A Lot Like Perfect

Aria let it ride until the next morning, dutifully rolling out of the king-sized bed she shared with her sister to get ready for church. Havana groaned and flopped onto her stomach, flinging the patchwork comforter over her shocking red curls. Aria kicked at her sister a few times because obviously she still hadn’t gotten into the swing of attending services with Serenity on a regular basis. Today was not a good day to be late since Aria had a come to Jesus lined up for Cassidy.

They had much to discuss about A) what in the world was going on with Tristan and B) why in the world Cassidy had thrown away an opportunity to get closer to Isaiah. The woman had been spouting off about him for at least as long as Aria had been doing the same with Tristan.

Cassidy had been Ember’s buddy more than Aria’s back in high school, but once Ember had hightailed it out of town, leaving the two of them behind, it had turned into a natural bonding experience. Plus, once they’d hit their twenties, a couple of years age difference hadn’t affected things much, not in a place like Superstition Springs where friends were hard to come by.

As a result, Aria usually knew what was going on in her friend’s headspace. Not so much after that horrible movie experience. Cassidy owed her some answers.

Twenty minutes later, Aria strolled into the pre-fab building that served as the non-denominational Superstition Springs church. Farmer Moon had donated both the land and the structure, but drew the line at preaching. That honor fell to his eldest son, Matthew, who had married a woman from Bastrop named Augusta. She liked to sing, which worked out well. Together, they pretty much did the whole service. The messages were always uplifting and since the five former SEALs had started sitting in the second row, attendance had gone way up.

Havana beelined over

to squeeze in next to Caleb, who in turn, bumped his buddies down a bit on the hard wooden bench. They grumbled good-naturedly and Aria bit back a smile as Isaiah shushed them all.

“Sharing is caring,” he said with a warm glance at Aria, which should not have released so many winged things in her stomach.

Mavis J and Lennie Ford sat on the third row as per custom, taking up almost the entire bench by themselves—or rather Lennie did. Mavis was a tiny woman in the first place but next to Lennie, who could be easily described as a mountain of a man, she looked more like a doll that he might break in half. They were an odd couple who had been together for more years than anyone could count but had never married.

“Morning, Aria,” Mavis said cheerfully as Aria squeezed into the fourth row where Cassidy had already claimed her usual, dead-middle spot. “Tell Serenity I got in a new batch of fabric she might like.”

“Sure thing.”

Serenity sewed all her own clothes, a skill Aria admired and definitely didn’t possess the patience for. But the last thing she wanted to do was chat about anything other than the disaster of yesterday.

“What is the deal with you?” Aria muttered to Cassidy and wedged in close to her friend in case she had a mind to flee. “After the movies, I thought for sure you’d want to dissect every last thing that happened, but you didn’t come by the diner last night.”

That had kind of stung too. She’d waited and waited, hoping to commiserate with Cassidy about their respective love lives or lack thereof. Instead, she’d only had Ember and Judd for company. Her sister had definitely been in the mood to gripe about things, particular how Judd had developed a tendency to talk back to her. The sullen little boy had refused to eat anything but French fries with mustard, and Aria got the distinct impression he didn’t even like the combo but enjoyed irritating his mother enough to choke it down.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Cassidy whispered, staring straight ahead as she studiously avoided glancing at Tristan, who was sitting just two rows ahead. Tristan wasn’t affording her the same courtesy, openly eyeing her with a very hard to read expression on his face.

He never looked at Aria like that. Right at that moment, she was glad. “Well, you spent so much time arguing with Tristan that you forgot about Isaiah. I thought you liked him.”

“I should apologize to him,” she mumbled as guilt crept over her expression. “He’s nice and sweet. Unlike some other people I could mention who are arrogant, thick headed and obviously think they are the universe’s gift to women. I mean, really. He’s not even that good looking—”

“Now you’re being silly,” Aria broke in and lowered her voice as Tristan glanced at her instead of Cassidy. “Tristan is gorgeous and you know he is. Also, that’s the man whose attention I’m trying to get. So lay off. Focus on Isaiah for a minute.”

“Okay.”

Cassidy didn’t brighten the way she normally did when talking about Isaiah. In fact, she hadn’t mentioned him at all lately, though there’d been a time when they could both go on for fifteen minutes straight about the qualities of the guys they had the hots for. They’d turned it into a regular hen-fest at times, especially as Havana’s relationship with Caleb heated up. Both she and Cassidy had pumped Havana for details about Tristan and Isaiah, and they’d both—more than once—made silly comments about clawing other women’s faces off if they so much as looked at the men they’d targeted.

That was one of many reasons she hadn’t told anyone that Isaiah was helping her land Tristan. Land. It was such a funny word to use in relation to a man, like she’d cast her bait in the water and all she had to do was wait until he bit. Then she could reel him in, same as a fish hooked onto her line.

It left a bad taste in her mouth all at once. Why couldn’t Tristan just notice her on his own? She wasn’t beautiful like Cassidy, but she had a good personality. Or at least she thought she did. Isaiah seemed to enjoy hanging out with her. But that came so natural, she barely had to think about what to say or how to act around him. Maybe that was the piece she was missing here—she should have asked him to help her work on being more fun on a date. Then she wouldn’t need an inside edge.

“Isaiah is nice and sweet,” Aria repeated because it was true. It was also impossible to think of anything else to say about him that wouldn’t betray the secret meetings they’d had in the name of the bet. “He likes jazz music. Maybe you could ask him over to listen to an album or something.”

“Jazz music.” Cassidy wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think I could even pick out a jazz song from a playlist.”

“Really? We’ve known each other since we could walk and you don’t know a single jazz song? I have all the best stuff on my iPod.”

Cassidy glanced at her askance. “You listen to jazz? Since when?”

Since forever. She started to give her friend a blistering what-for since she clearly wasn’t paying attention to anything other than her own problems, when it occurred to her that she’d never talked to anyone about her love of jazz. Except for Isaiah.

She’d started listening to it after Ember left and she’d been forced to sleep in her bedroom by herself for the first time since their parents had died. Nightmares weren’t uncommon and who was there to soothe her through it? No one. Serenity hadn’t ever gotten the hang of mothering, often falling back on Havana to handle day-to-day things like permission slips and homework.

But Havana had left for Austin, supposedly to go to school but mostly to get away from Superstition Springs…and Aria. Who could blame her? It must have been rough on an eighteen-year-old to have responsibility for both a mouthy, temperamental seventeen-year-old sister and a fifteen-year-old.

Except no one had thought about how Havana being gone meant Aria had to fill that void with Serenity, basically growing up overnight as she learned how to mother herself and her aunt. Aria had worked hard to forgive and had. Mostly.