19. Lucy

Chapter 19

Lucy

M y empty house had never bothered me before this moment. Being alone was something I enjoyed, even preferred. Not anymore, apparently.

Spencer and his dad had barely dropped me off a half hour ago, and I was already moping around like my life was ending without him.

I lived in a cozy log cabin behind the Honeybrook Inn. Much like Spencer’s family cabin, I was in the forest. The difference was that mine was not in the boonies. I was only a hop, skip, and a jump away from the Inn and town and takeout coffee.

I had one bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room. Basically, I lived in a girly little square with a wraparound porch. Think pastels, fluffy overstuffed furniture, homemade quilts and knitted throws, my needlepoint, and books everywhere.

It was a rustic log cabin on the outside with old lady décor on the inside. Picturing Spencer in here gave me a thrill. What would it look like to have him naked in my white iron four-poster bed? I almost started drooling at the thought of his chest hair getting caught up in my lacy pink duvet cover. And those big, rough, work-calloused hands of his…

Damn.

I missed him.

I wanted to finish what we started together in that big chair at the cabin.

I didn’t want to be without him—maybe ever.

Last night, he told me all my kisses were his. My dating history taught me to take whatever a man says when I am bouncing around on his lap with a grain of salt, but Spencer was different. I believed him.

We had only been stuck in that cabin for a few days, so I knew I was being silly, overly romantic, dramatic, and full of wishful thinking. But I couldn’t find it in myself to care because our time there felt real. It was the most I’d been myself with another person in a long time, if ever.

We had a date planned, but I was so bad at dating that I was bound to screw something up. Back in the cabin, I had quit thinking about how to act and just let myself be myself. We had no choice but to let all of our usual pretenses go in order to stay sane and survive together.

I paced around my kitchen island with my thoughts racing out of control.

The quiet in my cabin pounded in my ears.

My heart constricted, and it felt like the air had somehow thinned. I couldn’t breathe.

The reality of the real world outside of our snowy little bubble was slapping me in the face hard, and I didn’t like it one bit.

I stopped at the sink and filled a glass with water, gulping it down in a few sips.

Sure, I had electricity and hot water now, but what did it matter if he wasn’t here with me?

Like an irrational fool, I darted around my house and flipped all the lights off. I built a fire and threw myself on the couch to watch it crackle and blaze as I got lost in the memories of the last few days.

I was warm, and I had all my stuff, and my fish, and my books, and TV, but I wanted to go cuddle in the dark with Spencer, damn it. I didn’t need all these distractions when I was with him.

I’d gone from my Man Ban to the All Spencer All the Time Plan as if I hadn’t spent my entire dating life getting my heart broken by mediocre men. My outlook had changed like the crack of a whip, shocking and sudden, like an awakening. I was all in with him. Now, I knew my other relationships had never worked out because I was always meant to be with Spencer. We were perfect together.

Where had my sense of self-preservation gone?

Like a dewy-eyed ingenue, I’d left it somewhere at the Cassidy family cabin. But damn, hopefully, I wouldn’t need it anymore.

I didn’t even have his number to call him. Our phones had died, and there was nowhere to write his number down. I hoped that he remembered mine because I was missing him like crazy, and I needed to hear his voice. Maybe it was a good thing I couldn’t call him since I was halfway to losing my mind over him.

Quit being pathetic.

I should shower, make something to eat, or do anything else but sit on my couch like this sad shell of a woman.

I picked up my mug from the coffee table and sipped it.

Yeah, I had coffee, but it wasn’t his coffee. I slid it back onto my coffee table with a dramatic sigh. I was ruined for life and spoiled completely rotten because of how well he’d treated me. No other man would do.

My phone charging on the end table pinged with a message. I lurched, heaving myself up to grab it.

Alas, it was not Spencer.

Every one of my half-sisters, my mother and grandmother, had started texting me. After the first ping, the notifications went out of control. I muted them and sank back into the couch, throwing an arm across my forehead. I knew Spencer’s dad had informed them they’d be picking us up today, so they knew I was alive and home. I didn’t have to answer yet.

Five minutes later, the knocking started.

I should have gone straight to the shower, damn it. Now, I would have to entertain.

“Come in,” I bellowed. I was not getting up to open the door. I was in the mood to mope, ruminate, and pout. Making plans and healthy changes would happen tomorrow. I knew myself; I had to wallow first.

I slid into the corner of my couch and snuggled beneath my knitted throw blanket. I was tempted to pull it over my head and hide, but they’d for sure spot the Lucy-shaped lump beneath it. There was no avoiding the million questions I was not ready to answer. But the silver lining was I’d get it over with at once, even if I didn’t know the answers to all of them.

My mother entered the heavy oak door, followed by my half-sisters. Piper and Paige were first. They were from my father’s first wife, who he’d cheated on with my mom. Cara was next—she was my age. We were in the same grade throughout school, sometimes even in the same class. We were born a couple of months apart; fun, right? My dad had cheated on my mom with hers when they were both pregnant, but she forgave him and kept him around until he cheated again with Eliza’s mom. She was the youngest. Dad left my mom for hers, and they were still married. They moved down to Portland to escape the scandal of having the five of us girls all living in the same small town.

The best and weirdest part of my bizarre family history was that, aside from Eliza’s mother, the other moms were now the best of friends, and the five of us girls were all as close as possible. However, it hadn’t started that way. It took years of working through bitterness and bad feelings before my grandparents' desire to have us all part of their fold, mothers included, successfully smoothed the rough edges of my father’s betrayal and brought us all together as one big, weird-ass family.

Dad’s parents owned the Honeybrook Inn, where we spent a lot of time and grew up close. I would never know how my father ended up such a philanderer. None of my aunts or uncles were like him. My grandparents were wonderful, but my father was a constant source of disappointment for them. They loved him but did not approve of his choices at all.

“Are you okay? I was worried sick.” Mom rushed to join me on the couch and pulled me into her arms before pushing me back to study my face. “You seem okay.” She placed the back of her hand on my forehead, tilting her head side to side as she watched me. “I stopped by and fed your fish.”

“We brought food.” With arms full of bags and covered dishes, Piper and Paige headed straight to the kitchen.

“Thank you!” I shouted to their retreating backs. “Mom, I have the auto-feeder.” I glanced at the tank. The little weirdos were swimming laps around their Sponge Bob pineapple house as happy as could be. “They’re okay.”

“Well, I couldn’t leave my grandfish all by their lonesome and not check to see how they were doing, right?”

“Right, you’re too much. They probably like you more than me.” I laughed. “Thank you. You’re being awfully chill about this whole thing. It isn’t like you.”

“I’ve been getting regular updates from Spencer’s dad. He assured me the cabin was perfectly safe and fully stocked with firewood and food. Plus, I’ve known Spencer since he was a little boy. I knew you’d be okay with him.”

“That makes sense.” I tilted my head, thinking about Spencer, prom, and her strict rules that prevented her potential early debut as a grandmother of human children instead of my fish babies, but I decided against raising that subject. It was moot, and I was not in the mood to open that can of worms.

Piper sat across from me on the oversized recliner that I liked to read in. “She’s fine. The fish are fine. Let’s talk about how she’s been alone with Spencer Cassidy for the last few days. How about that?”

“How about not,” I shot back. “I’m totally fine, Mom. You were right.” My attempt at dodging the Spencer topic was weak. Everyone laughed as they found seats around the room.

“Yeah, I bet you’re fine,” Eliza muttered. “I’d be fine too if I’d been stuck alone up there with a Cassidy man.”

“I’d even take their dad,” Piper added. “He’s like a hot, ripped Santa Claus.”

“You’d be his ho, ho, ho, am I right?” Paige nudged her shoulder.

“Damn straight. I don’t care how much older than me he is. That man is fine.”

“You girls. Stop.” My mother scoffed at their objectivation of Spencer’s extremely good-looking father. I mean, he got his looks from his dad. There was no doubt about it.

“On second thought, maybe you should go for it,” Paige told my mother, then watched to gauge my reaction.

“No!” I did not disappoint her with my immediate rejection of the idea.

“And there it is,” she boasted. “You don’t want your future father-in-law to become your stepfather. Boom!” She raised her hand for a high five.

Piper smacked it, shaking her head and mouthing “Sorry” to me. Paige liked to know everything and was not shy about gathering information in any way she could.

“Yeah, so I might have a little bit of a thing for him.” I shrugged, wishing they’d drop it.

Cara, perched on the arm of the couch next to me, put a hand on my shoulder as a silent show of support. She was the only one who knew how deep my crush on Spencer had gone back in high school. She was probably dying to know what happened. But knew me well enough to know I’d tell her everything once we were alone.

“So, did he take good care of you, honey?” Mom asked, pointedly ignoring the teasing.

Paige let out a snort, and I glared at her. “Hey.” I stuck my tongue out. “He was a perfect gentleman. I got a migraine the second day, and yes, he took great care of me.”

My mother was pleased. “I knew it. I bet you didn’t have your medicine, did you?”

“No.” My eyes darted to the floor like I was in trouble. Old habits die hard, I guess. “But I was fine. It wasn’t a bad one.”

“I’m glad. Where’s your purse? I’ll put a few of your pills in there. Just in case—” She stood and headed toward my bathroom.

“Just in case she gets trapped in a cabin in a random freak snowstorm again?” Piper teased gently.

Mom laughed and headed for the front door instead, stopping with her hand on the knob. “Okay, point taken. I’ll back off. But you never know what can happen. That’s the point. I always say that forewarned is forearmed. Be prepared. Girls, let’s get out of Lucy’s hair so she can relax. Decompression is key, honey. Why don’t you take a bubble bath? I put some new lavender bath salts on the edge of your tub.”

My eyes widened. Was she leaving without knowing everything there was to know? She was never one not to meddle. My eyebrows dropped down in a low V of suspicion.

Cara kissed my cheek, whispering for me to call her later.

“Grandma sends her love,” Piper informed me. “She said she wouldn’t add to the nosy inquisition and will talk to you later once you’ve settled back in. So expect to deliver a full rendition of your snowed-in experience to her at some point in the future.”

I huffed a laugh. “Thanks for the warning.”

“You got it. Call me if you need anything.”

Paige bent to hug me goodbye. “I was only teasing you. If you hooked up with Spencer, I would be very happy for you. He’s a good guy.”

“Thanks, Paige.”

She laughed. “So you’re still not going to confirm or deny? Damn, Lucy. Harsh.”

Seeing the humor in her eyes, I smiled. “You guys will be the first to know if something happens, okay?”

“Okay. Get some rest. Talk soon.”

I watched them leave, then let out a relieved sigh. I wasn’t ready to talk about Spencer until I—I had no idea when I would be ready.

With every other relationship I had, I was always talking about it. I was the one who made the effort. I made the plans, thought about my feelings, and wondered how he felt because he never wanted to talk to me about it. I constantly worried about where things were going, while in reality, nothing ever went anywhere, probably because I pushed too hard. I held on too tight, twisting my hope into knots and then crying about it when they unraveled, and I was left alone again.

No more.

I got up to open a bottle of wine and grab a snack. I still had things to ponder.

Spencer said he wanted to make plans. He said all I had to do was open the door for him when he knocked.

Maybe I should let him.

Obviously, the door he was talking about was literal, but maybe there was also a symbolic one. Maybe letting him take the lead would be good for my heart. He had already healed something inside me by giving me room to be my authentic self and not running off into the storm to escape my “too much” qualities.

I opened the fridge and found one of Piper’s famous cheese boards. God bless Paige and Piper and their need to feed anyone who was going through some shit.

With a smile on my face, I took my wine and the food and headed into my living room to rot on the couch. I flicked on the TV and tried to find something to watch.

I flicked it off, grabbed my book from the coffee table, and immediately tossed it aside. I was not in the mood to read.

I was in the mood for Spencer.

But I didn’t have his number or my car. I could call any of my sisters for a ride, but that would mean admitting things I wasn’t ready for anyone to know yet.

Damn.

I hoped lavender bath salts really were relaxing because I was about to dump half that freaking bag into the tub and try to soak out my feelings.