Chapter 14
THEO
I’d never been to a bachelorette party before.
It was, to my surprise, not the worst thing that’d ever happened to me so far.
If nothing else, the foot massage part of the mani-pedi portion of the day had been amazing.
I hadn’t realized how much feet could hurt, let alone how much mine did, until a Russian woman in her seventies had pressed her thumbs so deep into the arch that the feeling of the knot giving way had been, I was fairly sure, the kind of sensation people meant by religious experience.
Zlata was my new best friend. We’d talked about all her favorite romance novels, some of which were also my favorites and a few of which I’d put on my Tbr list while we’d been talking. She’d been impressed with that and offered to introduce me to her grandson, who was a civil engineer.
I’d told her about Simon. Really told her, the whole truth about how I felt about him. I’d only done that once before, and last time I’d been crying and covered in snot. Saying aloud calmly, as though it was completely fine and normal and not potentially life-ruining, was a nice experience.
Zlata had patted me on the knee and brought me a cup of blackberry-flavored tea with approximately eight teaspoons of sugar in it. No one else, I noticed, had gotten tea.
“Color?” Zlata asked, peering at me through eyes the same steel grey as her hair. We’d progressed to the manicure portion of the experience, and my hands had never looked or felt better.
I looked down at my nails, a refusal on the tip of my tongue.
“You should do color,” Madelaine said, flopping down in the seat beside me. Her nails were an uncharacteristic neon pink.
I raised a brow. “I see you have.”
Madelaine shrugged. “This isn’t real life,” she said. “I can have a little fun.”
“What happens in Montauk,” I repeated, mostly to myself.
“We’re in Southhampton.”
My lips twitched. “That’s almost exactly what I said.”
Madelaine wrinkled her nose in confusion.
“Something Simon said to me,” I explained. “What happens in Montauk stays in Montauk.”
Madelaine’s lips twitched into a smile. “I always knew he was smart. You should take his advice.”
Zlata cleared her throat, giving me a pointed look, then glancing at my nails and the selection of polishes she’d laid out in front of me.
I’d never had my nails painted in my life.
Simon wore polish all the time, in exciting colors, and I’d always secretly envied him for it.
There’d been one recently that shifted between midnight blue and gunmetal silver in the light that I’d been mesmerized by as I watched his hands move while he made dinner.
I’d liked the way it made his hands look.
He wasn’t wearing polish right now—he’d shown up with bare nails, neatly trimmed. Because he was trying not to embarrass me.
The thing was, Simon could never embarrass me.
As far as I was concerned, he was perfect and everyone else was wrong.
I didn’t want him to wear sensible suits and contact lenses.
I didn’t want him to tone himself down. If anything, I wished I was more like him.
He was comfortable in his own skin in ways I couldn’t imagine being.
I glanced at Madelaine’s bright pink nails, then at the selection of polishes in front of me again.
This isn’t real life.
What happens in Montauk.
“Have you got anything in blue?”
I found Simon sitting on the same dock he’d found me hiding on the last time we’d been here for the Fourth of July. Exactly ten years ago today.
The air was still warm from the hot day, filled with the sound of crickets—or cicadas, I didn’t know the difference—singing and the distant murmur of noise and music floating over from the house party.
The rest of the wedding guests had arrived—there were maybe fifty or sixty people here now, all of them milling around the courtyard.
The dock was just far enough from the house to be out of sight in the dark unless you knew it was there. Dad had owned a boat, at one point, but he’d never really bothered to take it out. He’d had it because everyone else had one.
That was ideal for me, because the one time I had been on a boat, I’d been horrifically seasick. If Dad had known, it would’ve been one more thing about me to be disappointed in.
Simon had his shoes and socks off and his pants rolled up to just below his knees, feet dangling in the water, lounging back and looking up at the sky.
The fireworks were due to start any minute, but for now, the skies were clear and there were twice as many stars out here as there were in the city.
Montauk was beautiful. It was a shame to hate it as much as I did.
He turned back to look at me as I approached. Even in the dark, I could see the smile he broke into, the way his shoulders relaxed. I’d never get over the way Simon looked at me. No one else had ever looked at me like that.
“I come bearing gifts,” I said, holding up the two bottles of beer I’d managed to snag from the party. I’d been surprised to see beer at all, even the local small brewery IPA stuff this was.
I’d never been a beer drinker except when I was with Simon.
“I guess I could share this exclusive spot with you,” Simon said, smile widening into a grin and shuffling over in invitation, as though there hadn’t been enough room before. “How was your day?”
“You know,” I said as I picked my way over to him, wary of the uneven boards that hadn’t had any maintenance in at least the ten years since I’d last stepped foot here.
“Honestly not bad. We had a spa day. For fifteen minutes while I was covered in mud from my neck to my feet, I felt genuinely relaxed.”
I passed Simon one of the bottles and sat down cross-legged beside him. Not quite touching, but close enough to feel the warmth of his body.
“Yeah?” Simon asked.
“Yeah,” I said, offering him my hand for inspection. The polish looked black in the dark, but I wanted him to see I’d done it at all.
“Oh, wow,” he said, taking my hand to inspect the nails. “Never seen you with polish on before.”
I shrugged. “A wise man once told me that what happens in Montauk stays in Montauk.”
Simon laughed. “Well, I like it on you. Black’s your color.”
“It’s not black,” I said. “It’s navy blue. To match the wedding suit.”
“Wedding suit?” Simon asked, his beer hissing as he cracked it open.
Right. I’d never gotten to tell him.
“That’s what Mom wanted me for yesterday, while you were helping Delilah,” I said. “Other than to tell me Corey was going to ask you to be his best man. I’m not allowed to wear black to the wedding. She presented me with a suit. Made me try it on in case it needed adjusting. It’s navy.”
Simon sighed, shoulders heaving with it. “I wish she’d leave you alone for one fucking minute. Black is a normal color to wear at weddings.”
“Since when is normal a word that applies to my family?”
Simon’s lips quirked into a smile, but pulled down a second later.
“Never,” he allowed. “I just wish they could be normal about you for one second. You’re not even particularly weird.
I mean, if you were actually a strange person, if you were doing something out there, like…
I don’t know, running a yoga retreat for goats in Sacramento, or something, I could see why they might have a little trouble understanding you.
But you could not be more normal. I’m so much weirder than you and my parents think it’s great. ”
I twisted the cap off my own beer and took a sip. The label had promised me pineapple, but all I could taste was the bitterness and the carbonation.
“Your parents are great,” I said, licking my lips.
“They love you,” Simon said. “If adult adoption was a thing, we’d be brothers by now.”
I snorted.
“Seriously,” he said. “Whenever I talk to them, they ask about you. Whenever I tell them what you’re doing, they’re impressed. They talk about you like you’re their other kid.”
That, I believed. Simon’s mom had told me once she’d wanted more kids—it’d just never happened for them.
My mom, if anything, wanted less. Ideally starting with her middle child.
“Thanks.”
“You don’t have to thank me for the literal truth. I’m going down to see them next weekend,” Simon added, sipping his beer again. “You could come with.”
“Maybe.” I twirled my beer bottle by the neck. “How did your day go?”
Simon barked a laugh up at the sky. “We went paintballing. Is that the verb?”
“It is now.” I shrugged. “How was that?”
Simon set his beer down, leaning back further, then tugged his shirt out of his waistband, exposing a strip of his stomach.
He said something, but I only heard the sound of his voice, too busy staring at the exposed skin, the way his body moved as he breathed. On and off all day I’d been thinking about him. About last night, and how his body had felt against mine.
I’d been pressed up against Simon like that a dozen times before—so often that curling myself around him to sleep when I was upset didn’t feel awkward at all. As a rule, I didn’t think anything of touching him. It was something I did all the time.
Now, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. My fingers twitched with the urge to reach out, to feel the warmth of him under them.
“I know,” Simon said. “I’ve never seen bruises like that, either.”
Bruises?
I got out my phone, turning on the torch and running the light over Simon’s stomach.
He was covered in bruises, from purple so deep it was practically black to greenish-yellow stains. I reached out without thinking, pushing his shirt further up to see more of them. He laughed again.
“Turns out paintballs hurt,” he said. “And that I’m not great at dodging them.”
I tore my eyes away from the kaleidoscope of bruises covering every exposed inch and disappearing into the waistband of his pants to look him in the eyes. “Corey did this?”
“Actually, he was on my team,” Simon said, dropping his shirt and sitting up straighter again. “He saved me a handful of times.”