Suddenly Dating (A Lake Haven Novel Book 2) Page 3

  “You can find the time if you really want to do it,” Sara said confidently. “What about this weekend? Can you work on it this weekend?”

  “Not this weekend,” Lola said, as if that were a preposterous suggestion. “I’ve got too much to do.” She couldn’t even begin to name all the things that she had promised her siblings. For one, there was her nephew Braden’s basketball game. “You have to come, Aunt Lola!” Two, her brother Ty needed some help cleaning out his flowerbed because his wife refused. “I make the babies around here. The least he can do is clean out the flowerbed,” Jaycee had said. Three, Casey needed the zipper in her favorite jeans fixed, and, four, of course her youngest sister Kennedy needed a ride to Ikea for some bookshelves. None of that included checking in on her mom at the home, either.

  Sara frowned, studying her. “You know what? You need to quit your job and commit to your dream.”

  Lola laughed. “While I live on the streets?”

  Sara suddenly grinned. “What if I told you I have a great place? What if I said it’s on a lake and you could live there all summer, rent free? What if I told you that all you had to do was feed yourself and write your book?”

  “I’d say, sign me up,” Lola said cheerfully.

  “I’m not kidding, Lola. Have you ever heard of East Beach?”

  Of course Lola had heard of East Beach. Everyone had heard of East Beach. It was about an hour or so train ride from the city on the shores of Lake Haven, a place where the rich and famous escaped in the summer. “Don’t make me laugh,” she said, and sipped her coffee.

  “I’m serious,” Sara said. “I have a lake house that no one is using. Technically, it’s on the list of things Zach and I can’t touch until the divorce is final. So it’s just sitting there, collecting dust. It’s perfect for writing books, Lola. I mean, it would have to be our little secret, but no one would ever know.”

  “What? How can no one know?”

  “You have to keep it a secret,” Sara said, as if that were a perfectly normal condition. “Because Zach and I are both banned from going since we had that big fight—” She waved her hand. “Never mind that. I can’t go, but you can. It’s a great place. The renovations cost us a half-million dollars. Are you interested?”

  “No, I’m not interested,” Lola said. But she was interested, more than interested. She thought she might actually be drooling. Forget the beach—she had a sudden image of herself sitting in some swank house on Lake Haven, pounding away at the keyboard in the throes of writing her novel. “This sounds absolutely nuts, this no-one-can-know thing, Sara. But . . . tell me more,” she said, leaning forward.

  Three

  May

  Melissa broke up with Harry for the last time on a Thursday night.

  He was supposed to be at a huge event she’d orchestrated for a cosmetics firm that was launching a new line of products. She’d worked hard on it. “Everyone in New York who is anyone is going to be there,” she’d gushed to him a few days before. “Some of the New York housewives, and the Today Show people, and you know, just everyone.”

  Harry had every intention of being there. He’d even told his foreman he was knocking off early. But then the scaffolding under a section of his bridge had collapsed, which meant the long braces couldn’t go up. The project had already been delayed and was costing him thousands of dollars, so he couldn’t very well walk off and leave that situation. He’d texted her, told her he’d meet her there.

  This is really important to me, she’d texted back.

  I know. I’ll be there.

  But he wasn’t there. He’d tried, God, how he’d tried. There was just no way he could get to the event in time.

  He was waiting for her at half past ten when she came home.

  “You smell like . . . body odor,” she said, wrinkling her nose as she dropped her purse on the table.

  “How’d it go?” he asked.

  “Great,” she said with an insouciant shrug. “Fabulous. Bella Cosmetics was very happy, and my boss says I’m going to start getting bigger accounts.” She glanced at her watch. “I’m beat,” she said, and started for the bedroom.

  “Lissa, I am so sorry,” Harry said, coming to his feet, intercepting her. “You wouldn’t believe what—”

  She held up her hand to stop him. “Don’t even try, because you always say that.” She put her hand on his arm. “Harry? I need to tell you something. I’m moving in with Lexi for a little while. I think we both need to take a break and reassess where we’re going with this relationship. We’re just not headed in the same direction anymore.”

  Harry’s chest tightened with anxiety. He didn’t want to lose her, but he knew he’d really blown it. He rubbed his gritty face with his hands, trying to think. “I don’t know how to make you understand,” he said helplessly. “I’m committed to you, baby. I’m committed to us. I want to give you the kind of life you deserve, but I need time to get my company off the ground, and unfortunately, there are going to be days like this.”

  “I think you’re kidding yourself,” she said softly. “There are so many days like this that I’m not sure if you have any money left at all.”

  “I don’t,” he agreed. “But I got an offer on the apartment this week. We’ll find a place that will work temporarily—”

  “No.” She sighed, and pressed her fingertips to her temples. “Look, it’s not that you’re always late or smell like a gym half the time. It’s not even that you’re trying to build this construction company. It’s that I want something different than you. It’s really not you—it’s me.”

  “Come on, Melissa,” he said, and brushed her cheek. “You really didn’t just say that, did you?”

  “If the shoe fits,” she said, shrugging a little. “I need some time to think about what I really want. And I can’t do that being mad at you all the time, you know? It’s not fair to either one of us.”

  Now Harry really panicked. She sounded sane and reasonable. Not furious, as he would have expected. She’d really thought this through.

  “I’m going to Lexi’s for now,” she said, and started for the bedroom.

  “Please don’t do that. Please stay. We can work through this. Just hang in there. Be patient.”

  “I’ve been patient.” She disappeared into the bedroom.

  Harry stared at the bedroom door as his whole body deflated. He’d been trying to keep it all together for months now—go after his dream, be the man Melissa wanted him to be—and suddenly it felt as if it was all falling apart. He followed her into the bedroom. His mind was racing so fast he couldn’t even think of what to say.

  She already had a bag open on the bed. “I’m not officially breaking up,” she said, as if that helped anything. “I just need some time to think, you know? I’ll come back for my things this weekend.”

  “You can’t go tomorrow?” he asked incredulously, gesturing to the bag on the bed.

  “No. Because you will start to kiss me, and I’ll be weak and we’ll have sex, and I’ll love you all over again, and then tomorrow, when I wake up, you will be gone back to that . . . job,” she said, sounding disgusted, “and I’ll be in the same place I am right now.”

  Harry tried to reason with her as she packed a few things. He tried to explain it all again—that he couldn’t quit now, that he’d sunk everything into it, and he had to make it work.

  But in the end, Melissa hoisted her bag over her shoulder and walked out.

  The next morning, Harry awoke to steady rain. Figured. It went on all day, washing out any hope of getting some work done on his current job. He paced like a wild animal, ran his numbers again, and worried about how he was going to pay the crews. He would lose his shirt if this weather kept up.

  He kept walking back to the closet to look at all of Melissa’s things. He toyed with the idea of boxing up her stuff, then toyed harder with the idea of going over to Lexi’s to talk to her. But he decided maybe he needed to give her the space she wanted.

  It rai
ned the next day, too. And the next.

  Harry was beside himself with restless worry and inactivity and eagerness to do something other than sit around and think. He was working out every day for two or three hours. He was meeting friends here and there, but he couldn’t keep his mind on the conversations. The gym was the only place that gave him a brief respite from thoughts of Melissa and the need for a million bucks in the bank.

  He’d finished up a long workout with heavy weights and was about to head home when the skies opened up. With a groan, Harry retreated from the exit and slipped into the gym’s juice bar. He ordered a drink, then sat down near the window to wait out the deluge.

  “Westbrook! Is that you?”

  Harry looked up to see Zach Miller sauntering toward him. Zach was a partner at Michaelson’s, and he and Harry had worked together on a couple of projects. Harry liked Zach—he was gregarious, always good for a beer and sports talk. His gray muscle shirt was soaked with sweat, and his gym bag, which banged against his knee as he strode toward Harry’s table, had definitely seen better days.

  “Dude, what’s up?” Zach asked cheerfully. He fell into a chair, his legs splayed wide, then dropped his gym bag.

  “Hey, Zach,” Harry said. “Good to see you. What’s new with you? How are things at Michaelson’s?”

  “Same old,” Zach said. “We won the bid on the new highway outside of Philadelphia.”

  “That’s fantastic,” Harry said.

  “Yep. Going to be making some bank,” Zach said with a knock on the table. “So how’s it going with you, man? Life treating you well?”

  “Fairly well,” Harry said. “I’ve had a few bumps, but, you know, life goes on.”

  “Oh yeah?” Zach’s smile turned serious. “Bumps in your company? What kind of bumps?” Zach never had any compunction about asking nosy questions.

  “That, and . . . Lissa and I are taking a break.” It was the first time Harry had said it out loud. It felt weird. It was supposed to be Harry and Melissa from here on out.

  Zach gasped. “No way,” he said, wincing. “I thought you guys were headed for the altar.”

  “I thought we were, too,” Harry said with a rueful smile. “But she’s not into bridge construction.”

  “I feel your pain, man. I’m still trying to divorce Sara.”

  Harry wasn’t surprised. Zach’s divorce was legendary, the cautionary tale to all the single men in the office: Look what women can do when they are pissed. Harry had heard through the grapevine that the Millers were counting every penny in the penny jar and arguing over each one. “I’m really sorry to hear that,” Harry said sincerely.

  “Anh,” Zach said with a flick of his wrist. “It will happen eventually. But I’ve moved on,” he said with a wink. “Been seeing this girl who is a cheerleader for the Knicks. Just graduated college.” He made a crude gesture with his hand, apparently to explain his attraction to her.

  “That’s . . . great,” Harry said uncertainly.

  “So okay, we could talk about women all day long. What’s going on with the Westbrook company?” he asked, punching Harry lightly on the arm. “I heard you got a piece of the new bridge over Paxton rail yard.”

  “Yep. I’m about to wrap that up,” he said, deciding not to tell Zach how much he was losing on that project. “I’m hoping to take the next step and bid on my own. No more subcontracting. I’ve heard that Connecticut is going to build a new toll road. I’d like to get in on that.”

  “Awesome,” Zach said, and sounded genuinely happy for him. “What’s stopping you?”

  Harry laughed. “Cash flow, man. As in, I don’t have any. In fact, I accepted an offer on my apartment.” He filled Zach in on his immediate plans for the future, and why he needed a fat bank account.

  Zach, of course, understood Harry’s needs and his ambition. He agreed that selling the apartment was a way to get the cash without going into debt. “So where are you going to live?” he asked curiously.

  “That’s a good question,” Harry said. “I’m sure I could live with my folks for a while, but dude, I’m about to be thirty-four. I think I’d kill myself.”

  Zach laughed. And then he got serious, drumming his fingers on the table, studying Harry as if he were privately debating something.

  “What?”

  “I might have a solution for you.”

  Harry laughed. “Are you inviting me to take up the guest room?”

  “Sort of. Do you need to be in Manhattan?”

  Harry thought about it a moment. “Nope. Most of my work right now is upstate. Why?”

  A big showy grin spread across Zach’s face. “Dude, I’ve got the perfect place for you. Have you ever heard of Lake Haven?”

  “Sure,” Harry said.

  “I’ve got a lake house there, about a half mile outside of East Beach. Well . . . that’s not entirely accurate. I had a lake house there. Now it’s part of the divorce, and of course, Sara is contesting it, so it’s off-limits to us both until a judge can decide. In the meantime, it’s sitting there unused. And it will sit there at least until fall, when our divorce goes to court. You could live there, Harry. Stay there through the summer and get your business off the ground. All you’d have to pay is the utilities. Interested?”

  Harry stared at him. It almost didn’t seem real. “Are you serious? Of course I’m interested.”

  “I’m serious,” Zach said. “It’s a great place and it’s being wasted. I’d be happy if someone was there keeping an eye on things. The caretaker is some friend of Sara’s, so who knows what’s going on out there. Give me the word and I’ll tell him to take a hike and get you a key.”

  It was a miracle, a solution dropped right in Harry’s lap. It was almost too good to be true. He thought about Melissa. And his work. And how he was so relieved right now that he could kiss Zach.

  Four

  June

  At first, Lola couldn’t even find the lake house, not even after driving up and down Juneberry Road twice in search of it.

  She’d rented a car in Brooklyn and had stuffed it full of her things. She’d put the address in the map app, but she was not a frequent driver and, therefore, not a good one. Still, she’d managed to follow directions to East Beach, so she knew she was in the right area.

  She could see why East Beach was so popular. It was a pretty little village on a gorgeous lake. There were old Georgian- and Federalist-style houses on the main streets of the village, with pointed roofs and gables, big windows, and porches. There was a post office and a couple of bistros, too, and a coffee shop with a large outdoor deck that looked inviting. A row of boutique shops lined the cobblestone street down to the lake, most of them with summer dresses, kites, and fishing gear waving in a soft breeze on the walkway just outside their display windows.

  Lola followed the directions out of East Beach to where the homes turned to mansions dotting the hills around the lake. She turned onto Juneberry Road, drove past a hardware store, and motored all the way to the top, to an old stone gate that said Ross. Behind the gate, she could see the roof of a massive house.

  She turned the car around and went back down for a third time.

  It was impossible to see the house addresses. First, the road was windy. Second, the houses here were behind gates and down long drives, and apparently everyone out here liked to display their house numbers in artsy swirls of iron and colorful ceramic mosaics.

  Lola was growing concerned. What was she going to do if she couldn’t find Sara’s house? Her rental car was stuffed full of her clothes and toiletries, her books and her espresso coffeemaker, which, according to Flavorwire, was essential to any real writer. She had a brand-new laptop, because how ironic would it be to quit her job to finish a book and have her old laptop die on her? And the gift from her siblings—a town bike attached to the trunk.

  The car was due back at five, and Lola was beginning to believe there was more than one Juneberry Road. Maybe she needed Juneberry Avenue or something. And if she e
ver did find this lake house, this windy road and gate business was going to be a royal pain in the ass.

  Maybe her siblings were right. This was a ridiculous thing for a thirty-one-year-old woman to do. “You don’t just quit your job,” Casey had said. “That’s what alcoholics and millennials do. That’s something Mom would have done if she’d ever had a job. You’re so not Mom, Lola.”

  Lola could see Casey’s point, which was why it had taken her a few weeks to get up the nerve to do it.

  Ultimately, it was Will who convinced her, however unwittingly, to go for it.

  Her ex had called her out of the blue and asked if they could meet at what once had been their favorite coffee shop. It was next to a little park and had outdoor seating. They used to go there on Sunday mornings and watch kids playing across the street.

  Will wouldn’t say why he needed to meet. He said he was in a place where he couldn’t really talk, but he really needed to see her and would explain when they met.

  Of course Lola’s imagination had run wild. There were very few reasons an ex-husband would want to meet his ex-wife, as she had pointed out to the ever-pessimistic Casey. Either he was going to hit her up for her half of a tax bill or something, or . . . he wanted to reconcile. “Maybe,” Lola said, trying to sound casual and uncaring, “maybe his adorable little concierge fuck-buddy turned out to be all wrong for him.” And if that were the case, Lola would try very hard not to deliver a smug, told you so.

  “He wants something,” Casey said flatly. “No way is he thinking of anyone but himself.”

  “He’s not all bad,” Lola had tried.

  Casey had thrown up her hand between them. “Don’t even,” she’d warned her sister. “After what he did to you, I can’t even talk about him. If I were you, I’d tell him if he has something to say, he can say it over the phone.”