Read Online Love You to Death by Melissa Senate - Free Book Online Page A

beautiful. The lights shone on the dark water, and the boats bobbed. I stood at the base of the pier, squinting down the length of it. There wasn’t much to see. There was some yellow tape. That was all.

    “Abby!” came Shelley’s voice from up the block. She waved and jogged over, her wild brown curls bouncing all over the place in the wind. “It’s so cold,” she said, rubbing her gloved hands together. “And it must have been this cold last night. So what was he doing out here?”

    I shrugged. “That’s what I’ve been wondering. Maybe he was involved in something illegal. Why else would he be hanging around the edge of a pier in the dead of winter? He must have been meeting someone.”

    Shelley nodded. “Whatever it was, the police will figure it out. So don’t worry about all their questions, okay? They’re just doing their job.”

    “I can’t believe he’s really…gone,” I said, staring down the pier. “Jerk or no jerk, he was so full of life, with grandiose plans. It’s so hard to believe that he’s just no more, just like that.”

    “You really loved him, didn’t you?” Shelley said, slipping her hand through my arm.

    I nodded.

    “You know what drove me nuts?” I said. “That Mary-Kate looked so much like me. If he was going to pick someone to cheat on me with, to fall madly in love with, couldn’t he have picked a tall blonde or a redhead? If he was going to pick a woman who was practically my double, why not just stick with me in the first place?”

    Shelley nodded in commiseration.

    “Eh, that’s stupid,” I said. “Lust and love are about chemistry. Not a checklist, like long brown hair and big boobs. He fell for her, plain and simple, because of who she was.”

    “Don’t excuse what he did,” Shelley said. “Yeah, he fell for someone else. But the way he handled it was absolutely disgusting. He was a pig, Abby. But you’re right. He fell for her because of who she was—a slutty, cheating pig! I mean, who goes to someone’s party and gives that someone’s boyfriend a blow job on that someone’s bed?” She shook her head. “If I hadn’t been there, Abs, I don’t even think I would have believed it.”

    “Yeah, you and the forty people at my party,” I said. “Anyway, I’m glad Baxter wasn’t there that night. At least there are a few people who don’t know the story, weren’t there to witness my utter humiliation with their own eyes.”

    She glanced at me sheepishly. “Uh, I did sort of tell him about it. I’m sorry.”

    “It’s okay. That’s what a boyfriend is for, right? Speaking of which, I really appreciate that you canceled your plans. Not many women do that.”

    “I never want to be one of those women,” she said. “Baxter would like me to be, but I can’t. He’d cancel on me in a second if a friend needed him, but he really wants me to always be available for him. He wants me to move in, but I don’t know. If we’re going to live together, why not just get engaged? And if we’re just going to sit around and watch TV, why bother at all?” She gnawed her lip. “I don’t know what I want.”

    “What does Baxter want?” I asked.

    “He says he loves me like crazy but wants to wait until he’s at least into his residency before getting engaged. He wants to give me a huge wedding. And since my parents are gone, he’d have to pay for it.” She took a deep breath, as she always did when talking about her mom and dad. They’d been killed in an accident almost five years ago.

    When my dad died three years ago, soon after I started at Maine Life, Shelley was the only coworker who came to the funeral. She sent a beautiful card, f lowers, even homemade lasagna, her specialty. We’d been close friends ever since. Our dads were buried in the same cemetery, and we often went to visit their graves together.

    “Well, I’m never going to have a relationship last long enough for moving in,” I said. “Six months was my longest