Chapter 6

Ash let Burke drive away from the beach and down the curvy roads toward the more commercial part of town. He didn’t say anything, and Ash didn’t like the way the silence felt like it had a life of its own.

He pulled into a seafood restaurant that served lobster and shrimp fritters with sugary glazes, as well as the best assortment of coffees and teas the island had to offer. Ash wasn’t sorry they’d come here; she simply had no idea what to say to him as they waited in line, ordered, and then retreated to the patio so she could sip her second cup of coffee of the day.

This one was far superior to the one Burke had brought her in a to-go cup before her lesson, but that was to be expected at Sea Party. She and Burke certainly weren’t the only couple at the outdoor tables, but for the first time, she realized that she and Burke looked like they were dating.

That’s good, she told herself and it gave her the bravery to reach across the table and touch Burke’s hand. “It’s going to be okay,” she said. “Why does Ryan Bonnett matter?” She looked at him, letting a little bit of her emotion leak into her voice. “I like you. You like me. We can do this.”

“It’s a different kind of like, Ash.” He picked up another fritter and dunked it in lemon frosting.

“Is it?” She hid half her face behind her coffee cup and watched the breeze play with the leaves of the trees.

Their eyes met, and Ash wasn’t sure what he could see in hers. In his, she found an edge there she hadn’t seen before. Maybe she had, a long time ago. She found worry. She found a slip of hope.

She curled her fingers around his and smiled. “I like you.”

He squeezed her hand. “And I like you.” And while Ash knew he meant he liked her as his best friend, in that moment, it felt like she might actually be able to have a real romantic relationship with him.

“All right then.” She slipped her fingers away. “So we forget about Ryan Bonnett—who I will not be going out with, by the way.”

“No?” The playful quirkiness of Burke returned. “You don’t like him? You didn’t seem to mind when he was inching into your personal space with the oxygen tank.”

Ash flinched as she reached for one of the last fritters. “What does that mean?”

“He was a little handsy.”

“I didn’t notice.” She opted for the vanilla glaze, not wanting to tell him that she’d been so nervous about going out on a boat and then flinging herself backward into deep water that she hadn’t noticed a whole lot of anything.

But she had to do something about her boring life. She’d spoken true when she’d said she needed a change, and she knew she’d been in a rut since the death of her father.

“How was the boat?” he asked. “For real?”

Ash didn’t want to keep things bottled up, not from Burke. Maybe their relationship wasn’t real to him, but Ash made a quick decision to pretend it was. Because for her, it felt like a dream come true.

“It was terrifying.” She put the last of her fritter in her mouth and looked at him.

Compassion filled his eyes and he reached over and patted her hand. “I’m sure it was.”

Ash wanted to shrug and say it was no big deal. That she’d get over it. But she didn’t want to get over her father’s death. She didn’t mind missing him, and she didn’t mind helping her mother most days.

She just didn’t want to get in the ocean, as it was unpredictable and unrelenting. Perhaps if she knew what had happened to her father’s boat that day, she wouldn’t be left with so much anxiety about getting on a watercraft and sailing out into the beautiful water most people loved.

But since she didn’t know what had happened, she assumed anything could cause casualties on the water.

“I should’ve gone out with you,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“I don’t think Ryan would’ve let you,” she said. “Paying customers only.”

“You’ve got to get a different instructor.”

Ash glanced at him, trying to decide if he was jealous or not. He wasn’t disgruntled anymore, and it was impossible to tell why he wanted her to get someone else to teach her how to scuba dive.

“You’re cute when you’re jealous.” Ash gave him a tiny smile, feeling an energy buzzing inside her.

“I already told you I prefer handsome.” He flashed her a smile, and a moment of silence passed before they simultaneously burst into laughter.

Not much changed over the next couple of weeks. Ash ran with Burke in the mornings. She sewed her fingers to the bone. She helped her mother in the evenings. While Burke usually spent time with her behind a closed door, they’d been going out more often. She supposed that was a big change.

And when he walked into her sewing shop the day before the wedding she’d been working, that was also new. “Lunch,” he announced. He’d stopped by a few times over the last two weeks, and she supposed that had changed too.

Her feelings for him had changed too, but she wasn’t sure if it was in the right direction. Because she liked him more and more. She had a feeling she’d either end up with a shattered heart or lose her best friend if she continued down this road. She didn’t like either option, but she didn’t see a way out of it.

He set a bowl in front of her, and the sticky, sweet scent of teriyaki sauce met her nose. “Is this a brown rice bowl?”

“With guac.” He sat in a chair across from her sewing station and sighed.

She watched him for an extra moment. He looked the same as always. Maybe a bit on the tired side. Maybe like he was carrying more weight than he normally did.

“Everything okay?” She still needed to finish the beads on the shoulders and put in the zipper in the right place after the final fitting. It was an hour’s worth of work, and she could take a break for a minute.

“My dad wants to go to dinner tonight. Me, you, and my parents.”

Fear hit Ash right in the gut. She’d been expecting to bring her A-game to the barbecue tomorrow. In front of a lot of people, so his parents wouldn’t be able to look too closely.

“I don’t know if I can,” she hedged, not wanting to outright lie. “The wedding is in the morning.”

Burke glanced at the sewing table where the dress lay. “I’ll tell him whatever you want.”

She took the plastic lid off her rice bowl and found an assortment of vegetables, grilled chicken, and all that sticky sauce. Her mouth watered and she started stirring everything together.

“What do you want to do?” she asked him.

“I think we should just go. Get it over with. Then we might be able to enjoy ourselves at the barbecue.”

“You don’t look happy.” And she really didn’t like that he wanted to get anything over with, especially something between them. She felt her heart crack a little, and she was powerless to stop it.

She put a bite of chicken, rice, and guacamole in her mouth, telling herself that she shouldn’t have allowed the relationship to feel so real.

It’s not real, she thought, vowing to tell herself that every day until the charade ended and she could figure out how to mend her heart and still be Burke’s best friend.

“I’m okay,” he said. “I’m just…worried.”

“About what?” She glanced up and paused when the concern in his gaze hooked her.

“You,” he said, his voice a bit rough around the edges but tender in the middle. “Us. I don’t want this—whatever this is—to mess up what we have.” He shook his head and looked away, leaving Ash feeling shaky and uncertain inside. “I shouldn’t have asked you to do this. I just need to tell my dad the truth.”

And then this would be over. Ash’s heart wailed at the prospect, though it would ensure that she and Burke stayed friends.

But she wanted more than friends with Burke.

“Let’s just see how it goes tonight,” she said.

“You can get away?”

“This dress will be done in an hour, tops,” she said, scooping up another bite.

“I still don’t have a plan for finding a girlfriend.” Burke sounded broken, and Ash set aside her food. Her heart pounded in her chest, a clear warning that she needed to let him work through this problem—his problem—on his own.

“Why don’t you date?” she asked.

Burke looked away and folded his arms over his blue polo. “You know why.”

“No, I don’t. You’ve never really said. Not out loud.” Ash got up and walked over to him. “Burke, you can tell me.”

He drew in a deep breath, and Ash knelt down in front of him, glad she’d worn a loose maxi dress today.

“I fell in love with a woman named—”

“Bridgette,” they said together. “Go on,” Ash said.

“It was bad, Ash.”

She reached out and cradled his face. “Burke, you know you’re a great guy, right?” Terror bolted through her that she was about to reveal too much. But she didn’t care. He was her best friend, and he was in pain.

“I guess.”

“Why was this breakup so painful?” she asked. “I’ve had guys break up with me lots of times.”

“You didn’t love any of them.” Burke met her eyes. “I was head over heels in love with her. She was everything to me. I changed everything I did for her. And she left—” He cleared his throat, the most vulnerable Ash had ever seen him.

“She left the island for a ‘great opportunity’ in Cancun, like our two-year relationship was nothing. Something disposable.”

Ash ducked her head, breaking the connection between them. Burke was a very loyal guy, and an act like that would wound him deeply.

“Not only that, but she went with a guy named Thom, and they got married within the first six months after she’d left. I’d asked her to marry me at least a dozen times, and she kept saying she wasn’t ready, that she might never want to get married, that she wasn’t sure she wanted to be tied down.”

Ash jerked her head back up and met his angry eyes.

“It wasn’t until I saw the pictures online that I realized she just didn’t want to marry me.” He shrugged like it was no big deal, like he’d ordered a bad cup of coffee. “So I stopped dating. I don’t need that in my life, you know?”

Ash nodded. “If there’s someone who knows, it’s me.” Ash stood and returned to her chair, putting the sewing machine between them again. After all, she’d had her wedding dress sketched out and planned for two and a half decades. At this point, she didn’t think she’d ever get to piece it together and sew the stitches exactly how she wanted them.

“I’ll pick you up at five?” he asked, his chair scraping as he stood.

“Yeah.” She didn’t look up from her rice bowl, though her appetite had fled about the time he’d confessed his love for someone else. Even though it had been years ago, he was still broken up about it. How could she compete with a ghost?

“Thanks, Ash. See you later.” He left and Ash left her food on the table and opened a drawer in the built-in counter. A manila folder sat there, and she ran her fingertips down the side of it.

She finally took it out and opened it, the sketches and plans for her wedding dress and the entire affair were still there. The high-waisted dress would still look good on her frame, and the second sheet showed the veil she’d thought she’d wanted.

But veils were totally out at the moment, and she’d worked on her hair besides. She didn’t want to cover it up.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, not bothering to look at the rest of the things she’d jotted down. The cake. The altar. None of it mattered.

Because she was never going to find someone to marry.