Was that a noise? A footstep? She held her breath again and strained her ears. Nothing but Kelly Clarkson.
Two loud crashes sounded, followed immediately by hundreds of smaller crashes, and the shock of it made her shoot up from her hiding spot, whipping toward the source of the noise in alarm.
Ian stood next to an endcap of five shelves of Secret deodorant, the top two shelves now lying precariously on the third shelf, and the floor around him was now a sea of baby blue deodorant, a few of them still skittering to their final resting spots.
He met her eyes, glanced at the floor, and then glanced at the employees and other customers all being pulled toward the train wreck at his feet. Then he looked at the shelves, like they had somehow betrayed him, and said, “So much for leaning here, looking all nonchalant, waiting for you to finally stand up.”
He met her eyes again, and there was something about the shocked and sheepish expression on his face that was so adorable she actually burst out with an uncontrolled laugh. And then she quickly tried to stifle it. If their roles had been reversed and she was in the middle of a sea of Va Va Vanilla-scented Secret, she wouldn’t want to be laughed at. But oh how sweet it was to finally have the roles reversed.
Ian chuckled. Then he put his fists on his hips like he was looking down at a puppy that had just torn his favorite novel to shreds and said, “You’re not living up to your name. Thanks a bunch, Secret.”
Then he looked at her, those blue eyes sparkling. For a moment, he glanced toward the registers and his confidence seemed to falter, which was so unlike the Ian she remembered. Then he met her eyes again. “It’s great to see you again, Addi. What do you say we get together for coffee some time and reminisce?”
Back when they were kids, he’d always called her Addi. Never Addison. Hearing him say the name she’d only ever been called by him instantly took her back to their childhood and the rush of feelings of independence, excitement, and adventure. Reminiscing with the only person who had lived it with her actually sounded quite nice.
It wasn’t a date.
It was two long-ago friends chatting about the past. That she could do.
4
Addison
Addison raced from her car to the inn, holding her bag over her head to keep from getting too wet, and then shook it off after she got under the cover of the wraparound porch and went inside. From the giant lobby where guests used to check in—a space that she hadn’t quite figured out what to do with yet—she heard voices coming from the right. So she went into the kitchen and dining area where her aunt used to serve breakfast to the guests. All three of her roommates—Bex, Peyton, and Timini—were gathered around the island, snacking on veggies and hummus.
“Addison,” Peyton said, running forward to greet her, her light brown ponytail bouncing. “I’m so glad you made it!”
“But you’re late,” Bex said with a hand on her hip, somehow looking both relaxed and fierce. Fierce, but not angry. More like she was just stating a fact.
Timini swished her hand like she was brushing away Addison’s lateness. “Fifteen minutes isn’t even late enough to be called ‘late.’” Then she brushed off an errant piece of thread from her shirt.
“I am sorry, though,” Addison said as they all sat down at the table and Peyton went to the oven to get dinner out. “I got distracted by the fuzzy socks at the drugstore, and then I got waylaid by trying to hide from Ian.”
“Hiding? Now, listen up, Adds,” Bex said, putting both hands on the table, like she was about to push herself back out of her seat but didn’t. Instead, it just made her look intense. It was amazing how intimidating the woman could look for as slight as her figure was. “That man is way too fine to be hiding from. Who cares if you embarrassed yourself in front of him once or twice?”
“It wasn’t just at the grocery store. When I was thirteen and came here to stay with my aunt, I experienced my first crush ever—and it was on Ian.”
“See?” Timini said, turning to Bex and Peyton. “I told you there was crushing going on.”
Addison shook her head and just continued her story so they’d get it. “We had spent a lot of time at Quicksand River that summer—and I had found a great rock on the shore. It was five or six inches wide and very flat, so I painted a picture on it of the two of us holding hands and jumping into the river. I daydreamed for hours about how I was going to give it to him, and how he was going to keep it by his pillow every night and think about me.
“And, okay, maybe I psyched myself out about it a bit too much. So when it came time to say goodbye, nerves got the best of me and I just said, ‘Here!’ and shoved it into his hands. Then, instead of waiting for him to be touched by my thoughtful gift and reach for my hand and tell how he could never forget me and that he would always treasure it, just like I had planned, I panicked and kissed him on the cheek.”
Bex hooted. “And what did he do?”
Addison shrugged. “I don’t know. I saw the shocked look on his face for about half a second, then I turned and ran. I hopped into my aunt’s car, we drove to the airport, and I didn’t see him again until four weeks ago at the grocery store. And that,”—she said, spreading her arms like she was presenting an artifact for all to see—“was the beginning of the awkward phase of our relationship. Thirteen years later, and it’s still going strong.”
“You know,” Bex said as she leaned forward and grabbed a roll that looked freshly baked from a basket on the table, “if you see him enough, it’ll dilute your percentage of embarrassing moments with him.”
“I mean, you’d hope it would,” Timini said, a teasing gleam in her eye. “Unless your percentage is unnaturally high to begin with.”
“No one’s is that high,” Peyton said as she nestled a pan of Mushroom Florentine pasta in between the rolls and a dish of asparagus.
“Or,” Addison said, dragging out the word, “I could see him, hide behind a bin of fuzzy socks like I’m five, and he could accidentally send crashing to the ground and spilling across the back of The Oregon Trail Drugstore hundreds of sticks of deodorant, just when he was trying to catch me in the embarrassing moment.”
The laughter that burst out of all three women just made Addison’s heart do a happy dance all over again, just thinking of the incident.
Bex shook her head. “That is one effective way of lowering the percentage, girl. So are you going to stop hiding from him?”
Addison nodded as she dished herself up some pasta. “Yeah. I am now officially fine with us being neighbors who were friends once upon a time.”
“Nothing more?” Peyton asked, a look on her face like she was a kid asking for a cookie, but knowing the answer was going to be no.
“Nothing more. We all made a pact not to fall in love that night we all decided to be roommates, remember?”
Peyton froze in the middle of dishing up her pasta. “Only because we were all coming off bad breakups. But oh my lands, we aren’t actually sticking to that pact, are we?”
“I am,” Timini said as she grabbed the dish of asparagus. “But Bex isn’t.”