Jules was put out to pasture like an old, crusty cow, and Laura became the sun to his piece-of-crap-no-good-son-of-a—stars. And now they were getting married, having conveniently forgotten where their happily-ever-after started.
We met through a mutual friend.
It sounded less scandalous the way they told it.
So I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy about being stranded on the country estate where the social-climbing members of the Kelland family would host their non-ironic Great Gatsby-themed engagement party. As though stealing my boyfriend wasn’t enough, Laura was moving the scene of the crime to the place I’d always wanted to exchange vows with a man who looked at me like no other man ever did. She’d always been too busy to go there with Dad during the summers.
Pardon me for not RSVPing.
“Jules, do you mind if I take a few with me?” Berk popped out of the kitchen with his winning, knee-weakening smile, and a huge tub of cookies in his hand.
“Why, hello there.” Laura nearly knocked me over as she executed a model glide past me, heading straight for Berk.
“Hey.” He looked around like a deer caught in headlights.
“I’m Laura Kelland.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “A friend of yours?”
Berk’s gaze bounced between me and Laura. My shoulders hunched and I tightened my arms across my chest. The pit in my stomach sprouted a trunk and a few branches as I braced myself for the questions I’d been asked so many times.
Standing beside my mom and sister, I always looked like the weird cousin they introduced for comedic relief in every sitcom when things got stale. When Dad was alive, it had all made sense. Laura looked like Mom’s mini-me, I took after him, and our picture was complete. When he was gone, I was the odd one out—always.
“Laura, this is Berk. Berk, my sister Laura.”
Here come the wide-eyed glances between me and her. I was tallish, taking after Dad at five-eight, whereas she was a petite but willowy five-four. Next to me she almost felt pocket-sized.
She had bright blue eyes, but mine were a muddy-mossy mishmash hidden behind my glasses.
And then there was the extra fifty pounds I had on her. Standing next to my sister, I always felt like I should be named Helga and have a place on the Soviet female shotput team.
But Berk’s eyes didn’t have the same questions or comparative judgments most people’s did. He shook her hand like we made sense as siblings, even though I didn’t get it sometimes.
“I didn’t know Jules was seeing someone. You’ve got to come to the engagement party. It would be so wonderful to have you come.”
I clenched my fists at my side and my heart did a skitter-patter. She was doing it on purpose: inviting someone she knew could never be my boyfriend, so she could laugh at her silly mistake and rest her hand on his chest, flirting to within an inch of her life with the added bonus of pointing out how silly she’d been for even assuming.
“Berk’s not—”
“Sure, I’m always up for a party.” He shrugged and nodded.
Laura threw her head back, but only half the laugh came out. Her head snapped back down and she stared at him. “What?”
“Jules mentioned it before. The wedding’s in spring, right? Sure, I’ll go.”
“But—” Her gaze swung to the side, meeting mine. “You’re actually—”
I plastered on a smile. “You heard him. He’d love to go. You still have room for him, right?” I took her by the shoulders. “We’ll see you this weekend.”
Shell-shocked and still looking like she couldn’t believe what had just gone down, Laura nodded.
“Perfect.” I pushed her toward the door. “We’ll be there at five, see you then, so happy for you both, love you, bye.”
She turned around on the porch.
I slammed the door closed and rested my head against the solid wood, closing my eyes.
“Should I be ready at five on Friday or Saturday?” Berk waved around the salted caramel chocolate chunk cookies with the espresso chips I always kept on hand for him.
Oh god, did he think I’d told her we were dating? “I only said that to get rid of her. You don’t have to go.” I’d delayed humiliation right now for the humiliation in three days when I showed up with no Berk. “I only let her believe we’re dating to get rid of her.”
“You don’t want me to go?” A sliver of hurt fluttered across his face.
Did he really want to come with me? As if—he was just being polite. “Of course I do, but I can’t ask you to do that. You’ve got practice. The semester starts as soon as we get back.” There, I’d given him an out so he could back out gracefully.
“I wouldn’t mind getting out of here for a few days. You mentioned this thing before, right?”
“As a joke. I don’t want you to think you have to come.”
“I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t cool with it. The season will be intense. A party with good food and top-shelf booze that I don’t have to clean up from sounds good to me. If you’re good with it.”
My mouth opened and closed. “Sure, I’d love it if you came.” I needed a gold star for not digging a hole into the ground to disappear into after saying that.
“We’ll have fun. I won’t embarrass you, don’t worry.” He ducked back into the kitchen.
“I’d never think you could.”
After the roots holding me to the floor dissolved, I followed him.
He downed another shot of milk. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s figure out how we’re going to track down TLG.”
“TLG?”
He stared back at me with determination glinting in his eyes. “I’m not stopping until I find The Letter Girl.”
3
Berk
The brown sugar, cinnamon, chocolate, and vanilla smells made walking into Jules’ kitchen one of my new favorite things. My mouth watered every time I stepped through her door. It made me want to take a bite out of the countertops. It was like being in a movie set version of a perfect house. Not that her house was perfect. The landlord had fixed it up some from last year after Jules’ old roommate reamed him in court for not keeping the house up to code and making repairs as needed, but it had nothing to do with the way the place looked.
Walking into Jules’ house was like walking into a home, complete with a cute apron hanging beside the doorway, stacks of neatly wrapped treats and Tupperware full of even more. I could sit there for hours soaking it all up. And eating mountains of treats that were always on hand.
“I could put flyers up all over campus with a picture of one of the letters.” A highly censored version of the letters. Maybe a small excerpt.
“But who sees anyone’s handwriting? Most people use their computers or phones for everything.” Jules rubbed her thumb along her bottom lip. Did it taste like sugar? I dropped my gaze from her lips. Don’t go there, man. Jules was awesome, but I wasn’t going to be distracted from my search.
“You’re right.”
How can you lose someone you’ve never met? The Letter Girl had careened into my life like a damn smash and grab pro and wormed her way into my heart before I knew what happened.