Finally Ours (Harborview #2)

27. Angela

27

ANGELA

If there’s one thing I’ll always love about being a nurse, it’s this: being so busy during the day that I barely have time to think about anything else. And that includes the texts Carter sent me yesterday.

Or what I sent back to him this morning.

But as soon as I am done running around the ER checking on patients and assessing new ones, those texts are the first thing on my mind. Especially the fact that what I sent back to him was a photo of a sunset moment I caught on Isle North, along with the message, “Missing our island.”

As soon as I finish my shift, I change out of my scrubs and dig my phone out of my bag.

Nothing. He’s sent nothing.

I take a deep breath, and let it out, and then do that five more times. It doesn’t mean anything. He’s busy finishing his PhD after all, and I don’t even know how much of a texter Carter is these days. He might be the type to look at his phone once a day, I reassure myself.

But that same bright, cold anxiety I always feel whenever I try dating men, still comes rushing in, reminding me of why, exactly, I don’t date anymore. Because it only takes one unanswered text to remind me of all the texts and calls that Carter never answered seven years ago. To make me fearful that it’s the end, that I’ll never get a response or hear back from him again.

It makes me feel like I’m going crazy.

“Arghh,” I say out loud to the empty locker room. “Cat better have wine.”

I head over to hers, grabbing the promised pint of ice cream along the way, and some wine of my own for good measure. When I get back to Harborview, I park in the large, free lot behind Main Street, and make my way to the bookstore.

I pass by a few people I know, including Billy, the owner of the hardware store, who lets me know that my moms order has come in. They’re renovating their bathroom and doing all the work themselves. Janey Keaton stops me on the corner, and pulls me closer, as if to gossip.

“How was it? The ordeal on the island? I heard you almost died,” she says, in a hushed tone.

“Oh, well, we didn’t almost die,” I say. She looks a bit disappointed at this, so I add, “But we might have, if Carter hadn’t saved us.”

Janey’s eyes widen at this, and I know that the fact that we almost died, and that Carted saved me, will be all over Harborview by tomorrow.

“Did you see any bears? Or a shark?” Janey asks, gripping my arm even harder.

“No,” I say, “but we did meet a grizzled fisherman, who definitely resembled the one in Jaws. And he took us lobster pot hauling.”

“My Sam used to do that,” Janey says. “It’s how we lived. How we fed our kids.”

If I don’t leave soon, I’m going to be in for a thirty-minute lecture about Maine fisherman and the old ways, I just know it.

“Janey, I’m so sorry, but I just realized the time,” I tell her with a sweet smile. “But let me know if you want to get tea sometime soon.”

Being a nurse has taught me that the elderly just want to be listened to, like any of us, and they deserve our time and attention. But right now, I want tacos, wine, and a good vent sesh with my best friend.

Janey and I say goodbye, and I walk over to Cat’s store. It’s a rickety wooden Victorian, framed on either side by two enormous trees, and tucked in between the penny saver and a new ice cream shop. I open the front door, and am greeted by the chime of the bell, and tables and shelves packed with books.

“Coming!” Cat calls from somewhere upstairs.

As I wait for her, I peruse the new releases table. The store is vibrant and well stocked, and I know that it’s been doing a lot better financially since Cat started doing exclusive book signings with one of the most popular romance novelists in the country, who just so happens to be from Harborview. Cat also dedicated an enormous section at the front of the store to romance, new and used. It’s become a destination of sorts.

“Oh my god,” my best friend says as she takes me in. She throws her arms around me. “I can’t believe you’re real.”

“I was only away for a few days,” I tell her, though I hug her back warmly and hold on for a few moments longer than necessary.

“But I was so worried,” Cat says. “About the storm and you guys not having food and getting eaten by a bear.”

What is it with people and bears today?

“There are no bears on Isle North,” I say.

“Well, I didn’t know that. And I thought Carter might drive you to insanity.”

I can tell she’s fishing, trying to get me to talk about him.

“I promise I’ll tell you all about it. But I want tacos first. That’s my price for opening up.”

“I figured as much, and the tacos are prepped. All we have to do is assemble.”

We head upstairs to the tiny apartment above the store that Cat and Jamie share.

“Sorry if it’s a bit messy in here at the moment,” she says. “Jamie doesn’t have that much stuff but he does have a lot of clothes. I never knew one man could own that many blue button down shirts.”

“I’m sure he also has a truck load of hair products,” I say. “He’s always so well coiffed. Carter is more…” I trail off and don’t finish my thought. I was going to say Carter is more mountain man, but I don’t want to sound too horny for him. And Cat hasn’t given me tacos yet.

Cat claps her hands like an excited little kid. “We’ve entered the Carter portion of the evening already, I’m so excited.”

I hold my hand out to her. “Taco.”

“Fine, fine.” She pulls a tray out of the oven that’s full of corn tortillas, and then takes the lid off of the Dutch oven on the stove. The aroma of spiced beef fills the air. “This baby has been braising for hours.”

I put the ice cream away and open up some wine as Cat assembles the tacos, adding cilantro and diced onion as toppings. We sit at the tiny wooden dining table in mismatched chairs and stuff our faces.

“This is so good,” I say around a mouthful of beef. “I’ve died and gone to meat heaven.”

“I know I should be a vegetarian but oh my god.” Cat moans as she takes another bite.

We plow through at least six tacos each and then end up sprawled on the couch with our pants unbuttoned, glasses of wine in hand.

“So,” she says, swirling her wine like a pro and looking over the rim at me. “I’m dying here, Ange.”

“Ughhhh,” I say. “Fine. But if I’m going to tell you about this you have to promise me you won’t talk to Jamie about it.” The thought of the two of them matching up the pieces of what Carter and I have told them respectively makes me cringe.

“Fair enough,” she says.

I take a deep breath and launch into the story, starting at the very beginning: the crush I had on Carter in high school. Then I tell her about that one week we spent together years ago, which has her cursing and screeching.

“How come you never told me?!”

“Because…” I trail off, trying to think of how best to put this. “I guess I was ashamed? Of the fact that he ended things between us so silently. And of being left behind. And of the fact that I clearly felt so much more for him than he did for me.”

Cat’s big brown eyes go sad and dark, her brow furrowing. “Ange, I never would have judged you. Hated Carter, forever, yes. But I wouldn’t have thought anything badly about you.”

“I didn’t want to be pitied,” I say.

“I wouldn’t have pitied you. Back then, I was deep in denying my feelings for Jamie at all costs. If anything, I was the one worth pitying,” she says, though I can tell she’s joking.

“I’m so happy you have Jamie. Seeing you two together, and even just my moms’ relationship makes me wish…” I trail off, unable to finish that thought.

“That you had Carter?” Cat supplies.

“Maybe. But maybe not. I don’t know.”

“Tell me about the island,” she says softly.

And so I do—sparing no detail, except for some of the most explicit ones. Though what I do tell her has us both blushing and shrieking and Cat saying, “I never knew Carter had a daddy inside of him all along!” Which in turn has me bursting into peals of laughter so strong I nearly cry. It makes me feel like we’re back in high school again, trading stories about guys we hooked up with and asking one another the type of intimate questions that only curious teenagers can ask.

When I get to the part at the end, and tell her what Carter said to me on the boat, and how I told him I wasn’t sure if I forgave him, she gets somber and reaches out to grip my hand.

“I wouldn’t have been sure either,” she reassures me.

“I just don’t know what to do now. I don’t even know what’s going on. Look at this.” I pull my phone out of my pocket and show her my text conversation with Carter.

Cat takes the phone, scrolls for a moment, reads every text, and then says, “Angela, I think what’s going on is that you and Carter are dating.”

I grab my phone out of her hands. “No we are not.”

“He kissed you, you hooked up with him a few times, he told you he’s going to want you forever, and he’s texting you telling you that he’s thinking of you. And you responded! With an equally cute text. If that’s not dating, then what else would you call it?”

“Stumbling my way through the dark?”

Cat scrunches her nose up at that and shakes her head.

“I told him I wasn’t sure, and I meant it.”

“But maybe dating him is the only way you can become sure,” she tells me.

“What happened to hating Carter forever?”

“That was before you told me about your romantic week on Isle North. But seriously, if you don’t want to be with him, then don’t. I just want you to be happy.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to be with him,” I admit. “It’s that I can’t imagine being with him and also feeling safe and happy in that relationship. I mean you know a bit about the other guys I’ve dated.”

Cat nods.

“I’m just tired of feeling anxious and scared all of the time when I’m in a relationship. I’m tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don’t want to be with Carter if I’m just going to spend the entire time feeling horrible about it. If I can’t trust him, then what’s the point?”

Cat digests this for a moment. “You are very wise, Ange. And you know your own heart. But trust isn’t something that magically happens over night. Maybe Carter is trying to show you that he’s not going anywhere. That he can be trusted to stay.”

“And how will I know which it is? Is he staying this time, or am I just another stop along the way?” I ask.

“Judge him by his actions in the present. By who he shows himself to be right now.”

I consider that for a moment and then my phone chimes on the couch, and Carter’s name lights up on the screen.

Maybe Cat is right.