The Wedding Fling by Meg Maguire Page B

flames.
    “This must just be the same-old, same-old to you.” She glanced at him suddenly, too quick for Will to pretend he hadn’t been staring.
    He cleared his throat. “I guess. But it’s the same-old because we choose to do it nearly every night. Nothing much better I can imagine.”
    He looked at his friends of the last few years, his muscles melting with the easiness of this strip of sand. “In fact...” He trailed off, afraid of sharing too much with a stranger. She’d be the first he told, which felt far too familiar, far too soon.
    She poked him with her elbow. “In fact what?”
    Impulse had the words tumbling out before Will could stop them. “I, um... I’m going to buy a place on the mainland. In just a few weeks, I hope.”
    “Oh? You’re going to move?”
    “Eventually, yeah.”
    “But you’ll still do all the flying out here?”
    He shook his head. “No. I’m going to buy this run-down old vacation home, right on the beach. Sort of a shady part of town, but I’m looking to change that a bit.”
    “How?”
    “I want to turn the place into a club.”
    “Like a bar?”
    “Nothing fancy. Like this,” he said, waving at the partygoers. “Bonfires on the beach, simple food, cold beer. Put in a patio for dancing, string twinkly lights everywhere.”
    “For locals only?”
    “Nah, for everybody. Locals, tourists, runaway brides.”
    She smiled down at her plate.
    “Just someplace to hang out. No pretense, no gimmicks.”
    “That sounds nice.”
    It did. And until last week it had seemed ages from realization, his father’s doomed dream. The property Will could nearly afford to make an offer on, but to transform it into what he envisioned... Then after renovations there was staff to hire and train, licenses to procure, and of course the endless bribes that needed tendering to get the neighborhood’s residents on his side. It’d take years on his stipend, and Will was even shorter on time than he was on cash. But with just a few innocent scraps of gossip sold to the tabloid, he’d be sitting pretty. He liked Leigh, though. He wouldn’t share anything unflattering, and no photos. Still, the proposal sat heavily in his chest now, his golden opportunity having grown sharper and rustier barbs as he’d gotten to know this woman, uncertainty punching holes in his resolve.
    “I’d like to see it sometime. Your club.” Leigh’s voice was airy, as though she was far away or half-asleep.
    “It’s not much to look at. Not yet. Just a tumbledown ruin on the beach.”
    “Do you ever visit it, and sit there and daydream, imagining what it’ll be like? Like, ‘hang a hammock between those two trees, a bar along there for people to set their drinks on’?”
    Will felt himself blush, an unfamiliar sensation. “Yeah, I’ve done that.”
    “What will you call it?”
    “Billy’s.”
    “Is that your nickname?”
    “No, it’s my dad’s.”
    “Oh. You guys are close?”
    “We are. Close as you can be, living that far apart. He’s been pretty sick, the last year or so.”
    “Oh, no. Like, cancer, or...?”
    Will shook his head. “Armed robbery in his cab, shot in the stomach.”
    Leigh’s hand flew to her lips. “Oh, my God.”
    “Three months before he’d planned to retire.” All those years’ careful savings, gone in a flash of gunfire. Will felt anger boiling in his gut, but kept his voice steady. “He was stuck in the hospital with infections for ages, and Jesus, it took a toll. He’s sixty-two, but the last time I was home he looked about a hundred. I can shell out to see him and forfeit a week’s pay here, or keep working and keep our necks above water on the medical bills.”
    A warm palm alighted on Will’s knee, drawing him from his thoughts and back into his body.
    “That sounds like an awful choice. I’m sorry.”
    He stared down at his hands. “Fingers crossed this unexpected gig I got offered will pan out, and solve some of those problems.”
    “Fingers