Chapter 19: The Harbor Room

Corina's POV

The Harbor Room has a banner across the front wall that said Congratulations Colby, Bachelor of Science.

Someone had hung blue balloons from every chair.

Sixty people stood in groups holding paper plates, and the air smelled of coffee and chicken salad.

I came in at six on Nate's arm, in the green dress I had bought for a coworker's wedding.

Nobody noticed us at first.

Then my aunt saw me from across the room and put her hand to her chest.

The two women from my mother's church saw me next.

One of them looked at her plate.

The other, the one who had written the second fake review, gave me a small, pinched smile and turned away to talk to someone about the weather.

"Those two," I said quietly.

"I know," Nate said. "I checked their names against the reviews myself."

"Don't."

"I'm only looking."

My father stood by the bar in his good gray suit with a glass of water in his hand.

He saw me.

He nodded once, very slightly, and did not come over.

I understood he was keeping his word.

Colby stood at the head table in a navy suit that fit him for the first time in his life.

His face was pale.

When his eyes found mine across the room, I touched my own wrist, two fingers on the pulse, and he nodded.

Keely had come in behind us at the last minute and taken a chair near the back, with her hair down and her hands folded in her lap.

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