Chapter Nineteen
CHAPTER NINETEEN
As more guests arrive in the sun-drenched backyard, the chefs begin serving their appetizers: grilled bread with melted garlic butter, roasted oysters, fiery salsa and handmade tortillas, tiny cups of balled fruit. A bartender from Agricole I know only as Weird Stanley sets up a booth in one corner of the yard, pouring bags of frosty ice into giant metal tubs. He produces a piece of card stock, which he folds in half and displays on his card-table-turned-bar: Drink Specials. All of which are vampire themed.
In the other direction, Camila and David are whispering to each other by the fence line. I can’t see her face, but David looks like he’s absorbing her stress, hands running up and down her arms. He pulls her against his chest, settling the crown of her head there.
A bright splash of envy hits me, seeing them like that.
I’ve been fine on my own since my last breakup. I haven’t even wanted to date. Why am I suddenly wishing I had somebody to hold me upright like that? Somebody to whisper with in the corner at a party?
Giovanna materializes beside me. “You fixed yourself up,” she notes.
After Will left the guest bedroom, I did some light makeup and braided my hair.
Plus, deodorant.
And some perfume.
And a pair of Cami’s earrings.
I turn to Gio. “Do you think Camila’s been acting weird lately?”
She gives me a cynical look. “I think you’ve been acting weird lately.”
I ignore this. “She hasn’t said anything to you?”
“About what ?” Gio asks, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Nothing,” I grumble.
“Are you guys in a work fight?”
“Not that I know of.”
Though now my memories are retooling themselves into something more sinister. Is my frame of reference too narrow? Maybe it isn’t a recent problem driving Camila to leave Revenant. What if it’s something that’s been building inside her for years?
“Do you want me to ask her if something’s up?” Gio offers.
“Please do not.”
She groans, rubbing a hand over her forehead. Giovanna has always been a no-nonsense, cut-to-the-chase type of person, just like Camila. Neither of them hides the way they’re feeling, and neither keeps secrets. I wish I could say they’ve rubbed off on me, but I’m just as meek and insecure with my friendships as I’ve always been.
Gio has just opened her mouth—no doubt to urge me to just talk to Cami about it —when two of Cami’s sisters grab us by our shoulders and pull us into a group hug, squealing.
“Reunion!” Patricia shouts before sprinting away to find Camila.
“Garlic forever!” Jane chimes in, thrusting a handle of Patrón in the air.
She pours some of the liquor into the plastic shot glass hanging from her necklace. “For you, our fearless leader.”
“Can I start with a beer?” I ask, backing away.
“No.”
“There are children present,” I protest.
“It’s not cocaine, J!” Jane argues. She detaches the shot glass from the necklace and hands it to me, her face pleading.
I give in, grabbing the glass and pouring tequila over my tongue in one smooth motion. My eyes squeeze shut as I swallow.
When they open, Will Grant is standing before me, offering a lime wedge. No clue where he got it, or how he did it so quickly. I accept it wordlessly, biting into the acidic pulp as my reflexes calm down.
“ Hellooooo there,” Jane says, grinning ear to ear. She fiddles with her bangs.
“Hi,” Will replies, his voice deep and warm.
I examine him with fresh eyes. In the early evening light, his hair reminds me of sun-bleached wood. When he smiles down at Jane—who is almost a foot shorter than him—he’s giving her the same smile he gave Eugenia. Almost like Will is imbibing Jane’s intention and serving it right back to her, exactly the way she wants it.
“This is Will Grant,” I say as I wipe my thumb over my mouth to catch a bit of lime juice. “Will, this is Giovanna, my friend from college, and Jane, Camila’s little sister. Will is the one who got us that last-minute reservation at Andalo.”
Jane gasps. “That was you ?”
She’s enraptured by him, but when I look at Gio, she shoots me a curious look.
“How do you two know each other?” Gio asks.
“Work,” I supply.
Her eyes narrow into slits.
“Would you like a shot, Will Grant?” Jane pinches the plastic glass out of my hands and squints up at him against the blasting Texas sun.
“I’d like a beer, actually, but thank you for the offer.”
Jane pouts and loops her arm through Giovanna’s. “Let’s go bother Cami,” she suggests.
Gio shoots me one final look before they waltz off.
The backyard is flooded with bodies now. Already, one of the chefs is pulling wilted spinach off a cast iron griddle, plating it on a serving dish, dressing the greens up with fried garlic chips shaped like half-moons and a dollop of crème fra?che.
Will looks around. “Nothing like this would ever happen in New York. I mean that in the best way I could possibly mean it. And if someone even attempted it, it would be far more pretentious. In the worst way I could mean it.”
“Clearly you haven’t met David’s pretentious salsa friends.”
When I turn to Will, he’s looking back at me with mischief, flecks of silver in his irises in this lighting. The color is kaleidoscopic. Idly, I wonder what I’d name the color, where it would fit in the shade options of the clothing we sell. Lapis blue. Aegean blue. Arctic blue.
“So you and Brooks are hanging out?” I ask softly.
“Let me introduce you,” he replies, just as soft.
“Hang on, I just quickly need to chew on some raw garlic first.”
“That’s only going to repel the toddler, not me or Brooks.”
He draws me over to a shady corner of the yard, where the red-haired man and his child are lounging on a towel. Their beagle’s leash has been looped around the ash tree. It’s panting happily, resting two adorable front paws in a plastic bowl of water.
“This is Brooks,” Will says. “Brooks, Josie.”
Brooks has brown eyes and freckles all over. His red beard is neatly groomed but objectively wiry, and despite the knowledge that he’s the same age as Will, I can see some color fading from his hair, almost blurring out. When our gazes meet, he aims me a lopsided grin.
“Yeah, I’ve seen you around at the restaurant with Camila. So you’re the girl.”
“So you’re the friend,” I say. My cheeks warm when I mentally revisit what Brooks witnessed in the kitchen thirty minutes ago. “Who’s this?” I nod at the toddler.
Brooks glances over his shoulder at the little boy in a blue-and-purple-striped T-shirt and very small khaki shorts. He’s got his lower lip sucked between his teeth, messing with rainbow blocks on a stacking toy. Already the heat is getting to him; his cheeks are rosy.
“That’s Marshall. I know what you’re thinking.”
My lips quirk. “What am I thinking?”
“A toddler named Marshall?!” Brooks shrugs. “It was my ex-wife’s suggestion. I call him Marsh most of the time.”
“Sit down, if you want,” Will says. “I’ll get you a beer. Or—” He hesitates, and as I sit down, my eyes track up to his brows, which are furrowing in my direction. “Do you like beer?”
“I love beer,” I say. “What happened to the six-pack you brought?”
“It was collected by someone named Weird Stanley,” Will says.
“Rookie mistake,” I say.
Will’s lips curve. “Be right back.”
He vanishes. I turn my attention to Brooks and little Marshall. It’s sort of astounding, the fact that he’s old enough to have a child, an ex-wife, and a few gray hairs. Then again, I’m old enough to be a CEO. Not according to half of Reddit but, like, legally.
“How long have you and Will been friends?” I ask.
“Since middle school,” Brooks says. “But we didn’t keep in touch after he went to college and worked on Wall Street.”
Brooks refills his beagle’s water bowl, which the beagle had, seconds earlier, nosed over.
“What’s your dog’s name?”
“Ernie.”
“Hewwo, Ernie.” I give him a scratch between the ears. “I want a dog.”
“They’re a big responsibility,” Brooks warns me, like he knows I don’t have the time.
“Yeah,” I agree sadly. “Toddlers, too, I bet.”
Brooks screws on the lid of his water bottle, tosses it into a diaper bag, and reclines onto both palms. He surveys me one more time, his focus lingering on my T-shirt, which proudly reads DEVILED EGGS AND KEEP THEM COMING.
“How come you don’t want to be attracted to Will?” he asks. “And vice versa?”
I guess I respect his straightforwardness.
“Because it would just be a lot cleaner if we had a platonic relationship,” I answer.
“You should dye your hair brunette. He’s always been into blonds.”
“Like, in a shallow way?” I ask somewhat hopefully.
Am I so desperate to find Will Grant unappealing I’m willing to reduce him to shallowness—the very same thing I got mad he reduced me to when we were seventeen?
“No, in an attracted-to-blonds way,” Brooks says. “Why, are you shallow?”
“Depends on your definition of the word.”
“No depth,” he deadpans.
“I can be a little obsessive about the way I look,” I admit. “So yeah, I guess so.”
He chews on his lip. “I think it’s pretty bullshit we tell women who are obsessed with the way they look that they’re shallow, instead of recognizing that it’s body dysmorphic disorder and cultivating a society that doesn’t uphold unrealistic beauty standards.”
My mouth drops open as Will reappears. “Getting to know each other?” He tosses a can to Brooks, who catches it with one hand, then holds it up to me in a cheers gesture.
“Oh yeah,” Brooks says.
Will collapses onto the spot of free towel beside me. He slips two stacked plastic cups that say Take Your Cloves Off between his teeth and cracks open a can of beer. It’s something local, with dark-purple branding. Not the same thing he brought, but we’re all collectivists for the evening. I watch greedily as he drops the cups hanging from his lips into his free hand, and then as the amber liquid from the can spills into the top cup.
So far, wiping out my attraction to him is going horribly.
I clear my throat and ask, “You guys reconnected after the run-in at Agricole?”
Will hands me my drink. “Basically, yeah.”
“Fate,” Brooks says. “Should have known you’d come home eventually.”
“I’m not home.” Will stiffens. “You know I still live in Manhattan.”
“We’ll see,” Brooks says.
Will glances away from both of us, and my mind keeps spinning. I guess I’m not the only person wondering if he’s considering a life change.
He finishes pouring the other can of beer into the second cup and stretches his legs out, leans his torso against the tree trunk, and takes his first sip.
“That child’s mother,” he says, nodding at Marshall, “is my high school sweetheart.”
“You really had to go there,” Brooks grumbles.
“Your ex-wife?” I ask.
“The very same,” Brooks says.
“The infamous Amber,” I say.
“Yup,” the guys say together.
Will grins. “I wasn’t even invited to their wedding.”
“You’ll be there for my next one,” Brooks promises.
“How come it didn’t work out?” I ask.
“Amber gave an over-the-pants hand job to another line cook at the restaurant. I found out through LinkedIn.”
I blink. “Does the line cook still work with you?”
“Yeah. He’s the dessert guy now.”
“Is he here ?” I ask.
Brooks nods. “Yeah, he’s the one doing the desserts.”
“Are they together now ?”
“No, she’s dating an Apple VP.”
“That’s rough.”
He shrugs. “Not really. Me and Marsh get all our technology for free.”
A shadow crosses my vision and I turn left, where Josue—one of David’s close friends, also in the wedding party—kneels beside our towel.
“Do me a favor, J, can you taste this garlic dressing for the Caesar salad and tell me if you think it needs more salt?”
I grab the plastic spoon from the blender in his hand and give the dressing a lick. “Needs more garlic.”
“It does not need more garlic.”
“Then it needs more salt.”
“Like, an anchovy saltiness, or a salty saltiness?” he asks.
I blanch. “There are anchovies in here?”
Josue nods.
I turn to Will. “This is why I’m always aspiring.”
“Never vegetarian,” he concludes.
“Do you need help with anything?” Brooks asks.
“Yeah, that’d be great, unless you’re above peeling and deveining shrimp?”
“I’m above nothing.” Brooks downs his beer. “Can you watch my kid, Will?”
Will looks wholly unsure. “Sure,” he says.
Five seconds later, they’ve abandoned Will and me with a helpless child. We exchange equally terrified glances. I’m almost positive neither of us has much experience with childcare.
Marshall seems spatially aware there’s more room now to move around on the towel; he crawls over to Will, patting his knee. Will lifts the kid onto his leg, rocking him up and down gently while he somehow still manages to sip at the beer in his free hand.
Under the shade of the tree, in the Austin heat, wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a tear on the sleeve, drinking a beer and bouncing a baby on his knee, this man could not look any further from a sleazy finance type if he tried.
My sexual drive is fully driving. I glance around the yard, looking for a friend-slash-excuse-to-abandon-ship before my want multiplies. But Cami is a no-go after our blowup, and if I search for Gio, she’ll only force me to talk to Cami.
And anyway, it would be rude to leave Will alone with a toddler, especially considering I did agree to his deal that we’d be amicable for the evening.
I look back and study him over the lip of my cup while I sip. The ambient noise around us dims. It feels like all the light in the yard is pointing this way, offering him a radiant sunglow.
“Why aren’t you and your brother close?” Will asks.
I consider my answer to his left-field question before responding.
“Robbie’s a very traditional, buttoned-up, straight-and-narrow type. He had a plan for his life he executed flawlessly. Met a nice girl in college, proposed senior year, and then impregnated her with their firstborn seven years before she becomes geriatric by the medical standard. Another kid two years after that, another one three years after that. Which means Robbie and Miranda are scheduled to be intimate again in about eight months.”
Will fights a smile. “What does Robbie do?”
“Insurance.”
His fight with the smile continues. “So, he’s a low risk, low reward guy.”
“One thousand percent. My mom likes to trade stocks,” I say, taking another swallow of beer. I lean my body toward Will, shifting my weight onto a palm. Marshall has settled against Will’s chest, his eyes half-closed. “She’s a part of the Reddit set and everything. My dad begrudgingly endures it, but Robbie and my mom fight about it every chance they get.”
“Let me guess,” Will says. “ Robbie thinks if she’s going to invest, it should be in a ten-year bond or a treasury bill.”
“You got it.”
“Your mom sounds awesome,” he murmurs.
I laugh at that. “She is awesome. You know the type of helicopter parent who puts all their worth into their children, and then doesn’t know what their purpose is once the children stop needing them? That was my mom. She never worked, never had hobbies, really, until after I went to college. She and my dad used to be more traditional than they are now, but I love the people they’ve become.”
Will nods, rocking his head against the tree.
“Do you think that’s why you started your own company?” His voice is soft and almost careful, but his eyes are piercing. “Because you didn’t want to ever wonder about your purpose?”
“Definitely.” I remember what I told him at Eberly: I want my existence to be meaningful.
“Is it fulfilling?” Will asks.
I startle. “What?”
“Your job.”
“Yes” is my automatic response.
Will sees right through me. “Give me the real answer, Josephine.”
I tug my bottom lip between my teeth. “I suppose the real answer is my job gives me more anxiety than fulfillment these days.”
What I don’t admit is sometimes, I wish I could give it all up. Trade my lifestyle for a different one. And yet, every day, I wake up and decide not to sell Revenant. I decide not to give up the CEO position. Even though I could at any given point.
And maybe that’s because—just like my mother—I don’t want something I created to stop needing me.
The way he’s watching me is new. Most of the time, Will has furrowed brows, his eyes hungry as they rove my face, the position of his body arched toward mine. But now, Will’s body is relaxed, his eyes calm. His features have arranged into a smooth understanding, like he’s temporarily stopped trying to work me out because I gave him the answer myself.
Beyond us, smoke is lifting off the grills, the smell of charcoal fragrant. The side of my face is catching the brunt of the sun as it falls into the tree line. The colors of the light are changing, painting Will’s hair an almost red sheen.
“Do you ever wish you were doing some other job?” he asks.
“Never,” I admit, just above a whisper, like it’s a confession. “But sometimes I wish I was doing nothing at all.”
Little Marshall is now fully asleep against Will’s chest, his round cheeks rosy. I envy him. I envy his ability to fall asleep on another human with nothing on his mind beyond his own immediate comfort.
“What would you do, if you had nothing to do?” Will asks.
“I think I’d get a puppy,” I admit. “Some type of doodle that doesn’t shed and costs more money than a month’s rent, and sure, you can add the fact that I would want a designer dog to the list of the worst things about me, I don’t care.”
Will cracks a smile. “I’m allergic to dog hair, so that’s fine with me.”
“I would start designing again,” I say. “Nothing I’d manufacture, not this time around. They’d all be one-of-a-kind dresses or formal wear. And maybe I’d auction them off and give the proceeds to philanthropies if there was enough interest.”
“An animal shelter, to make up for your designer dog,” Will advises.
“And I would start dating again, too.” I say it on an exhale, then pause and glance at Will after the words leave me. His expression doesn’t alter, not even a fraction.
“ Who would you date?” he asks shakily.
“Somebody different from my ex-boyfriend,” I pronounce. I don’t even wait for Will to inquire; I just tell him. “He loved to play sports, watch sports, talk about sports. And he loved to plan our weekends and vacations around sports—which was fine sometimes, but there wasn’t room for anything else, for anything I wanted to do or see or visit. And I didn’t ever tell him I felt that way, so it was partially my fault. Clay was thoughtful in all the usual ways. I got flowers on Valentine’s Day and jewelry on my birthday, but he never once gave me a personal gift, something that screamed, I thought of you when I purchased this. He would tell me when he thought I looked especially pretty and ask me about my day. He was by and large a good guy.”
“But he wasn’t good for you. ”
I tip my cup back, send the rest of my beer down my throat. “We weren’t good for each other. Our relationship was too passive. It ended the exact same way it began, and I get the feeling relationships aren’t supposed to be like that. Shouldn’t they change, adapt to the growth of each individual, and also to the couple as a unit?”
Will nods his agreement. “Should be dynamic. A healthy relationship, anyway.”
“Exactly. When he got the opportunity to move, I told him to go. And I told him I needed to stay because I was building Revenant in Austin, and I didn’t even want to consider relocating. And we just… dissipated, like fog when the sun rises.”
Will watches me. “You’re saying if you had the time, you would date someone you don’t feel passive about.”
“I would date someone I’m obsessed with,” I clarify, heart in my throat.
“Someone you’d change your plans for.”
“Someone who makes every other worldly thing pale in comparison. Someone who matters to me more than the rest of it. Someone who storms into my life and turns everything upside down. Someone I can’t keep myself from.”
The sunlight halos him. Will’s eyes get bluer. I think of the rules we keep breaking. The excuses we keep making. Even this “deal” tonight is just a way to keep talking guilt-free.
Brooks reappears then with an armful of fresh beers. He sits and cracks them open for us. Will and I pass over our empty cups so he can top us off.
“Made those shrimp my bitch,” he says. “Thanks for babysitting.”
“Marshall is perfect,” I say.
“Do you want kids?” Brooks asks me. But his eyes track to Will.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I haven’t given it much thought.”
I’ve given more thought to Will as a father in the last ten minutes than to myself as a mother over the course of my whole life.
“Want to know a secret?” Brooks grins wickedly. “Right this second, Grant is imagining getting you pregnant.”
“If your spawn wasn’t asleep on me, I would end you.”