33. Britta

Chapter thirty-three

Britta

I was okay the first few days after Dex and Stella both left. I had plenty to keep me busy, and Stella texted me about a million times to make sure I was okay. Dex called and texted too and sent some pictures of where they are, but the time difference made it difficult to really communicate.

Then Stella's texts slow to a trickle. Obviously, she hasn't forgotten me, she's just busy managing Georgia's socials now that At Home with Georgia is back on air. But I've spent the past five years talking to her every day, and it's weird not to. I've always been surrounded by family—even when I went to college, I was only an hour away and came home often.

For the first time in my life, I don't have that, and I didn't anticipate how lonely I would be without it. Especially in an enormous city full of unfamiliar faces.

To make matters worse, as soon as Stella's texts stop, Dex is basically unreachable. I don't think he's ignoring me. He's just in a really remote area. But, for whatever reason, his unintentional silence makes me feel more forgotten than Stella straight-up ghosting me. I miss talking to him, and I hate being alone in a great big house that still doesn't feel like home.

Days stretch into a week filled with too much space and quiet for my thoughts to replay our last words.

Our last kiss.

Did I make a mistake kissing him that day on the boardwalk? I didn't answer his question about whether our marriage could be more than a business arrangement, but my kiss left little room for interpretation. In the moment, I meant that I'd like to see if our marriage could be a "long-term deal."

But in the week and the distance that separates us, I grow less sure. I hate missing Dex as much as I do. I hate worrying that this dull ache will become more painful the longer we're together. Leaving is part of his job. And it's part of why I agreed to this—he'd be gone too often for me to get attached.

Now, here I am, only a few weeks into being Dex's wife, and I'm already attached to him like weeds to Velcro.

The second week Dex is gone, I spend as much time at Annie's as possible. Mostly because I'm days away from taking ownership, but also because it's too noisy and busy for me to get lost in thoughts of Dex. When I'm not there, I'm on the phone with Dad or my brothers, getting their advice about everything from business practices to renovation ideas, and counting down the days until they arrive to help with renovations.

When I'm home alone, it's too easy to give into my loneliness and pull-on Dex's Rip Tide hoodie, then check my phone at least a thousand times an hour to see if he's answered my texts or tried to call even though my phone stays silent.

I should be thrilled the day Annie turns over the keys to me and slips her apron over my head. I will officially have too much to do to think about Dex. This is the first day of owning my first business that's completely my own. It's the start of a (mostly) new store, a new direction, a new life.

But even though Annie is staying on a few hours a week for the first few months to help with the transition, I am terrified. Capital T, Terr-i-fied .

I don't tell Annie this, of course. Her step is a thousand times lighter after she turns the Closed sign for the last time and walks out the door. But I'm overwhelmed by a thousand different emotions. I sink into a seat and spend the next hour sitting alone at a table, staring at the espresso machines, small kitchen, white wood-paneled walls, and the Surf City High picture of Dex and his friends.

It's all mine, and there's no one here to celebrate with me. Bear and Adam are on their way from Idaho, but I told them they didn't have to be here until tomorrow, when we'll be able to work a full day. I wish I hadn't. I wish I could make the first cups of coffee in my shop and toast my success with my family.

And with Dex. I wish he were here, too.

I'll be able to toast with my brothers tomorrow, but I don't know when Dex will be back.

Annie's will be closed for a week while I renovate before re-opening—new name still to be determined. There's a lot to do before then. I have a plan drawn up of what needs to be done and where to start, but I'm too overwhelmed to look at it, even if I could find the motivation to turn on an overhead light. Instead, I rest my arms on the table and drop my head into them.

Dusk settles outside. The dining area grows dim with only the light outside the front door shining through the tinted plate- glass window. I'm not sure how much time passes. I fill the time by giving myself an internal pep talk. It's a good talk with lots of you've got this and you're living your dream. I don't believe everything I say, but I've almost convinced myself to at least look at my list when there's a knock on the locked front door.

I pick up my keys and clutch the pepper spray attached to them. I'm not expecting anyone, and the neighborhood can feel a little sketchy after dark. But I felt that way about Britta's when there were thousands of summer visitors I didn't know in town. The two large shadows outside the glass door, though, have me worried enough to pull out my phone in case I need to call the sheriff's department. But as I creep closer, the shape of the shadows grows surprisingly familiar, until I'm certain who they belong to.

I unlock the door and swing it open so my brothers, Adam and Bear, can walk in.

"What are you two doing here?" I throw my arms around them one at a time, feeling my strength return when they squeeze me tight.

"We knew you'd need us sooner than you thought you did," Bear says, with his arm still slung over my shoulder.

"You know me too well." I wrap my arms around my giant baby brother's waist and hug him again, tight enough to almost stop the tears threatening to fall. Adam pats my back, and I pull away from Bear and face them both. But then Adam screws up his face, and I sense an oldest-brother-lecture coming on.

"We brought ebelskiver pans in case you want to add those to your menu." Adam has two tones: gruff and tender. They're both combined now, and I'm as surprised by his words as I am by his early arrival.

"I hadn't planned to, but I think that's a great idea." A way to bring Mom and Britta's here.

Adam offers me a half-smile that disappears as quickly as it appears. "Where should we start with getting you ready to open?"

I resist the urge to hug him again. Bear could take it, but Adam holds his emotions close. The fact he's here is as emotive as he'll get to saying he's always going to look out for his little sister, no matter how far away she lives. I tuck back my smile and jog to the table where I've left my overwhelming to-do list. I hand it to Adam, and wait as he reads it, the lines between his eyebrows growing deeper by the second.

When he finishes, he sighs and presses two fingers along the middle of his forehead to his temple, then hands the paper to Bear.

"I'm glad we came early," Adam says, and I brace myself for the rest of the lecture that never comes.

"It's a long list, Britta." Bear's deep voice rumbles loudly, but gently over me.

"We'd better get started if we're going to get it all done," Adam says to Bear.

"Tonight?" I take the list back from Bear and check my watch. "It's six o'clock. Why don't we get dinner and start tomorrow morning?"

Adam lets out another long sigh, and I'm sure he's even more annoyed with me than he's letting on, but then Bear says, "We have to be on set Monday. We've only got four days to get everything done before we drive home."

I nod, relieved I'm not the only cause of Adam's irritation. He's the contractor on the cottages Georgia is renovating for her TV show, which means he ends up on camera more often than he likes. But since his wife, Evie, is Georgia's design partner and co-star, he has a hard time saying no when the camera points in his direction.

"You drove?"

"How else was I going to get all my tools here?" Adam is already headed for the door, which he walks out of on the tail of his rhetorical question.

"In one day?" I ask Bear, who nods before following Adam.

They must have left before the crack of dawn to make the fourteen-hour drive, which makes the gesture even more meaningful. I flip on all the lights, really smiling for the first time in days. Maybe for the first time in a week. Probably since Dex left.

When my brothers come back inside, Adam's got his tool belt strapped on and his arms full of ebelskiver pans while Bear is carrying his plumber's kit. Bear goes straight to the restrooms to check out the toilets that regularly leak and clog. Adam goes straight for the kitchen.

He does construction work for a living nine months out of the year, but during the summer months, he's got his own restaurant—the best one in Paradise. He's a trained chef, so he only needs one look at the kitchen before he's got ideas about how to rearrange things to flow more efficiently. They aren't big changes. We don't have to tear anything out or move appliances—thank goodness—but moving prep stations and service areas will still take time.

While they get started, I grab us some dinner from a great Mexican fusion place around the block. We take a twenty-minute break to eat it, then we work until midnight. We're up early the next morning and work for twelve hours straight and do the same the next day and the next.

Watching how quickly they get things done, I'm both grateful they're here, and embarrassed that I didn't ask them to come sooner. I should have known how much I'd need them.

For their part, Adam and Bear are both surprised how easy it is to get the supplies they need—including industrial-strength toilets—but I've already learned this is one advantage of living in a big city. You can always find what you need, and you don't have to wait for it to be shipped.

They only ask one question about Dex, and not until the last day they're here: where is he?

"Surfing." My face warms when they simultaneously raise their eyebrows.

"He can't take a break from surfing to help his wife open her coffee shop in the major city she's just moved to?" Bear doesn't hold back his judgy tone.

"In Portugal. He's surfing in Portugal," I answer, staying focused on the paint touch-ups I'm doing.

"That's not better, Britt. He should be here helping you with this place," Adam says firmly, leaving no room for argument. "You gave up your whole life to do this."

I try to defend Dex, anyway. "I'm sure he would have been if he'd known how much work it was going to be, but the trip was already planned before we got married, and he's getting ready for a big competition in January. Surfing is his job."

You'd think Bear was Adam's twin instead of Zach, the way he and Adam both scoff at the same time, in the same way, before saying in unison, "that's not a job."

"Well, it's Dex's job, and he makes good money doing it." I set down my paintbrush and wipe sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand.

I can't be mad at my brothers for thinking the same thing I used to. And the way our marriage came together doesn't look good. They barely knew Dex when they came to our over-the-top celebrity wedding ceremony on a Ferris wheel in Las Vegas. He hasn't tried overly hard to connect with them—he's not nearly as connected to his own family as I am to mine, but there also hasn't been time or opportunity.

I don't blame them for being concerned Dex isn't here, but I can stick up for him. I feel obligated to. Maybe because we said goodbye with a kiss and the possibility of more than a fake marriage. Or maybe because I can't stop wishing he were here. Whatever the reason, even if I'm not ready for him to be my actual husband, Dex doesn't feel like just the "guy I married" anymore.

I want my brothers and dad to respect what he does and see for themselves how amazing he is. That a piece of me is missing when he's gone, and he's my refuge when he's here. He feels like laughter and tears, comfort and warmth.

Dex feels like… a partner. And I wonder if that's what having a husband is supposed to be like, which sends me back to being even more terrified than I was when Annie handed me the keys to her shop a few days ago.

"Is that where you got the money for this place, Britt?" Bear asks, innocently enough, but I hear subtext in the question. The money from Britta's couldn't have been enough for a down payment.

"He helped some," I mumble. I can't tell the whole truth, but I won't flat out lie.

A few feet away from me, Adam takes a nail from between his lips and hammers a loose bit of baseboard back into place, then asks, "Is that why you married him? For the money?"

I shake my head hard. "No, it's not."

It's not a lie. I wouldn't have married Dex just for money, and I'm going to pay him back.

"Are you in love with him, though?" Bear's voice rises an octave, and I hear the worry there.

My brothers are protective, but not over -protective. Mostly, they stay out of my way, unless they're sure I need help. I realize now that they're here not just because they knew I'd need help with the shop, but also because they think I need help with Dex. Like I've been conned into marrying him, or something. Their suspicion is obvious.

What's not so obvious is how to answer Bear's question about whether I'm in love with Dex. I'm not not in love with him. But am I in love with him? Do I want to be?

So, I answer the only way I can. "You'll like him once you get to know him. Dex is a great guy."

Adam says in his quiet, but authoritative voice, "you should be with someone because you love him, not because he's a good guy."

I hand him my paintbrush so he can touch up the spot on the baseboard he's nailed. "That may be how it's worked for you and Evie—you and Cassie, too, Bear—but I'm not really interested in loving someone like that at this point in my life." Why does that feel like a lie? "What Dex and I have works for us. We enjoy being together, but we're also okay being apart."

I think that's true. It feels true in my head. And it's the agreement Dex and I have. We keep each other focused on the most important things by not being a distraction or allowing each other to be distracted by the opposite sex.

"Then you're going to get bored with each other real fast," Adam says. He's always been the most cynical of all of us.

So, I'm surprised when Bear feels the same. "Yeah, Britt. You're missing out if you don't ache for someone when you're apart. You don't get the high that comes when you're back together. There's no better rush than that."

I'm quiet for a minute—that's exactly how I feel about Dex. Does that mean I'm… in love with him?

Oh gosh.

I pivot slowly toward Bear. "That's how you feel about Cassie?"

Bear nods and sighs at the same time. "My chest is on fire I want to be with her so bad."

I look at Adam, who rocks his whole body in agreement.

I miss hanging out with Dex, but no part of my body is burning with the need to see him again. I mean, there's a dull ache, but not anything so big that I'll have the best rush of my life when he gets home. I hope he gets home soon because it's more fun when he's there, and the house is too big for just one person. But I don't think either of those is a sign I'm in love with Dex.

My brothers and I work in silence for the next hour with only Adam's guitar-heavy playlist playing in the background. It's after ten when we're finally ready to pack up for the night. Most of my list is done. The rest I can finish with help from my barista crew before I reopen as…

Not Annie's . I want to build on what Annie has done, but I want the store to be mine. But I still haven't landed on a name. Everything has happened so fast that a new name has been low on the priority list, below getting married to get the money to buy Annie's, then make all the fixes it needs.

With both things checked off my to-do list, I can finally focus on what to call this place. That's what I'm thinking about as I rinse paintbrushes and roll up the tarp covering the floor. I'm so focused, I barely register the soft tap at the door. Adam hears it before I do and walks cautiously to the door, putting out his arm for me to stay behind when I follow.

But I push his arm away when I see who's there. I run to the door, adrenaline rushing so quickly through my veins, I can barely turn the key in the lock. When I throw open the door, happiness and relief wash over me.

Dex is home.