I guess I should have expected to see Royal—King—when I got to Willow Cove. I knew he likely still lived here, and I knew he would be on the boardwalk at some point because that was where he spent all his time back when we were… Well, I figured it would happen before long, but I didn’t expect to see him in the bakery of all places. He hated that place! I was sort of banking on him avoiding Kingston’s until I had a chance to find my footing, even if his uncle owns the place.
After King kicks me out of Bill’s bakery, I spend the morning sitting on the beach and ignoring Cecily’s repeated calls. I hung up on her suddenly at the sight of a shirtless King, and she hasn’t left me alone since. But I don’t think I’ll be able to explain why I’ve been off balance ever since realizing that the well-toned man of a man showing off his muscly torso in the bakery this morning was Royal Kingston.
My best friend doesn’t know King exists, and I’d like to keep it that way. Some things are better left in the past, and King is the source of my biggest regrets. A girl doesn’t easily talk about the man she left behind in the worst possible way.
Goodness, but I forgot how warm it can get in South Carolina, and more than likely my morning on the beach is going to leave me red and tender, but there’s really nowhere else for me to go. Willow Cove is small on a good day, and when I spent summers here as a kid, I was always either in the bakery with Bill or on the beach with King. The bakery isn’t an option, so the beach it is.
I didn’t exactly make a plan before I came here, so I don’t have a place to stay. Nor can I easily afford a room in the Coralberry Cottages after draining my checking account to pay for the gas to make the drive from New York and rolling into town on fumes.
If Bill can’t help me, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. This journey was a Hail Mary.
It’s almost noon before King finds me watching the waves from the end of the boardwalk, and I’m genuinely surprised he actually came. With the way he glared at me—not that I can blame him—I expected to be waiting on the boardwalk until his uncle closed the bakery later this afternoon.
King rests his elbows on the railing about a foot from me without a word, his eyes on the ocean and his jaw tight. And wow, does he have a jaw. The last time I saw this man, he was a gangly teenager with barely a sign of facial hair, and the man next to me is…not that.
He’s still got his mop of dark hair, though he’s cut it slightly shorter on the sides so it doesn’t curl over his ears anymore, and his brown eyes are as bottomless as ever. His face isn’t as round as it used to be, full of angles and edges, and scruff lines his cheeks in a way it never did before. He looks like someone took hold of his eighteen-year-old self and, like clay, molded him into a man.
I gotta admit, they did a good job on him. I always thought he was cute, but grown-up Royal Kingston is certifiably gorgeous.
“Are you done?” he growls, glancing at me from the corner of his eye.
My face flames. “Can I talk to Bill now?”
“No.”
“I get that you’re not happy to see me, King, but I really need to talk to him.”
“Why?” He finally looks at me, turning his head to give me a full view of his face. Now that I’m seeing him in the sunlight, he looks tired. Haggard. Like he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks. “Why are you so desperate to talk to Uncle Bill?”
I know him well enough to know that he’s not going to do anything until he gets an answer; this man can be almost as stubborn as me. But I’m not used to this hardened version of him, and the truth would be a whole lot easier to admit if he was still the happy-go-lucky guy I used to know.
Taking a deep breath, I grip the strap of my purse and shift my eyes to the gentle waves as they wash in. “I need a job.” That’s greatly understating it, but it’s about all I can manage right now.
“So you came to a town of three thousand people?” He lets out a short bark of a laugh. “Smart move.”
“Bill always said there would be room for me at the bakery.”
“New York wasn’t quaint enough for you?”
A little gasp escapes me, though I shouldn’t be surprised. Bill must have told him where I ended up, and I can’t help but wonder how much King knows about my life over the last ten years. Does he know about my boyfriend dumping me on national television? I really hope not.
Frustration builds inside me, leaving me feeling buzzy and unsettled. There’s petty, and then there’s King holding a grudge for a decade.
“Look,” I say, turning to face him and hoping I can come across as confident when I feel anything but. “My job in New York took a turn I wasn’t equipped to take, and I always loved my summers at Kingston’s. Willow Cove felt like a good place to land until I figure out what my next move is.”
“Temporary,” he mutters and stands up straight so he can put his hands in his pockets. The gesture makes his arms look enormous and accentuates his broad chest. “Look, Georgie, I don’t know what you were hoping to find on this little adventure of yours, but you and I both know you’re not meant for a place like this.”
There’s a lot of undercurrent in his words, things he probably won’t say out loud even though he likely wants to.
I sigh. “I don’t have a lot of choices right now, King.” Or any choices, really. I just spent the last two weeks trying to find a place for me that wasn’t bottom rung, and I came up empty. Turns out, when you’re tossed out of a successful company without warning, people tend to assume the worst of you. “Can I please just explain things to Bill?”
Clenching his jaw, he looks down the boardwalk, which has slowly started to fill with more people. It’s not quite summer, so Willow Cove isn’t swarming with tourists yet, but it will be. And soon. Bill will need all the help he can get.
“You can’t talk to Bill,” he says slowly.
My face heats again, this time with anger. “Seriously? You can’t just—”
“He died, Georgie. Two months ago.”
All of my fight leaves in a whoosh of air, leaving me dizzy enough that I have to grip the boardwalk railing. “What? He’s gone?” Disbelief shoots through me as I try to understand. Bill wasn’t even that old, and he was always so lively. Getting up early in the morning to bake, spending the afternoons out in the surf, going for runs in the evenings… He can’t be gone. He was a staple of this town and one of my most favorite people in the world, which suddenly feels a lot less bright.
What am I going to do now? He was the first person who made me believe I could forge my own path in life instead of accepting whatever plan others expected of me. He made me feel strong and confident and brave.
I need his pride in me more than ever right now, but all I have now is sorrow knowing I’ll never get the chance to talk to him again or even thank him again for looking out for me all these years. His phone calls over the years were sometimes the only thing that kept me going.
With a little grunt, King turns and starts heading back down the boardwalk.
“Wait,” I gasp, “where are you going?” He can’t drop something like that on me and walk away! It’s hard enough to process Bill being gone, but King’s uncle was my only chance at taking the next step in my career unless I want to start back at the beginning. I don’t know if I have another ten years in me just to get back to a point where I can be proud of something I’ve built with my own talents.
King doesn’t look back. “I’m going to work, Georgie. Some of us have jobs.”
“But you’re going in the wrong direction.” The bakery is the other way.
Though he glances back, he doesn’t say anything else as he continues down the wooden walkway that makes up Coral Berry Boardwalk. It’s the biggest tourist destination in Willow Cove outside of the many islands off the coast that can be explored by boat or floatplane. The boardwalk looks so familiar but so different at the same time, and my brain is having a hard time reconciling the Willow Cove of ten years ago with the one I’m in now. I think a part of me expected it to be the same as it was when I left.
Taking a set of stairs down to the beach, King doesn’t stop walking until he hits the old surf shop where he used to work. Only, it’s not so old now. As I approach, everything looks like it’s only a few years old instead of falling apart. It’s actually a warm and welcoming place—King always thought that about the old shack as well. He always said the surf shack was his second home, a place where people could be brave and become something they’d never been before. A sentiment he learned from Bill.
“I can’t believe you still work here,” I breathe, watching him open the big window and prop the double doors open to let the breeze in. “Old Man Skewer must be eighty years old by now.”
