19. Ashley

19

ASHLEY

“Are you ready to be an auntie to two?” Caroline Shaw, owner of the beauty salon Pretty in Peach, the gossip hub of Firefly Island, asked as I poured another two liters of 7up into a bowl of sherbet frozen dessert to replenish the punch.

“I can’t wait!” I was more than a little excited for my sister to make me an auntie of two.

“Seeing this reminds me of the baby shower birthday Hank threw for Miss Luna.” she reminisced as she picked up a clear cup of punch.

Since Skylar and Luna had to move to Firefly in such a hurry after coming home to their house being ransacked, Luna’s birthday party ended up being collateral damage. My niece was turning five at the time, and her best friend’s mom had just had a baby. Luna went to the baby shower and then wanted to have a baby shower theme for her birthday party, which had been the plan.

After finding out how bummed Luna was about it being canceled, Hank surprised my sister and niece by throwing a baby shower birthday party for Luna. I think he sort of surprised the entire town since no one expected that from the strong, silent, brooding mountain of a man, Hank Comfort.

The Comfort brothers were notoriously known for the three Fs: fighting, flirting, and fucking. The youngest, Jimmy, was the flirt. Billy, the middle brother, was nicknamed Panty Dropper, so you can guess which moniker applied to him. And Hank was known to brawl in bars before he was even legally allowed to be in them. But Skylar and Luna brought out the teddy bear in the fighter. The softer side. They had him wrapped around not just their little finger, but all their fingers. Fingers that Luna painted when they played beauty salon. That’s right, Hank Comfort was known to don glitter nail polish.

“Do you know when you’re going to be able to start the art lessons again?” Caroline asked. “I know the kids miss you, and we do, too.”

Working on the clothing line had taken up so much more time than I’d thought it would. The learning curve had been steeper than Yosemite’s Half Dome. I’d had to give up my weekly classes with the city, but the launch was next week, and after that, I was going to have a lot of free time on my hands.

Thankfully, I’d still been able to paint. Most of my pieces over the past six months had been inspired by one muse. Even the pieces that weren’t all of him, they all had his essence. They had the feeling of that night. Whether it was colors, moods, or impressions. I’d never understood muses before my night in Atlanta, but now that I did, my work before that night just felt soulless.

“I should be able to come back soon.”

“That’s great!” Miss Shaw returned to the table where she was seated with Mrs. Birch, who used to babysit Hank and babysat Luna sometimes; Mrs. Beasley, who owned the boarding house, and Daphne’s aunt, Rhonda Moore, who co-owned Moore Moonshine with her. The four women had a friendship that spanned over six decades.

Seeing their bond made me wonder if Nadia, Zoe, Daphne, and I would be seated around a card table someday, laughing and talking. I hoped so.

“Thank you for doing all this!” Skylar came up from behind me and wrapped her arms around me. Or as far around me as she could with her belly between us.

“You’re welcome.” I turned around to face her.

“Everyone had such a fun time!”

“I’m glad.”

Since it was a co-ed baby shower, I tried to pick games that would be fun for everyone. Thankfully, Hank and his brothers were very competitive, so the more competitive games had gone down well. The three crowd favorites had been the Bottle Race drinking game. You fill up baby bottles of apple juice, and whoever drinks them fastest wins. Then we had the Pass the Pacifier, which we split up into teams. People put straws in their mouths and had to pass the pacifier up and down the row. There was Diaper Pong, where I hot glued diapers in the shape of baskets to a piece of plywood and wrote numbers on them. Each team had six ping pong balls, and the team with the highest score won.

There were some accusations of cheating, but when Luna stepped in as the voice of reason and gave everyone a lecture about sportsmanship, explaining winning isn’t everything, and sometimes it’s just as important to be a kind winner as it is not to be a sore loser, she managed to shut all the grown men up. I had never been prouder.

“How is my nephew feeling?” I rubbed my sister’s belly.

“He’s busy.” She looked down and sighed.

“How are you feeling?”

“Tired, and I have to pee constantly.” She shifted from her left foot to her right. “Like right now.”

I watched as she headed to the bathroom. Some people glowed when they were pregnant, and my sister was one of them. She was positively radiant. It was the same when she was pregnant with Luna. I hoped that I was one of the lucky ones, but honestly, I didn’t care either way. I just really wanted what she had one day.

Turning my attention back to the party, a quick scan of the dessert table revealed that we were running low on cupcakes and chips and dip. I headed into the kitchen to grab what I needed to replenish the table.

On my way, Zoe came through the front door. “Sorry, I’m late. I got stuck working a double.”

“No worries. I’m just glad you made it.” Speaking of glowing, I’d never seen Zoe happier. The man who had starred in the movie that was being made about her ex was now her boyfriend. He’d moved to Firefly Island, and the two of them were blissfully in love.

Zoe gave me hope. She’d been single for ten years before falling in love with Miles Ford. And she’d been so against the movie happening at all, and now I’d never seen her happier. It did show me that life could surprise you. Sometimes, when you think everything is going wrong, everything can actually be working for your good. No matter what you think the future holds, the truth is: no one knows what tomorrow will bring.

Nadia and Daphne noticed Zoe come in and joined us in the kitchen. I started filling the platter with cupcakes as all the girls gathered around the island after saying their hellos.

“I feel like we haven’t had a girl’s night in months,” Nadia observed.

“We haven’t,” we all agreed.

“How’s the wedding planning going?” Zoe asked Daphne.

“Good.” Daphne nodded. “Basically, everything’s done; just some last-minute stuff.”

“How are things going with the launch?” Zoe asked me.

“Good.”

“And how is Mr. Suha?” She grabbed a chip and popped it in her mouth.

I’d shared my abbreviated version of Mr. Stick Up His Ass with the girls.

“The same.” It was no secret how much I hated dealing with him. He was the most condescending, arrogant prick. Nothing I did was ever right. I was over it. He practically wanted to know when I wiped my butt and what kind of toilet paper I used. It was too much.

“Oh, did he ever say anything about the dirty text?” Nadia dipped her tortilla chip in guacamole.

“What dirty text?!” Zoe and Daphne chorused.

I could feel my cheeks heat. If there was ever a time I wanted the earth to swallow me up, it was when I accidentally sent the NSFW text to Declan Wolfe, of all people.

“You know the horses out at Stella’s, Bonnie and Clyde?” I began.

Daphne and Zoe nodded.

“Well, Clyde is obsessed with Bonnie. He follows her around all day. He brings her hay, he makes sure that she drinks before him, and the way he looks at her, it’s… I can’t explain it. Anyway, I took some pictures of him staring adoringly at Bonnie and put heart emojis around his head and sent them to Nadia with a caption that said, All I want to do is find a man who looks at me like Clyde looks at Bonnie .”

“Oh, that’s sweet,” Zoe sighed.

“That’s not dirty,” Daphne concluded.

Nadia grinned. “Wait for it.”

I sighed. “Then underneath that, I put, and I wouldn’t mind if he were hung like Clyde, too .”

Daphne and Zoe both smiled.

“Which would have been fine if I had actually sent it to Nadia, but the last text I’d received was from Declan. So, I guess I accidentally opened the wrong message and inadvertently sent the text to him.”

Both of their eyes widened.

“What did you do?” Zoe asked.

“How did you find out you sent it to the wrong person?” Daphne questioned.

“As soon as I sent it, I saw the name at the top of my phone, and I immediately googled how to delete a sent text. Spoiler alert: you can’t. I quickly messaged that I’d sent it by mistake.”

“What did he say?” Daphne followed up. “What did he do?”

“Nothing. He didn’t respond at all. I was freaking out. Until last week?—”

“Wait, last week, I haven’t heard this part.” Nadia leaned forward.

“Sorry, I’ve been so busy with the launch and this party. Last week, I opened the quarterly projection sheet, and one of the actionable tasks with priority status assigned to me was to find a man who looks at me like Clyde looks at Bonnie, and then in the measurable goals, was make sure that he is hung like Clyde.”

“What?!” Nadia burst out laughing.

“Wait, is that a shared document?” Zoe asked. “Did other people see it?”

“Yes, I mean, no.” I shook my head. “Yes, the document is shared, so at first, I thought so, but then I saw that it was not the live Google doc; it was just one he’d made for me and sent to my email. The live doc didn’t have that on it.”

“Okay, that’s kind of funny. You have to admit,” Nadia smiled.

“I actually did think it was funny, but it doesn’t matter either way because I’m going to be handing in my resignation.”

“Are you serious?” Daphne’s brows furrowed. “I thought you loved your job.”

“I love working with Stella. The job is fine. And it’s not even Mr. Suha. It’s just…not what I thought I would be doing after graduation.” The truth was, I hadn’t ever planned to have as much responsibility as I did. I’d done my best to step up to the challenge. But I’d gotten thrown into the deep end and did my best to doggie paddle. There were definitely days I’d barely kept my head above water and days that I sank. As much as I appreciated the fact that Stella had so much faith in me and had seen so much potential in me, the corporate side of things wasn’t really where I saw myself.

Art was my passion. I was going to start teaching again, and I had just finished a grant proposal that I was going to apply for, that if I received would give me funding to start my afterschool program.

“What about you?” I asked Zoe, wanting to get the attention off of me. “How was New York?”

Zoe had gone to New York a couple of weekends back with Miles, and I hadn’t seen her since.

“Good. Are you guys all going to be able to make it to the premiere?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world!” Nadia exclaimed.

“I can’t wait to see the movie.” The premiere happened to fall on the same day as the online launch, after which I would be handing in my resignation. I planned on using the premiere as my celebration of the new chapter I was going to start.

“Are you going to bring anyone?” Zoe asked Nadia.

“Nope. I’m a single pringle.” She turned to me. “What about you? Are you seeing anybody?”

“No, I’m not.”

“When’s the last time you’ve gone out on a date?” she asked.

“It’s been…not since Big, and that wasn’t really a date.” It was actually better than any date I’d ever been on.

“Is it because of Garrett?” Zoe rested her hand on my arm.

“No.” I shook my head.

“Is it Big?” Nadia asked. “Are you still pining?”

“No.” I shook it again. Although not quite as emphatically. I wasn’t sure who would ever live up to the bar he’d set. In fairness, I may have built up the night we’d shared together in my head just a little bit. I definitely thought about it, fantasized about it, and dreamt about it on a regular basis. “I’ve just been busy. This job has been a lot.”

“I know it’s been a lot, but you’re sure you want to quit?” Daphne challenged.

“Yeah, the job just sort of landed in my lap. And I’ve enjoyed the challenge, and I’m grateful for the experience it has given me, but I just don’t think it’s a good fit for me.”

“Is Mr. Suha really that bad?” Nadia popped another tortilla chip in her mouth.

“He’s not the reason I’m quitting, but yes, he’s pretty bad.” He pushed buttons I didn’t even know I had. I wasn’t sure what frustrated me more, the underlying tone of condescension that each of his emails possessed or the blatant arrogance and God complex that dripped from every word he typed. It was really a toss-up.

“Does he live here? In Firefly?” Daphne asked. “Why have I never met him?”

“No. He lives in Atlanta, but he’s a pilot and has his own plane, and when he’s in the country, he commutes here to see Stella.”

“A pilot,” Nadia repeated. “Damn. That’s sort of hot.”

Hot . That was definitely not a word I’d ever associated with Declan Wolfe. Not that I’d ever seen him. But I’d definitely got a vibe from him, and it was not hot. Asshole. Prick. Obnoxious. Know-it-all. Pretentious. Jerk. But hot? No. Not hot.