Loving Reese (Tremont Lodge Series Book 2) Read Free Page A

Lawson slept with her and sent Finn a text showing as much.
    My stomach aches, and my head is pounding. Nothing at Tremont Lodge makes any sense. But has it ever? I turn toward the dormitory and walk back to my room, away from the lawn, the music slowing dying away like my hopes for a normal future.
     
    Tinley is applying a fresh coat of makeup when I get back to the room. She’s wearing a large towel wrapped around her body and flip flops with rhinestones that match her bright blue toenail polish. “Hey, you’re back early! Yeah! I get to play dress up with my favorite Barbie doll one more time.”
    “I’m not going anywhere, Tinley,” I say, tossing my purse on the bed and flopping down in the tangled heap of blankets.
    “Yes, you are. You promised!” She throws down her mascara wand and starts rummaging through a packed suitcase. “Here. Wear this. You look good in green. It goes well with your dark hair.” A green strapless sundress lands next to me on the bed, but I push it away. “Hey! That dress is from Dolce & Gabbana. You might as well take a wad of hundred dollar bills and rip them up the way you treat high fashion.”
    I bat at my eyes which are filling with tears and walk past Tinley toward the bathroom, but she stops me by pulling on the back of my navy blue skirt. “Cut it out!” I yell just a little too loudly.
    “What’s the matter, Reese?”
    The dam in my eyes breaks open and a fresh cascade of tears falls out. “That bride who’s getting married on Sunday…she’s…she’s Finn’s Samantha. ”
    “His ex? Okay, that’s weird, I guess. But she’s marrying someone else, you imbecile. What difference does it make to you that she’s here?”
    “Because I caught Finn and her hugging, and he dedicated a song to her— Wouldn’t It Be Nice— by the Beach Boys.” Tinley hands me a tissue from her dresser. I take it and blow my nose.
    “I don’t get it,” she says.
    “It’s a song about wishing you were old enough to marry.”
    “Yeah, she’s getting married—in two days. We covered that already. Geesh, you are so dense for being a Midwestern girl.”
    “No, it’s about him wishing they’d been older so they could be married, I mean, not now, but that’s how he felt then which means he must still wish that now and….”
    “Shut up. Just shut up. Look at yourself.” Tinley puts her hands on my shoulders and turns me toward the mirror. Mascara streams down my face. My eyes are puffy, and my navy camisole is stained with grape jelly from the sandwich I downed on my lunch break today. Nobody even told me. Nobody wants me to succeed. Why do I even give a damn?
    “Yep, I’m a loser. Thanks for pointing that out,” I say as I stare at my reflection, wishing I was getting ready to go back to Michigan State University instead of pretending I could run some old ski lodge in the forests of the upper peninsula of northern Michigan.
    “Put that on,” says Tinley, pointing at the dress on the bed. “Wash your face. Reapply your makeup. Go red for the lips. Wear those sexy black wedge sandals you own. Heaven knows they are the only shoes you have worth keeping. And get your ass outside. You march to that stage, grab hold of your guy, and show him what he means to you. I promise you have misread that little show with Samantha. All that girl has on her mind is whether or not that torrential storm they’re predicting is going to blow her ceremony inside. She does not care about an ex-summer fling.” She hugs me to soften her biting orders, and it provides all the courage I need to follow through with her directives.
    When I am dressed, I survey myself in the mirror again. It’s hard to make a strapless push up bra work its magic, but I think it does a pretty good job in Tinley’s froo-froo designer dress. I pin up one side of my hair and spritz Happy perfume behind my neck because that’s my sweet spot—and Finn knows it.
    “You look great, Reese,” says Tinley. “Meet Murphy