The Co-op

Prologue

PROLOGUE

Some Wednesday in May

L A RYNN

All of my life’s most mortifying moments have a soundtrack.

In ninth grade, at my very first homecoming dance, I came barreling out of the girls’ bathroom, skirting updos and sidestepping a multitude of grinding, hormone-riddled bodies so that I wouldn’t miss my song. Rihanna was thumping through the gymnasium sound system, singing about finding love in a hopeless place—almost too on the nose, if you ask me. I quickly made my way to the imaginary spotlight in the crowd where I dropped and I swayed, a corsage-adorned wrist held aloft in the air.…

And an entire corner of my dress tucked into my thong.

There was also the time during my second semester of college when I was listening to a pretty racy audiobook in the library. I eventually accepted that it was too distracting to successfully study to, so I switched over to my playlist. 311 was strumming on about amber being the color of my energy when I noticed the stares.

Turns out, when I disconnected from my tablet and switched over to the music on my phone, the device continued playing that book—out loud. Let’s just say, the narrator was very talented and had excellent, enthusiastic inflection.

And, alas, the memory I most often try to suppress manages to be the one that forces me to cringe the hardest. The one that occurred a few years before the echoing erotica incident.

My father’s irate, reddened face surfaces first in my mind, followed by the faded image of my hands clutching a boy’s shirt to my naked front.

That time, above the faint sound of a warning alarm in the distance and my father berating us, it was “Fade into You” playing on a loop in the background of my shame—set to me wincing each time it began anew. Likely the fault of an errant limb hitting repeat on the dash when Deacon dragged me across the bench seat and into his lap. Or, maybe it got bumped as he attempted to undress me along the way. We’d rapidly become too distracted to notice or care, I suppose.

“It was just sex, LaRynn” were the last words Deacon had said to me before dear old Dad started pounding on the car window.

I remember turning toward Deacon as we’d stood on trial under the glow of the SUV headlights a few minutes later, looking for some kind of lifeline… any sign that I’d misunderstood or misheard him. The balmy summer night turned frigid when he wouldn’t return my stare. When his profile stayed stiff and unapologetic.

“LaRynn Cecelia Lavigne, mets ton cul dans la voiture!” Dad shouted, effectively ending the night and that pivotal summer. Get my ass in the car, indeed.

I’d only snorted, thrown on Deacon’s shirt, and marched over to my dad’s Mercedes, hoping I’d never see or hear from Deacon Leeds again.

That was the last time I’d ever said the words “I love you”—to anyone—all while that fucking song droned on.

This is the supercut of memories my brain chooses to play as I walk down an aisle toward Deacon Leeds now, nearly a decade later. His expression tightens when our eyes meet. I note the rapid twitching of his stubbled jaw, the irritable shifting of his weight. He shoves a tattooed hand through his floppy brown hair a little too roughly, making it stand on end. His gaze drops to the slit in my black dress and turns a shade more miserable. Good . The inevitable press of warmth I feel there sends a pang of misery through me, too. It’s a comfort to know he’s just as uncomfortable with this arrangement as I am. That at least this time our feelings, sour as they are, are mutual. I smile and delight in the way his throat bobs, the line that forms between his dark brows, the blush creeping onto his perpetually smug, unfairly handsome face. I may have demo’d my life in order to end up in this particular position, but I plan to make the best of it this time around. This time, I will not confuse the attraction I have toward him with anything deeper. I’ll walk away from this whole thing financially and emotionally sturdier and steadier, completely independent, and entirely unscathed.

Ironic that this time, the track playing is the wedding march.