Finally Ours (Harborview #2)

15. Angela

15

ANGELA

The general store on Isle North is cute as a button. It’s a small whitewashed clapboard house with red shutters and a red roof. On the side there’s a sign that says, “Eggs: one dozen 40 cents” and another that says, “Fresh blueberry muffins.” On the front, the sign simply reads, “Isle North General.”

When we walk inside, the smell of freshly baked goods and coffee hits us and I immediately feel woozy from hunger.

“Muffins first. Coffee second. And then we’re figuring out how we’re getting out of here,” I say, and all but run to the counter.

An older woman with a blonde bob and a pair of corduroy overalls is sitting at the counter.

“Hi,” I say.

She does not look up from the crossword in the paper that she’s working on.

“Um.”

“One second,” she says. “What’s another word for planting seeds? Six letters.”

“Sowing,” Carter pipes up immediately from where he is browsing the chocolate section.

“Thank you, young man.” She scribbles in the word and then looks up at me, and then gasps. “You must be the hikers who got stranded! Mitchell is never going to believe this! Mitch!” she yells into the back of the store. “Look who turned up! It’s the hikers.”

A man ambles over from the back. He’s also wearing overalls, in a matching shade of corduroy to the woman at the counter, and his dark skin is lined with age. “Huh,” he says, looking me over.

“Okay,” I say. “Well, we want to buy some muffins and some coffee. Two of each please.”

“Make that four muffins,” Carter calls. “And swap one of those coffees out for a tea.”

“Sure, of course dear,” the woman says.

“Do you have any money?” This is from Mitchell, who is looking at me suspiciously. Which is fair enough, given how sweaty and smelly I am.

“Don’t mind him,” the woman says. “I’ve been running this store for three decades, and I told him when we got married two years ago that he’d have to start being nice to the customers.”

“We can pay,” I say, though I can’t help but smile at the woman’s story.

“I’m Margery,” she says. “And you are not paying. Not after the ordeal you just suffered.”

“It was okay actually,” I say. “Carter, my um, my?—

“Your beau?” Margery asks.

“That’s me,” Carter says from where he’s now standing next to me. He slings an arm around me and pulls me in close for emphasis.

I just let him stay there because frankly I don’t know what to call him or how to explain our relationship. Friends? No. Beau? Certainly not. Enemy? Not since we kissed, I guess.

We kissed. Fucking hell , I think.

“I found us a cabin we could stay in,” Carter says. “I’ve been here a few times.”

“I thought I recognized you! You’re one of those scientists who comes to tag puffins, aren’t you?” Margery says.

“Yes I am. Proud to be one. And I love it here on Isle North.”

Mitchell gives him an assessing look, and I see the old man soften towards him. Carter saying he loves Isle North has clearly scored him some points.

Margery busies herself making us our drinks and puts the muffins down on some plates. We sit on a small wooden bench they have in one corner. The first bit of muffin has me moaning.

I don’t even finish chewing before I say, “Margery these are perfect.”

“Best muffins in all of Maine,” Mitchell says proudly.

Carter and I much away in happy silence, and then sip from the cups Margery hands to us.

“Do you know anyone who could take us back to Mount Desert Island?” I ask Margery when we’re done. “We’d like to get back tonight.”

Margery and Mitchell share a look. “Well, honey, that might be difficult,” she says. “Most folks here don’t have their boats in the water yet. And it’s a long way.”

It took us two hours to get here, so I do understand what she means. “What about the mailboat?” I ask. “Doesn’t it run every day?”

“Didn’t anyone tell you? Mailboat got damaged during the storm. It’s out of commission for a few days while Clint gets it fixed or gets the second mailboat into the water early. Normally he only operates one until the summer season starts.”

“What happened?” Carter asked.

“The storm swell was bad enough that the mailboat was flung up against the dock,” Margery says.

“What will you do in an emergency?” I ask. I don’t mention that I think this is an emergency. But it is concerning how little they seem to be worried about the fact that Carter and I are stranded.

“Archie,” Margery says. “His lobster boat is in the water already.”

Score. Lobster season in Maine peaks in the late summer or early fall, but they can be harvested all year round.

“Perfect. He can take us today,” I say, standing up and wiping a few stray muffin crumbs off of me.

Mitchell merely snorts at that. “Archie might take you. But it won’t be today. He’s already out on the water for today.”

“What are we supposed to do, then? I have to get back to work. I need to shower.” I feel myself on the verge of tears, the bad night’s sleep and the last few days finally getting to me.

“Well we can’t help you with getting back to work,” Margery says. “But you’re welcome to use the shower in the apartment we have upstairs, and to stay there too. We rent it out in the summer, so it’s all fixed up. And we can grab you some clean clothes that my daughter and her boyfriend left at our house when they were here last summer. You two look about their size.”

“Great,” I sniff. “Thank you so much.”

“We’ll get back, Angel. I promise,” Carter says. “Cat and Jamie are researching charter companies, and I’m sure Archie will take us. I’ll offer him whatever amount of money he wants.”

“Thank you.”

Carter Steel is a good man.

The thought comes into my head unbidden but there it is. As much as I try to deny it, he is caring and responsible and careful. At least he has been for the last few days.

“Can you give me Archie’s number?” Carter asks Mitchell.

Mitchell grumbles something about Archie being a cantankerous old bat, but scribbles the number on a piece of scratch paper and hands it to Carter anyways.

“Come with me,” Margery says, and then she’s bustling us upstairs, chattering about how tired and cold we must be, and how a good hot shower will set us right.

It reminds me of my moms, and makes the tears I suppressed downstairs rise to the surface again. I just want to be home.

But as soon as I step into the apartment, I realize that maybe all I want and all that I’ve been missing are amenities. Margery and Mitch have really decked the place out. It’s dominated by a high, soft looking king bed that’s draped in light blue linen bedding and plaid blankets. The light gray walls are hung with artistic depictions of the island, and an enormous window offers a stunning view of the bay beyond. The curtains hang all the way to the floor, brushing the plush carpet. It’s beautiful, yet still inviting.

“This is beautiful, Margery,” I say. “Please let us know what it costs to stay here.”

“Nothing before May,” is all she responds, and then signals us to follow her into the kitchen.

She shows us the coffee machine (thank God) and then takes us into the bathroom. My jaw nearly hits the floor when I see the jacuzzi tub. Big enough for two, and deep, with a rain style shower head mounted above it.

“Margery, I'd ask you to marry me if you weren’t already,” Carter says.

Margery goes pink in response and looks Carter up and down.

Me too, Margery, me fucking too. Because even after two days in the woods with no shower to speak of, Carter Steel still looks delicious. His hair is pulled back into a bun at the moment, and his stubble has now grown into the beginnings of a beard. His long sleeved gray henley shirt is rolled up to his elbows, and his forearms are...Christ. His forearms look sculpted from marble, by God herself. Maybe Margery and I can form a Carter’s forearms fan club or something.

“If I were thirty years younger, we’d make quite a fine couple,” she says. “Don’t mention this to Mitch.”

“My lips are sealed,” he says, and throws her a wink.

Something about Carter winking at another woman, even one who is about sixty-five and married makes me feel…irritated. But I ignore that feeling because Margery is explaining to us how to use the jets on the tub and hell no am I missing out on that. She also gives us some bubble bath to use.

“Once you’re all cleaned up, you should head down to Shaky Jane’s. They just reopened for the season and have the best stuffed clams in all of Maine,” Margery says.

Carter’s stomach audibly rumbles through the room, and I can’t help but laugh.

“Margery, the muffins were truly wonderful, but I have two days worth of protein bars to banish from my memory,” he says.

And whiskey, I think. When I licked the drop from Carter’s throat, his skin was warm and he smelled of pine, like a sexy lumberjack.

Which is something I really need to stop thinking about.

“Well I’ll let you two get settled in and cleaned up,” Margery says.

And then it’s just Carter and I alone, again. But this time in a room with a bed big enough for both of us to sprawl out on.

“I can still sleep on the couch,” Carter says, clearly noting that I’m staring at the bed.

“No, that doesn’t make sense,” I say. “I’m smaller than you, I’ll fit on the couch better than you will.”

“And how many hours of sleep will you get on it?”

“Some,” is all I say.

“Case closed, Angel. I can sleep anywhere. Now go spend an hour or two in that jacuzzi tub you were eyeing.”

“Thank you!” I squeak, suddenly unnerved. And then I all but hide in the bathroom.

Carter has me off balance. He keeps being so damn nice, rather than needling me, and I have no idea how to react. How many times can I say thank you? I need to get my bite back.

I look at the tub and decide that’s the answer. I’ll shower, wash my hair, and—this is crucial—smell good again. I may not have any makeup with me, but I’ll make do. Maybe if I don’t look completely heinous I’ll find my footing with him once again.

I turn to the mirror and wince as soon as I see my reflection because the shower has some heavy lifting to do. My hair is scraped back into a messy bun that looks nothing like the cute messy buns I see on social media. It’s giving more rat girl than anything else. I don’t even want to see what the curls are like in there. My skin is flushed and there’s a discernible layer of grime coating me, from sweat and hiking and not showering.

I turn the shower on and then rifle through the bath products Margery pointed out. I find some shampoo and conditioner that will probably work on my hair, as well as shower gel and face wash.

I step into the water and let out an audible groan. It feels so damn good. I turn the heat up and just stand there for a few minutes, luxuriating in it all. I wash my body, and then turn to my hair. Working the tangles out just with my fingers is a chore, but I manage, and I leave the conditioner on for a good five minutes after.

I rinse, shut the water off, and immediately start praying that my hair doesn’t dry in a puff ball. I don’t have my arsenal of hair products with me, and I’d rather not look like a poodle in front of Carter.

After I dry off and blot my hair with a towel, I realize that the only clothing I have with me in here is the same stuff I’ve been wearing for three days straight. Margery said she’d bring us things, so I wrap myself up in the towel once more and head back into the main room.

Carter is standing by the window, a pair of binoculars pressed against his eyes. He must have had them with him this whole time. Which makes sense given who he is and where we are.

“Hey,” I say. “Looking for birds?”

“Yes, and I’ve spotted a few puffins flying to the island,” he says, and then turns to face me.

I see the exact moment he realizes I’m in just a towel. Granted, it’s big enough to cover everything and I’m holding it up tightly, but still. It’s less than he’s seen me in for a while.

His eyes go wide, and his pupils darken as he looks me up and down. He stares intently at the hand I’m using to hold up the towel, as if he’s willing me to drop it.

I let myself imagine what would happen if I did. If I let him see everything he so clearly wants. If I got down on my knees before him and freed his cock from his pants, took it in my hands and stroked it, sucked it, until he cried out my name.

I blink, and will that filthy image out of my mind.

“Did Margery bring the clothes yet?”

He just continues to stare at me.

“Carter?”

“Hm?”

“Clothes. Do we have any?”

“Right. Yeah. Over on the couch.”

I scurry over the couch, gripping the towel even harder. I find a pile of women’s clothes, including a pack of underwear and a sports bra, and I silently send up blessings to Margery. She has also left us some deodorant, toothbrushes, and moisturizer. It’s not exactly a Sephora haul, but it’ll do.

I go back into the bathroom, and change, loving the feel of the clean clothes. Margery left a few t-shirts and jeans, and I choose one with navy blue stripes and buttons on the shoulder. It’s more nautical than I tend towards, but we are on a small island after all.

“The shower is all yours,” I tell Carter when I’m done.

He just nods, grabs the other pile of clothes, and heads into the bathroom. Alone for the first time in days, I decide to take the time to video call my moms. It’s been too long since I heard their voices or saw their faces, and I know they must be worried, my texts and voice notes aside.

My mama Donna answers on the first ring.

“Honey, it’s so good to hear from you,” she says. Her gray dreadlocks are pulled back in a bright silk scarf, and the familiar sight makes me almost tear up. I am, at my heart, entirely a mama’s girl.

My mom Kate’s face immediately fills the screen next to mama’s. “Angie! Sweetie. How was it in the wild and wooly outdoors?”

“Horrible,” I say, even though what I’m really thinking is that it was tranquil, beautiful, and relaxing. I don’t want to let on that being here with Carter isn’t as bad as I might have thought. “I didn’t get to shower for two days. And we had to survive off of microwave rice, protein bars, and whiskey.”

“You and Carter got drunk together?” My mama snorts, and shakes her head.

Too late I realize that I shouldn’t have mentioned the whiskey.

“Tell us everything.” This from my mom, who truly does live for drama.

“There isn’t much to tell,” I say. “We got drunk, we talked, we passed out early. Nothing happened.”

My moms are the only two people I have ever told about me and Carter hooking up. Living at home over the summer, it was tough to hide anything from them, and I didn’t want to. After he broke my heart, I let them spoon feed me ice cream and comfort me for a week.

“That’s good,” my mama says.

“Exactly. You don’t need him, sweetie,” my mom adds.

I know they’d actually be happy if Carter got me to forgive him and we started something up again. Because they know how I felt about him, and they want me to have what they have. But they’re still protective of me.

“I don’t. And I don’t even want him,” I say. Liar crows my conscience.

“Where are you now? It doesn’t look like a cabin,” my mama asks.

I tell them all about Margery and Mitchell and the blueberry muffins. And then I give them a little tour of the place, leaving out the bathroom of course. They tell me about their plans for the week: hiking with another couple they’re friends with and attending a few events at Cat’s bookstore.

“I hope I’m home to join you,” I say, and explain to them that we’re still looking for transport off the island.

“We’ll look into some leads here for you,” my mom says. “It’s still cold, but someone must have their boat ready to go by now.”

I tell them I love them and that I’ll call them tomorrow and then we hang up.

My heart feels full. Though I’m not sure I feel any more prepared to deal with Carter. In truth, my moms’ marriage is part of the reason why I was so caught off guard by how Carter treated me all those years ago.

Their love story is one for the ages. Two weeks after my mom Kate found out she was pregnant with me (she had attended a party where, according to her, “Things got a little too bicurious” with one of her male friends), she met my mama. She was working at a coffee shop near my mama’s office in Manhattan, and they immediately hit it off. Two months later, my mom was moving into my mama’s luxury apartment and settling down. Six and a half months later, I was born. Almost eleven years after that, my mama got tired of working in finance and was ready to retire, so they moved to Harborview, the town we’d been spending summer vacations in for my whole life.

Their relationship isn’t perfect, because no one’s is, but their love story is. Simple. Easy. No second guessing, no ghosting. No wondering how the other felt. They fell in love and then they stayed in love, and they treated each other right the entire time.

Having parents with such a wonderful relationship did not prepare me for the shock of dating twenty-something straight men. When Carter broke my heart, a part of me genuinely couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way, especially not with someone I’d know for years, who I implicitly trusted to be good to me.

The many boys who broke my heart afterwards didn’t shock me quite as much, but they still confused me. Didn’t everyone who was trying to date want what my moms had? Wasn’t love their goal?

Nope. Sometimes their goal was a one-night-stand. Or two weeks of casual sex. Or, worse still, a few months of emotional support interspersed with blow jobs, which they reciprocated with half-hearted attempts at fingering me.

I shudder at the memories.

And then my heart does that funny thing in my chest that it always does when I think too hard about love. It aches.

It’s not that I don’t believe in love—how could I not after watching my moms together? After watching Cat and Jamie? It’s just that I don’t believe I’ll ever find it for myself.

But being around Carter makes me hungry for it. Ravenous, even.

I need to get back to Harborview. Now.