Court seemed to like that idea. “Yeah, maybe your smart eggs rejected his loser sperm.” I smiled and shook my head at her. “Or,” she continued, “that skank-ho cheated on him and got pregnant, and he just realized that’s what likely happened.”

“That’s also possible,” I agreed as we walked arm-in-arm to her car. “Either way,” I told her, “I’m glad to be free of the whole situation.”

Court was quiet for a moment before saying, “Yes, I bet they aren’t going to have a very good evening.” We both chuckled when she added, “Sometimes karma is a total bitch.”

22

After we got home, I went right up to my room, exhausted and intending to turn in early. The shopping excursion had completely worn me out. Almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, my phone buzzed, indicating that I had a text. I glanced at the screen and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was from Sam. Okay, pleasantly surprised didn’t quite fit. Giddy was probably a more appropriate description.

“I miss you.” I stared at the wonderful words on the screen.

“I miss you too.” I typed the words hastily and sent them off. Then I typed, “Soooo much” and sent it.

It wasn’t long before my phone buzzed with another message. “Can we just agree to disagree on the town development?”

I stared at his question. Even his word choice, ‘town development,’ implied that he intended to move forward with the changes to Harbor Shores. He was planning to tear down the quaint, historical buildings that I had grown to love in my years here, only to replace them with condos and slick, modern storefronts. I wanted to let it go and tell him that I needed to see him, but the people and businesses in this town were just too important to me to ignore their future.

My response to him was, “By agree to disagree, you mean for me to sit idly by while you move forward with your plans as scheduled?” I had used a question mark, even though it was rhetorical. I already knew that was exactly what he meant.

At least he didn’t try to fib his way out of it. “Yeah, I was kind of hoping so.” He ended it with a silly smiley face emoticon, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at his blatant honesty.

I typed, “I don’t think I can do that.”

It seemed to take an eternity for him to respond, and I felt like I was sitting on pins and needles the whole time. When my phone finally buzzed, it read, “I don’t want to live without you.” I sat there in shock for a moment. Was he drawing a line in the sand? Would our relationship be over if I couldn’t accept the changes he planned to make to Harbor Shores?