Page 55 of The Matchmaker's Cottage

Even her hopes of Noah and Katy filling it had been dashed, as the two of them appeared just as exhausted as Julia and Ethan, with the added bonus of being violently hungover. Whatever they had gotten up to with Maggie the night before—which hadn’t afflicted Maggie, likely due to her propensity not to drink—it had obviously taken its toll by this morning. There was something still otherworldly beautiful about both of them—the sheen of thousands of dollars’ worth of skincare products and cosmetic procedures too prevalent to completely diminish—but they, too, appeared to have gone through the same sort of wringer as Ethan, transforming them from gorgeous autobots to something more attainably attractive: Katy in her mismatched tracksuit, her slightly disheveled hair tossed up in a ponytail that seemed to be missing some of its earlier volume rather than her usually perfectly tousled beach waves, and Noah, his typically warm, caramel-colored skin appearing to hold a somewhat grayish tinge, his hazel eyes dull, with tired-looking smudges underneath. While Katy, for her part, tried valiantly to keep up with Maggie’s enthusiasm, Noah sullenly trudged behind them.

“Some pictures we’re going to get today,” Julia muttered, mostly to herself but close enough to Ethan so he could overhear.

He glanced at her, his cool blue eyes taking on a sharperfocus as her words registered and he remembered, perhaps, their reason for doing this outing at all.

“It’s fine,” he responded after a beat, his voice sounding rusty. “This is more to just build rapport between them and get them to spend time together. Part of what we do to make this”—he gestured to the two young stars a few yards ahead—“work is we try to develop the relationship so that things feel natural enough when they’re seen together in public. There should be a bond there that isn’t forced or artificial.” He shrugged. “These two already seemed to have that, which is good. But something like this can’t hurt, either. And maybe I’ll get them to post on their own social media, some identifying markers or a similar view, so fans can start to piece together that they’re in the same place once again.”

Julia shook her head, half-impressed and half-horrified at the depths to which this deception ran.

“Truly diabolical,” she mused, causing him to chuckle lightly.

“Yeah,” he said quietly, his smile fading. “Not exactly curing cancer over here, are we?”

At his self-deprecating tone and his descent into introspectiveness, Julia tried to pull things back a bit—there was no point in making him feeltoobad about his life choices.

“I mean, who among us can say that we’re doing anything of that caliber?” she said, shrugging. “I run a glorified hostel, Maggie is my jack-of-all-trades cook and housekeeper, those two make movies—we aren’t exactly the United Nations over here.”

Ethan breathed out another laugh, his face clearing slightly from its melancholy, to Julia’s relief. “I guess there’s some validity to what we do, in some capacity. Not me,” he added hastily, though his tone was now veering more toward amused thanself-defeating, “but you, Maggie, the others. At least you make people happy.”

“You make people happy!”You made me happy. The thought came unbidden, and she quashed it quickly. “People love celebrity gossip.”

“Oh yeah, I’m a regular Mother Teresa.”

“Uh, fact: Mother Teresa making people happy is actually a horrific misconception.”

He glanced at her in surprise. “Really?”

She elbowed him in mock reproach. “Really. You didn’t know? Boy, I have some news for you about some of your pseudo-religious idols. Wait until you hear about Gandhi.”

Ethan laughed loudly then, loud enough for the others to turn and look and notice how far behind Julia and Ethan were from them as they ambled down the hill carefully.

“Are you two keeping up all right?” Maggie asked, her brow furrowed. “Julia, how’s your ankle?”

“Much better!” Julia called back, picking up the pace just a bit, though careful not to put any significant strain on her bad leg. It was true, though—her ankle was feeling better. One realization to her morning that had actually been positive was the way she could put weight on it again in a more normal capacity. She had debated wearing the boot for the walk, but it had just seemed like more effort. Instead, she’d wrapped the ankle tightly, worn supportive running shoes, and taken the risk that things would go well. So far, so good.

“Are you sure?” Ethan looked down at her, inspecting her leg as though he could X-ray it through her jeans. “Maybe you should have worn the brace—”

“Seriously, I’m fine.” Julia waved him off. “It was just a minor sprain or something. No damage done.”

“And how are you feeling?” he said, his voice dropping a few octaves, deepening as he tried to lower it so the others wouldn’t hear. “From yesterday?”

“Fine,” she said again, trying to ungrit her teeth. “I’m used to it. I’ll be fine.”

The words came out before she registered what she was saying. Belatedly, she realized that she had just admitted to him that the sort of thing that had happened last night happened frequently, and all the ways she had tried to convince him not to worry about her last night were slowly becoming irrelevant as understanding dawned on his face.

“So, how often does this happen, then?”

She wasn’t fooled by his casual tone. By the eyes that were focusing ahead and not looking down at her any longer with their probing, assessing gaze. She knew he was like a dog with a bone now. And she had just given him the tastiest morsel.

“No…” she began carefully, trying to figure out how to get herself out of the situation she now found herself in. “It’s just…the few times it has happened, I’ve learned how to cope.”

He made a sound, noncommittal yet somehow still unconvinced, and he shot her a quick sidelong glance before looking ahead once more.

The lake came back into view, and Julia found her breath catching even though it was a sight she had seen almost every day for the last several years. They’d made such fond memories growing up there, exploring all it had to offer beyond the space between their two cottages; it had truly been a place where they could just be themselves and have fun and not worry about any outside forces affecting their day-to-day lives. It was where Ethan could swim with deep, even strokes through the waterand not hear his parents fighting. Where Julia could lie in the sun and pretend like her mom was just inside, reading a book or crocheting. It had always been a place of peace for both of them. Julia tried to find that here now, too. And she often did—sitting on the shoreline, listening to the gentle lapping of the water, the type of quiet that permeates the soul, creating a deep inhale and exhale from the inside out.

She knew she and Ethan were going to have to talk about things once and for all. Knew that decisions needed to be made now that they’d found their way back into each other’s lives. It was time to stop burying her head in the sand, time to stop hiding behind all her self-righteous indignation and fear and allowing both of those things to help her avoid the conversation that needed to happen. That they had to have. So they could both move on.

But first, the lake.