Page 58 of The Matchmaker's Cottage

“I—” Even as she started to respond, she truly wasn’t sure what words were going to come out of her mouth. Because at that moment, as they climbed the gentle hill back up to the house, an unfamiliar car came into view on the gravel drive. The silhouette of a woman, slender yet shapely, in clothes that seemed out of place for where they were—sleek, silky, and expensive—stood near the front porch, talking to Norman.

“Who is that?” Maggie asked, squinting at the unfamiliar person, while Katy said simultaneously on the tail end of a gasp: “Is that—?”

Julia looked over at Ethan in confusion, but stopped when she saw his face. Although he hadn’t said anything, she felt ice course through her veins, the precursor to a panic episode, which usually required her to find a quiet place to get herself together. There was something about his expression, his posture, his whole body language, that told her things were about to change drastically—again.

“Ethan?” she said quietly, reaching out and touching his arm. Giving it a squeeze.

It appeared to barely register, but after a moment, he said one word with grim resignation:

“Emily.”

20

2013

Gem wasn’t talkingto him. Ethan didn’t know exactly what he’d done, but Gem definitely was not talking to him.

He’d known he was going to be a bit late to meet up with her, but he’d told her that in advance, and she’d seemed fine with it. It was the first time Gem had agreed to gooutout, so he’d helped her arrange a nightclub with bottle service to go to with all their friends—mostly Ethan’s friends, granted, but she had invited a few people she knew from work and some of their mutual university friends—and the plan was to experience New York City nightlife at its finest. No more frat parties or keg-stand nonsense. They were finally celebrating likeadults.

The only problem was that Ethan’s girlfriend, Sarah, had been expecting the two of them to go out for dinner that night, had in factbookeddinner at one of the nicer restaurants in the city, and he couldn’t simply abandon her to party with his female best friend. The compromise had been that they wouldmeet them at the club after dinner—and by “compromise,” he meant the terms Sarah had dictated.

The existence of Gem was already a mild point of contention for Sarah, who believed that a man having a woman as a best friend was weird at best and inappropriate at worst. Although she had never given him an ultimatum about hanging out with Gem—Julia, since nicknames were also a no-no—he knew it was a fine line. And canceling dinner plans so he could go to Julia’s birthday party would definitely be crossing that line.

It could be argued, a tiny rebellious part of his brain liked to remind him, that the dinner plans didn’t need to be made for that particular night, since he had been pretty sure he’d told Sarah about Julia’s plans well in advance, but again, battles needed to picked, as did hills to die on, and he was unwilling to go to war for this one.

Gem would understand.Julia, he heard Sarah’s voice correct him in his head.

Plus, heractualbirthday was the next night, for which they had plans to order Chinese and watch a movie—Julia’s choice—at her apartment. An event that Ethan had conveniently left out when Sarah had asked what he was up to the next day.

If he’d stopped to consider it, he might have found it slightly ludicrous, the hoops that needed to be jumped through for all the important women in his life to coexist. He may have even felt a bit guilty for being slightly dishonest to both of them—mostly Sarah, but Gem also didn’t know the extent to which Sarah disapproved of her, so there were some lies of omission happening there—and perhaps realized that his behavior was not breeding any sort of good faith or positive outcomes with or between the women.

But Ethan was twenty-three years old. He rarely stopped to consideranything.

Instead, he simply figured he’d do his best to continue to make both women as happy as possible, without revealing the circumstances around which their happiness centered, and there was no possible way it could blow up in his face.

Which was why he assuaged any modicum of guilt he felt about Gem’s birthday party that evening by thinking about their plans the next night and any discomfort he felt around not being totally honest with Sarah about tomorrow night’s plans by eating a thirty-five-dollar pasta entrée with her instead of staying with Gem and the rest of their friends at VIP Room.

Except now hewaswith Gem and their friends at VIP Room—he and Sarah had gotten there about ten minutes prior, at which point she’d promptly left him to go use the restroom—and Gem was ignoring him.

She had barely even said hi to him when they had walked in, though her greeting to Sarah had been slightly friendlier, even if it hadn’t been reciprocated in terms of friendliness. Then she had turned around and iced him out.

He found out through one of their mutual friends that some of the plans had fallen through—their booth had been given away to someone willing to pay more for it, and she had unfortunately dropped the half-empty bottle she’d then been forced to carry around, which would have gotten them kicked out if not for the quick thinking of the group and an even quicker dispersion into the crowd that made them impossible to track down amid the throng of dancing bodies.

Ethan had almost laughed at the visual of Gem and their friends making the joint decision to split up and weave throughthe crowd simultaneously, but then he realized it wasn’t actually that funny. Some of their friends hadn’t made their way back to the group, and others had texted to say they were going somewhere else. So things weren’t looking great for Gem’s little nightclub bash.

When things went awry for him, he usually felt like he was capable of finding the positive even in a terrible situation. At the end of the day, not much bothered him, and if it did, he let it slide and sought out something that bothered him less. Or, ideally, not at all. He knew Gem had a harder time letting things go, but even she couldn’t fault him here. Shit happened, right?

“Hey.” He nudged her shoulder. She barely glanced at him. “What’s up?” He had to shout over the music, which was louder than anything he’d ever heard before.

The idea of going to a club had held an appeal—it hadn’t been their first time, obviously, even though it was the first celebration they had tried to coordinate at one—but theidea, he found, was infinitely more appealing than the actual time spent at one. The music was always too damn loud, and too many people were bumping into each other, just an unappealing mass of humanity experiencing sensory overload, the overconsumption of alcohol, and probably some sort of narcotics cocktail all at once. He remembered how every time he entered a club thinking it was going to be thebest night ever, he usually just wanted to leave as soon as he got there.

In fact, more often than not, the best part of the night was going out afterward with Gem to grab a hot dog or something equally delicious from a food truck vendor, sitting on a curb and talking while they ate, laughing at whatever ridiculous thing had happened while they were out, stuffing their faceswith greasy street food. It was that association that held such appeal. The times they’d spent togetheraftera night out.

Sarah.

Something in his subconscious reminded him in that moment of his girlfriend, who still hadn’t returned from the restroom.

“Hey,” he said again, louder this time, right in Gem’s ear. He could smell her—a heady mixture of sweat, her familiar shampoo, and the perfume she’d worn since they were teenagers—feel the way his lip brushed slightly against the outer edge of her ear. If he used his imagination, he could almost feel her shiver at his breath against her neck.