Chapter 44 #2
"Could I interest you in a walk?" he asked. "And before you answer, I'm going to blackmail you a little by saying I saw you in the hydrangeas."
I jerked back, startled. "You realize it's not a game if you show all of your cards at the start, right?"
He shrugged, his pristine polo shirt stretching across his narrow shoulders with the movement. "It's still a game. But now everyone knows the stakes."
"Going right for the jugular, are we?"
He cringed all the way down to his toes, which I appreciated.
A man who could be shamed had a lot going for him.
"I don't know why I said that. I didn't mean blackmail.
Not really. It was a bad joke. I'm very bad at jokes.
I just meant— Well. I thought you'd want to get out of here for a little while.
Because I do." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the path to the beach at his back.
"I can promise I won't attempt any more jokes. "
I found myself smiling at him, and for the first time in days, it wasn't forced. "No extortion whatsoever?"
He put a hand over his heart. "None."
I studied him, taking in the simple but ultra-expensive, hand-crafted loafers, the silver peppered through his hair, the mobile phone peeking out of his pocket.
He was on the shorter side, coming in around five-eight.
I had a good two or three inches on him.
He was slim but nothing about him read as athletic or a gym rat.
Handsome in a non-specific, unremarkable sense.
He was a money guy because everyone here was a money guy one way or another, but he wasn't lighting up my toxicity meter.
I didn't know if it was the introverted confessions or the self-deprecating humor but it was easy to say, "Yeah. A walk would be nice."
He handed his glass to the bartender. "Might as well get this topped off before we go."
Once we were adequately refilled, we ditched our shoes at the mouth of the path and strolled along the shore. Brecken asked the standard questions—where I lived, what I did for work, how often I hid in bushes at parties—and I volleyed the same back to him.
He told me all the things he liked about the Hamptons and I told him why I was angry about the ending to a TV show I'd been following for longer than I could defend.
It amounted to nothing—and that was what made it manageable.
I didn't have to work too hard at sculpting answers into acceptable shapes and I wasn't overcome with the need to check for new messages from Jude.
All things considered, a fantastic way to kill an hour and plant the seeds that grow into an invasive weed.
As we approached the path back to my parents' property, Brecken brushed my elbow. A brief, functional touch. No tingles or belly butterflies involved. "I believe your mother intends to set us up. On a date," he added. "Or something more."
"I think you're right."
We stopped at the crest of the path, the beach stretching out into low tide on one side, the party in full swing on the other. "Would you be interested in that? In a date? Or something more?"
No way in hell was I touching that something more. "Would there be blackmail involved? Now that you've set the precedent, I have to ask."
He barked out a laugh and slipped his hands into his pockets. "No blackmail," he said. "I would like to see you again."
I crossed my arms over my chest. "You live in New York, Brecken."
He bobbed his head several times. "I do."
"And I live in Boston," I said. I'm also in the middle of a traumatic experience that might turn into a breakdown if I don't get a text back in the next few days.
"That is true. Yep." He rocked back on his heels. "But I've heard there are roads between New York and Boston now. Surfaces made specifically for driving cars. And these unbelievable new things—what are they called again? Yes, trains. Have you heard about the trains?"
"I've heard rumors of these trains." I couldn't help but laugh. "It's still a long distance for a date."
"I have your number from when you made my day by bailing on lunch," he said. "Would it be okay if I messaged you sometime?" Before I could respond, he shook his head. "No, don't answer that. I'll text you. Respond or don't, your choice."
I stared at him for a long moment, sifting through the pieces of himself he'd shared and trying to pull the strands together into something I understood.
"It's that simple for you?" I asked.
His shoulders jerked up. "If you don't want to talk to me again, I'm not going to make you. That seems like a lot of work and I don't see how it would benefit me."
"A lot of work," I agreed, a bitter tinge in my words. I wanted to believe him but I had some experience with men cut from this cloth and I knew them to become vicious little tyrants when they didn't get precisely what they wanted.
Before I could say anything else, my mother approached, calling to Brecken, "It looks like you found her after all!"
"We bumped into each other." He gave me a chin tip that I read as See? I didn't out you about the bushes. I'm clearly on your side.
My mother gushed for a few minutes about some local celebrity who'd arrived and departed all within the time we'd been on the beach, how much everyone loved the clams but the lobster was the real highlight this summer, and then someone she thought Brecken would like to meet.
He cut glances to me every so often and I could also hear him asking Are you invisible? because I might as well have been for all the attention my mother paid me.
If I'd trusted Brecken with more than the most basic bits of information about myself, I would've used words from his world and explained that I was a commodity here. Nothing more than a good to be bought and sold.
It was nice that he'd noticed, all the same. Most people didn't. Most were too busy buying and selling their own goods. Perhaps he wasn't cut from the same old cloth after all. Perhaps he was a rare exception to all of this.
"I hope you'll be staying the weekend," she said to him. "We'd love to host you again."
"I'm just here for the evening." He gestured to me like I knew what he was talking about.
"Though I was telling Audrey I'm heading up to Boston this week.
For some meetings." The leading tone in his words told me to get on board with the charade or get trampled under it. "We were just comparing schedules."
"Isn't that exciting," she drawled. "In that case, I'll get out of your way."
"Thank you. I'd appreciate the privacy," Brecken said firmly.
I tried to swallow a chuckle but I didn't pull it off. My mother frowned at that before taking her time getting back to the party. She glanced at us repeatedly, always grinning and waving, but also cataloging every detail she could find.
This was the life she wanted for me, no matter the cost. Clambakes and summer homes.
Women who were never anything more than maidens or mothers.
Men who bloodlessly controlled unimaginable sums of money.
The narrow scope of power that came with being married into it all.
To her, marriage was a vehicle for safety and stability, but it was also a stepping-stone.
Relationships were currency in this world and this place was crawling with people who'd throw plenty of it at my father if it gave them the access they craved.
It didn't matter that after leaving my ex I'd vowed to never shove myself into another empty—or outright harmful—marriage.
I couldn't imagine legally tying myself to another person.
Not after all the levels of hell I'd climbed through to end the last marriage.
Not after contending with the grief of the years I'd lost to an unhinged man.
I wasn't looking for another husband and I was comfortable with that. Save for the small, fragile hope I'd long since buried and forgotten until Jude stalked toward me at the reunion.
But now I knew we weren't meant for a second chance. He'd taken what he wanted and left me the same way I'd left him. That was clear. Two weeks with no news made it painfully obvious and it was silly of me to pretend otherwise. It was time to let go of that hope.
"Please tell me that wasn't too presumptuous," Brecken said.
My gaze drifted over his shoulders to where the sun dipped low on the horizon.
He seemed pleasant enough. He wasn't overtly craven or self-absorbed in pathological ways.
His manner was quiet, self-effacing. No name-dropping, no pointed comments about wealth or status.
He'd made a respectable effort at getting to know me, which was a nice touch, and he didn't seem like the type to get bent out of shape when I called it off.
And I knew he'd never dare to call me princess.
"I can come to Boston and we can meet up for dinner," he went on. "If that's something you'd consider."
"And if I canceled a few hours before dinner? What then?"
"I probably wouldn't mind," he said, laughing. "Though, to streamline matters for both of us, the talking point would be that we did go out and there wasn't any chemistry."
"That would be all right with you?" I peered at him. Perhaps that was why my toxicity meter hadn't pinged. "A cover story?"
The thing my mother didn't understand about her quest for safety and stability was that I'd found more of both on my own than at any point during my marriage.
That I'd found strength and learned self-reliance, and I was better for it.
That everything she'd done to buy me a secure future—and drive me far away from Jude—left me dependent on a man who cared little for whether I lived or died.
And the thing I didn't understand about my mother was how she could tolerate any of that. I supposed existing in a cage of her own made the one she chose for me all the more familiar.
The other thing my mother didn't understand was that I knew her moves now. I hadn't seen it coming when they canceled my enrollment at Barnard, packed up my life, and shoved me on a plane to Los Angeles, all while filing a bullshit restraining order against Jude.
I'd been too deep into my depression to put up a fight when they presented my ex-husband as their newest requirement of me. I knew better now—and I had some moves of my own.
Brecken shrugged. "What's the harm?"
I didn't think he was prepared for a detailed explanation of the pitfalls of fake relationships so I said, "You have my number."
And now, with my checkmate in hand for the night, I turned back toward the house.
I didn't stop when I passed my mother, who launched into an endless stream of breathless questions as she trailed me inside.
I went straight for the guest room where I'd dropped my things and made quick work of changing into jeans and a sweatshirt.
It would be chilly on the ferry back to New London.
"You're behaving like a maniac," she said as I shoved today's dress into a bag. "If you're going to have one of your episodes, will you at least do it in here? Where no one has to see?"
"I'm leaving." I shouldered the bag. I'd laugh if I stopped to consider how long I'd avoided these interactions with my mother.
How much discomfort I'd accepted in exchange for skirting a difficult conversation.
And to what end? I was full grown and supported myself, and still cowered from confrontation.
Later, I'd laugh and then I'd cry and then I'd learn how to stop betraying myself, once and for fucking all.
"No episodes. Nothing to see. I'm going home. "
"You can't just leave—"
"I think I can," I said. "I have a lot to do."
"It's a weekend evening in the middle of the summer. What could you possibly have to do that's worth embarrassing me and your father tonight?"
"Didn't you hear Brecken say he was coming to town this week?"
"Oh. Oh." She stepped away from the door. "Then, yes," she went on. "You should go and—"
"I knew you'd understand," I said, pushing past her.
I opened my messages as the ferry pushed away from the dock.
I stared at Jude's last words to me—I'm sorry—and heard them in my mind as if he was sitting here beside me.
But instead of the hurried, halting promise I thought them to be, they were solemn this time.
Final. A conclusion to a story that'd ambled on far too long.
His silence wasn't a symptom. It was proof that we'd reached the end while I was busy thinking about the things I wanted to say and never once saying them.
Maybe it would've been different if I'd let myself be brave, let myself get hurt.
If I'd stopped playing scared. If I'd acted on half the scenarios I'd rehearsed in my mind.
If I'd wrapped my arms around the risks and held them tight until they turned into the kind of emotional armor I required to finally get what I wanted. To fix this—and end it the right way.
It would've been different if I was different. But I wasn't.