he’s held his breath all this time and the sight of me grants him his first relief. I swear, the expression when he sees me—and the likely over-the-top display of flowers in my arms—is worth every mile (and every word I endured from Anya’s well-intended gossiping) from theset to the front steps of this creaky porch.
“You’re early,” he says, startled into a laugh.
“Wrapped a week ahead of schedule. You’re looking at a free man.” I come up the stairs and offer him the flowers. “Can I say what a gift it is to see your face again—andnotthrough a phone screen?”
“You’re welcome to say that while tearing my clothes off on my bed,” Finn politely suggests.
The next thing he grabs isn’t the flowers.
It’s my shirt, tugging me into the bungalow, before the door slaps shut at my back.
Damn, it feels great to be home.
I guess it was serendipity that brought me back to the isle this weekend, because that evening when we head out to the Fair, I learn that Brooke’s Kissing Booth is open for business—mercifully lacking its once-suggested star: Finn. In his place, a friendly (and tragically ditzy) bartender pal of Finn’s I’ve gotten to know named Chase. The lines are staggeringly long—much longer than Chase expected them to be, and it shows. “Can you guys help me out?” he begs, taking half a minute’s break when he sees us passing by. “Like, maybe just for five or ten?”
“Not a chance,” says Finn with a smirk, shielding me.
“I guess there’s worse things to be subjected to,” Chase reasons, out of breath, before returning to his hell—which I don’t imagine is quite as hellish as he makes it out to be. Ninety percent of the line are men, and not one of them is a set of lips I’d imagine any reasonable love-starved person turning down.
And according to Finn, Chase isplentylove-starved.
Not anymore, I suppose.
Walking around the Fair is surreal. No hiding. No need to disguise myself. No creepy eyes poking out of shadows. It’s just me and my boyfriend Finn enjoying our time at the Fair. As far as Dreamwood Isle goes, there is a spot to sate anyvariety of tastes—whether beach bumming all day, lounging within cabanas by the pool, clubbing late into the night, kicking back with pals at the Easy Breezy, shopping and dining at the boardwalk, perusing the Rivington Art Gallery—but nothing quite compares to the dreamy feeling of strolling under the sun, the clouds, or the stars at night, to the whimsical music of the Hopewell Fair, surrounded by laughter and life.
And being assaulted by adoring adopted sisters. “You came back early!” cries Heather, overjoyed to see me, arms flung around my neck in a hug. “Sorry, I’ve been cramped up in an office all day and haven’t showered … I probably smell like corndogs.”
“Big bro River!” comes Brooke out of nowhere, also tackling me in a suspiciously similar ambush style. Exactly half a second later, she’s all business: “I don’t know if you got my email, but the latest campaign iskillingit. Like, the engagement is up over two hundred percent, you amassed nearly nine thousand followers from our last post alone—it was a really good one, to be fair, great idea—which I think we should use as leverage for a—Oh, I’m doing it again,” she realizes, clamming up. “Sorry. I talk shop too much.”
Truth is, I enjoy all the shoptalk with Brooke, and I adore having Heather in my life regardless of what matter of Fair food she smells like. Two loving sisters is more than the zero loving sisters I had before meeting Finn, and I’ll count that as a win.
