The Truest Thing (Hart's Boardwalk 4)

Issues. Right.

“I’m not telling Vaughn.” Bailey glanced between me and Dahlia as if loo

king for backup. However, I agreed with Jessica. Vaughn was our current shield against Devlin. I truly believed he wanted to protect the boardwalk owners from Devlin’s evil plotting.

“You’re all crazy. Vaughn would rather see my place go under than do anything to help me.”

I opened my mouth to disagree, but Jess beat me to it, sounding as exasperated by Bailey as I was. “That’s not true at all. I wish you and he would just admit you’re attracted to one another and stop acting like children at recess.”

It took everything within me not to applaud.

As I’d said, anyone with eyes and ears could see through Bailey and Vaughn’s antagonism.

Struggling to suppress my smile, I watched Bailey slump in her seat, shock slackening her pretty features. “That was almost mean. And he’s not attracted to me.”

“Aha!” Dahlia grinned gleefully. “But you’re attracted to him?”

“What? No. What?”

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

“You just said he’s not attracted to me when Jessica said you were attracted to one another. You made no mention of you not being attracted to him, just him not being attracted to you,” Dahlia said.

“But I meant that. That thing you said. About us both. I am not attracted to Vaughn Tremaine.”

“Methinks thou dost protest too much.” Dahlia voiced my thoughts. I grinned behind a canapé.

“Methinks thou no longer deserves the last canapé.” Bailey swiped it off the plate, and I laughed inwardly at Dahlia’s crestfallen expression. Next time, I would make more canapés.

“I still think you should tell Vaughn,” Jess continued.

“To have him laugh in my face? No thanks. Subject change!” Bailey clapped her hands as if we were in class. “Where will we start? Jessica and Cooper and wondering when he’s going to get off his ass and get down on one knee, or Emery and man lessons?”

Oh no.

I shrank in my chair, hoping to disappear into it.

The other day Vaughn and his father had come into the store while Bailey was there, and she’d watched me blush my way through the interaction. Afterward, she offered to teach me how to talk to men. I’d really hoped it was something she’d forgotten about.

“Man lessons?” Dahlia asked.

“Yes—teaching Emery how to speak to men without wanting the ground to open up and swallow her whole.”

“That would be nice, I suppose,” I muttered. Despite how mortifying it was to require man lessons at my age, there was no denying I did require them.

“So lessons it is.”

My cheeks flushed hot at the very idea. I wanted to be brave and make a change to my life. I truly did. But I wasn’t sure man lessons was the way to go. And certainly not today. “Maybe some other time.”

“Bailey,” Jessica’s tone held a note of warning. It was why I loved her. She never pushed me.

“Oh, come on.” Bailey ignored Jess. “You’re among friends, Em. No one here wants to humiliate you. We just want to help,” she pushed. And as I saw the genuine affection in her expression, I realized maybe I did need to be pushed after all. Somehow eight years had flown by, and I was not where I expected to be in my personal life. “I don’t want you to be alone forever. But if you do, then that’s great, that’s fine. I’ll leave you alone to that decision because I just want you to be happy.”

Her words rang with sincerity and filled my chest with heat.

The truth was, I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to find that special someone I could trust to erase the past. As the years flew by, my loneliness increased and I felt like I … well, I guess, no matter how content I was with my life in Hartwell, I was always a little sad.

I didn’t want to be sad and alone anymore.