Chapter 15 Easton
EASTON
“It’s called a photo dump,” Betty explains.
We are on the ferry, on our way to Sunset Key, and I’ve spent most of this ride thinking about how I fucked up the text to Thomas. It’s not that I really think some text about blow jobs was the way to go—Thomas would never respond to something that crass—but I should have been a little more chill.
“Hmm?” I ask Betty.
“A photo dump. That’s what we’re gonna do for you tomorrow or whenever we leave Key West. When are we leaving, Mary?”
“I’m going to hire a limo to drive me separately if I have to keep hearing this conversation,” Mrs. Cabot says tartly, “but the day after tomorrow. The shoes are delayed.”
I shoot Elijah a glance, one that says, “I can’t believe you roped me into this trip.”
“So anyway,” says Betty, “the photo dump. We’ll get a bunch of photos—some of you, Easton, and some of the view—and then you post a slide show on Instagram or turn it into a reel on TikTok and call it, you know, ‘Key West photo dump’ or ‘Three days in Key West.’ Something like that.”
“I’m not sure how that’s going to make him jealous,” I tell her.
“If the picture is of you, then he knows someone else is taking that photo, right?” Betty asks.
Elijah sighs. “I can post some too.”
I frown at him. “What makes you think he’d be following you? You’ve never even met.”
“Easton, if the woman I loved was moving on with someone else,” he replies, “I assure you, I’d be spying on his shit as much as I would be hers. Tag me in your photos and I guarantee he’ll go check.”
He clearly speaks from experience. There’s something sour at the back of my throat.
Who was the girl you cared about that much, Elijah, and how is she better than me?
“I can trace my family’s lineage back to the Mayflower and Christopher Columbus,” says Mrs. Cabot, scowling. “I shudder to think what they’d say if they could see where I’ve ended up.”
I roll my eyes. “They’d probably be too excited about phones and cars and basic hygiene to notice you at all. Plus, they’d be busy burning all the witches.” I shoot Mrs. Cabot a pointed smile to make sure she knows the witch I have in mind.
We arrive at Sunset Key and walk along the wooden boardwalk to the restaurant. Betty appears to have covered every detail. She’s reserved a table under the covered porch, next to the railing. A bottle of champagne is already chilling there.
She tells everyone where they are sitting—I’m perfectly positioned with the view behind me, though I’d prefer to actually see it. Elijah’s beside me, Betty is across the table and Mrs. Cabot is so ticked off that I’d worry about what she was going to say except...what’s left?
“You look like a professional model!” Betty cries, snapping a photo.
“She’s got enough makeup on to be a professional model, that’s for sure,” says Mrs. Cabot.
I guess she had something left in the tank after all.
Betty insists on taking pictures of me from a variety of angles.
I’m looking out over the water, then raising a champagne flute to my lips, though I don’t even like champagne.
She catches me laughing at something Elijah’s said and photographs that too, then she forces me and Elijah to stand side by side, looking across the water toward Key West.
“You know I’m never using these photos,” I whisper.
He smirks. “Because my grandmother says you’re not as pretty as you think you are?”
“No, because someone in the comments might say, ‘he looks like a guy who still lives with his mom.’”
He laughs just as Betty claps her hands together. “Okay, now turn and face each other.”
Oh God.
I turn and so does he. Standing this close, reluctantly meeting his gaze, strips the situation of any amusement it held. “Now push her hair back around her ear.”
“Betty thinks she’s directing Pride and Prejudice,” he mutters.
My quiet laugh is cut short by his index finger, tracing my cheekbone to tuck my hair back. He’s only doing what he was told, but there’s something in his gaze...something that was there years ago, just before his lips lowered to mine. I know it’s all fake, but my heart gallops in my chest anyway.
I am the stupidest smart girl alive.
We retake our seats just as the entrees come out. Fortunately, I’ve got my appetite back. We eat crab claws and scalloped potatoes and Key lime pie.
“You eat like someone who’s never had a good meal,” says Mrs. Cabot, looking at my cleared pie plate with disdain.
“Watch it,” Elijah growls in a voice I’ve only heard him use around guys who were bothering me and Kelsey. “I’ve had about enough.”
Mrs. Cabot gets her back up. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I know Easton hasn’t had the same opportunities to travel and eat in nice restaurants as the rest of us.”
“You know far less than you think you do,” he replies. “She was just at an embassy dinner a month ago and seated next to a prince in Luxembourg at a gala last winter. She knows more about fine dining than the rest of us combined.”
It shuts all of us up. Especially me.
I never told Kelsey about the prince, or the embassy dinner. Nor, come to think of it, did I ever mention Istanbul or Dubai. I’ve never posted about them either.
But Thomas did.
Huh.