Chapter 20
THEO
“So,” Madelaine said as she perched in the empty space Simon had left beside me, a mug of black coffee clasped between her hands. “I hear rumors about last night.”
I licked the last of the croissant crumbs off my fingers to give myself time to process that.
“Delilah’s complaining to everyone who’ll listen to her that you woke her up having sex with Simon,” Madelaine continued.
Great. I’d known she would, but some part of me had held out hope that she wouldn’t.
Simon would’ve reminded me that she wouldn’t have thought she was doing anything wrong. We were, as far as she was concerned, dating. We’d let everyone believe that. Encouraged them.
We’d also let everyone believe we’d had loud, enthusiastic make-up sex the previous night.
“Tell her I’ll get her a pair of earplugs,” I mumbled, drawing my knees up to my chest and looping my arms around them.
Madelaine snorted.
Silence fell between us for just long enough that I thought maybe she’d dropped the subject when she drew a breath to speak again.
“So I figured the night after your big fight was faked,” Madelaine said. “It sounded fake.”
“It was,” I admitted. There was no point lying about it. Madelaine wasn’t stupid, and she already knew Simon and I had been faking all of it.
Had been. Were? Was it still…
“But this morning…?”
I looked away from her, hiding my cheek against my arm so she wouldn’t see me blushing.
Unfortunately, the way she gasped suggested she didn’t need to see the blush to know it was there.
“Oh my God,” Madelaine whispered—thankfully—putting a hand on my shoulder. “For real?”
I turned my face back to her, resting the other cheek against my other arm, hugging my legs a little tighter.
When Simon had still been here, I’d been okay. Now that he wasn’t, I couldn’t stop thinking about what he was thinking, or how he might be feeling, or what he wanted or expected or didn’t want or expect.
I was scared I’d screwed everything up permanently and Simon would realize the moment I was out of his sight.
Madelaine ducked her head to look me in the eyes. I sighed, and nodded.
“Last night,” I confessed. “And this morning. Twice.”
“Wow.” Madelaine clutched her coffee again, raising it to her mouth to take a tiny sip. “At least you know he’s got stamina.”
My lips twitched despite the lead weight of anxiety in the pit of my stomach. “He’s hung, too.”
Madelaine barked a laugh, giving my shoulder a playful shove. “I don’t need to know that!”
“You started this conversation,” I pointed out. “I can’t help it if he’s got a big dick.”
Madelaine burst into giggles, kicking her feet like a kid learning it was her birthday and Christmas at once. My face muscles pulled as my smile widened. It was nice to see her laugh.
“Send him my way when you’re done, then,” she said, and the smile dropped clean off my face, the weight in my stomach rolling over nauseatingly.
The way her eyes widened a second later told me she hadn’t meant that like it sounded, but she had said it. She’d said it because she knew what my romantic life looked like.
What it was, inevitably, going to look like with Simon.
“It’s just for the weekend,” I said, the words bitter on my tongue. I was stupid to even consider trying to make it last longer. Simon would realize I was too needy, that I wanted too much from him—more than he already gave me, which was more than anyone else ever had. He’d get tired of me.
It had to end when we went home.
Madelaine raised an eyebrow. “Come again?”
“What happens in Montauk.” I shrugged.
“That’s what he said?”
I shrugged again. “That’s what he said.”
Madelaine’s brows drew together. “Huh.”
“I want it too much to say no,” I confessed, pressing my nose to my knees so my voice was muffled.
“Yeah,” Madelaine agreed. We’d never talked about how I felt about Simon. She knew, though.
Everyone but Simon seemed to know. Or maybe he did know and had been politely ignoring it all this time for my sake. Maybe that was what this was. A compromise. Letting me have what I wanted for a little while without promising me a forever he knew he couldn’t give me.
That sounded like Simon, actually. He was always too generous with everyone, me worst of all. It made sense that this was more of that.
“You should talk to him,” Madelaine spoke up after another pause I’d thought meant she’d dropped the subject.
“About—”
“Madelaine, hi!” Audrey interrupted, pushing her way through the still-thick breakfast crowd. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but we have an emergency and you seemed like the best bet. I need you and your sewing kit.”
Madelaine raised an eyebrow. “Sewing… kit?”
Audrey’s face fell at Madelaine’s tone, which made it sound as though she didn’t know what either sewing or kits were. Or at least, what the two words could possibly mean in sequence. She was a surgeon, she kind of had to know what sewing was.
“No sewing kit?” Audrey asked, biting her lip. Wisps of hair had escaped from the bun she had tied at the back of her head, and I was realizing the flush to her cheeks was real, not makeup.
“I’ve got one,” I volunteered.
That wasn’t true. I’d never owned a sewing kit in my life.
Simon, though, never went anywhere without his. He kept it in an Altoids tin covered in stickers. He’d sewed a lot of buttons back on for me over the years.
He wouldn’t mind me borrowing it. He would’ve been proud of me for offering.
The worry melted off Audrey’s face, a bright, earnest smile dawning over it instead. “Really?”
She was beautiful, actually. More than that, so far she’d been nothing but sweet and charming. I’d been unfair to her.
Simon would’ve been proud of me for acknowledging that, too.
“Well, it’s Simon’s,” I confessed. “I don’t know how to sew.”
“I do,” Madelaine said, setting her coffee aside and straightening. “Kind of.”
Audrey’s smile widened. “Then I need both of you. Come on.”
Seeing Simon was always like watching the sunrise to me, but after the morning I’d had, meeting him in the temporarily deserted entryway of the house was like dawn breaking over the longest night of the year.
I didn’t speak, and I didn’t give him a chance to. Instead, I stepped right into his space, put both hands on his face, and caught his lips in a soft, slow, insistent kiss, breathing in his scent, soaking in his warmth, tasting his mouth.
“Orange?” I murmured, registering the taste on his lips with a little surprise.
“Breakfast mimosas,” he said. “Delilah was right.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“She cuts her orange juice with soda water,” Simon said. “She’s right about the bubbles.”
I laughed. I’d known that about Delilah since we were teenagers, but the delight in Simon’s voice was infectious.
All the tension that’d built over the course of a morning dealing with a panicking little sister, out-of-her-depth older sister, and Audrey desperately trying to wrangle the whole show melted away as I looked into Simon’s eyes.
He’d always grounded me.
I kissed him again, deliberately licking the seam of his lips before pulling back. “I’ll have to try it.”
Simon laughed. “That’s what I said to her!”
With a sigh, I let my eyes fall closed and my forehead lean against his, both hands still on his face. I’d been this close—closer—to him thousands of times, but right now I was so aware of him. Of his body, and what it felt like under my hands, between my thighs. Inside me. On top of me.
I wanted him.
If I only had him for another handful of hours…
“C’mere,” I murmured, grabbing him by the elbow. We couldn’t go to our room—that was the first place anyone who was looking for either of us would look.
We could make use of the reading nook in the living room, which was out of sight of all the main routes through the house.
Most of the guests were spending the morning at the beach or exploring the area while the house and grounds were set up for the wedding and reception. We could be alone for a little while.
Simon laughed again, low and warm, as I shoved him onto the bench seat of the nook, straddling his lap.
“Missed you,” I said, staring down into his eyes. Definitely better with the glasses on. “So much.”
“Rough morning?” he asked, settling his hands on my waist.
“I had to borrow your sewing kit,” I said, resting my forehead against his again.
I’d meant for this to be a sexy encounter, but I couldn’t resist the comfort of being with him.
Simon was the only person in the world who made me feel like I was exactly where I was meant to be when we were together.
“One of the other bridesmaids stepped on the train of Delilah’s dress. Huge rip.”
“And... you sewed it back up?” Simon raised an eyebrow. “You could’ve—”
“Come and gotten you?” I finished for him, a smile tugging at my lips.
“Well, yeah.” He squeezed my waist lightly. “Could’ve used the rescue.”
“Yeah?” I asked. “That bad?”
“Tell me the rest of the story,” Simon said, pulling back to look at me. “Then I’ll tell you about mine.”
“Not much to tell.” I sighed, wriggling closer to him, letting myself relax into his lap.
“Madelaine took care of the sewing part. Audrey covered up the worst of the seam by pinning some flowers to it. Even Delilah had to admit it added something. The bridesmaid who did it might need a few months of therapy to get over some of the things Delilah said to her, but... crisis mostly averted.”
Simon chuckled. “I bet that bridesmaid has said worse things to Delilah,” he said. “Girls are mean.”
“You know, Audrey’s okay.”
Simon raised an eyebrow, pulling back to look at me. “Changed your mind about her? Because we can always stage a messy breakup at the reception that leaves you heartbroken and in obvious need of the gentle touch of a woman.”
I rolled my eyes, even as a twinge of real worry twisted the pit of my stomach.
We weren’t going to have a messy breakup. We were just... going to forget all about it.
That’d be a nice change.
“She interrogated me about Corey’s dad—who she says looks like—”