Chapter Five. Temperance
Frankie Moreau had been a constant in Temperance’s life since they’d been freshman dorm roommates in college. Today, their friendship leveled up into an elite and unexpected new tier as Temperance lay belly-down on a bed while Frankie tweezed wood splinters out of her left butt cheek.
“Anyway,” Frankie said as she bent over Temperance’s ass, “at the rehearsal dinner last night, bride number one’s dad got so trashed on caipirinhas, he fell and gave himself a black eye trying to get into his Lyft. Bride number two texted me this morning to ask how good I am with Photoshop, but bride number one apparently thinks it’s hilarious and doesn’t want me to edit it out at all. Authenticity, she says.”
Frankie sat up for a second to stretch her back. She wore a celery-green bikini top and a pair of denim cutoffs so short the front pockets peeped out under the frayed hems. Temperance’s own swimsuits were in storage boxes at her parents’ place in Linden, so earlier that afternoon, she and Frankie and Rowan had driven to Nelson’s on County Road 25. A combination bait shop, gas station, convenience store, and pizza place, it was where she and Duncan used to buy condoms and Hank’s grape soda the summer they were eighteen. Their fountain-drink dispenser also had the soft pelleted ice she loved.
Nelson’s had only two swimsuits left in their dubiously named “summer aisle,” stuffed on a shelf next to sunscreen that was most certainly expired, a few pairs of goggles that looked suspiciously pre-owned, and an impressive assortment of fishing lures. One of the suits was a camouflage bikini a few sizes too big, leaving Temperance with a hideous gold lamé one-piece for the bargain price of six dollars and ninety-nine cents. The fabric smelled faintly of hot dogs and old cigarette smoke, and when she’d pulled it on, the elastic in the left shoulder strap surrendered to dry rot and refused to snap back into place. It kept sliding down her arm.
Rowan had nabbed a trucker hat with a cartoon cactus and the phrase DON’T BE A PRICK on the front, and Frankie bought a long-stemmed artificial flower that was actually a pair of cheap red panties creatively folded to look like a rose. When Temperance asked what she planned to do with it, Frankie had simply answered, “The heart wants what it wants, T.J.”
Frankie pinched her with the tweezers.
“Ow!”
Frankie hissed through her teeth and squeaked, “Sorry.”
Temperance laid her head sideways on the pillow. Outside the cabin’s bedroom window, sunshine was the clear gold of honey fresh from the comb. Notes of an old Indigo Girls song drifted in through the window screen. The faint tones of wind chimes from the porch were bright and familiar, and more than a little nostalgic. They’d been restrung many times over the years, but they were the same ones that had hung on the Bradys’ old porch in Westfall as long as she’d known them.
“Why do so many people get trashed at rehearsal dinners the night before weddings?” Frankie mused. “Did I ever tell you about the best man who claimed he had bird flu the day of the wedding, and everyone had to get tested afterward? Turns out, he was hungover from too much Wild Turkey. What an asshole.”
Listening to Frankie chatter on sometimes felt like wobbling in and out of rush-hour traffic on the back of an old bicycle. Temperance closed her eyes for a moment and enjoyed the ride.
“Anyway, this weekend’s couple has a swing routine planned for their first dance at the reception, and everyone thinks they’re coming out to some tepid Ed Sheeran song. They’re doing ‘Erotic City’ by Prince—can you even imagine?” Frankie sighed happily. “I’m pretty sure it’s going to be the best night of my life, and I’m just the photographer.”
Frankie pinched her again.
Temperance pushed up onto her elbows again and twisted to look over her shoulder. “Oh my god, Frances—”
“I am doing my best, okay?”
“Aim for the tiny slivers of wood—”
“Listen, your butt is so pale—”
“—and leave my poor skin—”
“—it’s like trying to thread a needle while staring straight into the sun—”
“—alone.”
There was motion in the half-open doorway to the bedroom. Bare feet on old hardwood scuffed to a halt.
It was Duncan.
“What in the MTV Spring Break is happening here?” he said.
Frankie jabbed the tweezers in his direction. “Your dock tried to take a bite out of her ass, that’s what.”
“My what—”
“Your dock,” Frankie enunciated.
“Her ass?” said Duncan.
Temperance yanked a pillow over her exposed butt cheek. “Do not look at my ass.”
“That’s my pillow—”
“Absent thyself.” Frankie made a dainty little shoo motion with her hand.
Duncan pointed. “—on your ass.”
It was hardly the first time her ass had been in contact with one of Duncan Brady’s bed pillows.
“Out,” Frankie repeated.
“I need some privacy. I have to make a phone call,” he said.
“Five minutes,” said Frankie.
His voice rose. “This is my place.”
Temperance pushed up on her elbows again. “What do you mean, it’s your place?”
“Mine.” The single syllable was more of a growl, drawn out in the middle and rumbly at the end.
Frankie stayed silent.
“I thought your parents bought it to extend the vineyard—”
“Mine.” He bent low and pointed out the window. “Four acres, that way. Inclusive of this bedroom.”
“Why?” Temperance said.
Duncan did a double take. “Because I wanted it.” He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“But why?”
He was motionless for a moment, save a flicker of muscle at his temple. “I guess I’m not at a place in my life where I pass up a chance to get something I want if I have the means to get it.”
Close your mouth, Temperance.
Her phone blasted her parents’ ringtone from where it sat on the bedside table. It vibrated against the wood as it rang, turning slowly counterclockwise as if it were possessed.
All three of them eyed the phone until it stopped.
“You still avoiding their calls?” Duncan said.
“I’m not avoiding—”
“Yes, she’s avoiding their calls,” Frankie said.
Duncan looked from Temperance to Frankie and back to Temperance again. “I’ll come back later.” He did a tense about-face and disappeared down the short hallway.
The pillow did smell like Duncan. She’d sensed it when she’d first lain down, but she’d passed it off as some phantom memory. Now that she knew the place was his, she felt absolutely surrounded by him.
“Wow,” Frankie said once he was gone.
“Don’t say it.”
Frankie leaned back in with the tweezers. “Say what?”
“You’re going to ask me when I plan to tell Rowan.”
Through the window, Temperance had a clear view of Lake Vesper and the big T-shaped wooden dock jutting out from the shore. It was the solid, sturdy kind, with posts sunk deep into the lake bed. Rowan was there, launching herself into the lake—wild-haired, long-limbed, and awkward as a newborn giraffe.
Temperance loved her. So much.
Frankie and Temperance knew nearly everything about each other, from the mundane (Frankie couldn’t get to sleep unless she had socks on, mint toothpaste made Temperance gag) to the strangely specific (cold SpaghettiOs straight from the can was Frankie’s regular PMS craving, Temperance used to bite her toenails as a kid). There were things that Frankie and Temperance knew about each other that Rowan didn’t know about either of them. It wasn’t an exclusivity thing, or that their friendship was stronger than what either of them had with Rowan. It was simply that they’d already dealt with everything the year before they’d met her.
By then, Temperance had packed Duncan Brady away into a feelings-proof box and sank it deep inside her with metaphorical cinder blocks attached.
But the thing about burying feelings in feelings-proof boxes was that covering them up didn’t actually make them go away. They’d still be there if you peeked under the lid, and they’d just be older. Hungrier. And ready to make you pay for ignoring them for so long.
And now—record scratch—Rowan was a few weeks away from becoming a Brady herself. Another permanent thread that tied Temperance to the Brady family.
Out the window, she watched Duncan pace the length of the dock, occasionally nudging at the wood with his bare toes. In his hands was a roll of gray duct tape. Every few steps, he ripped off a piece of the tape and crouched to stick it down, presumably marking spots where the wood needed repairs.
Temperance had to swallow hard while she watched him. Afternoon sun traced him in coppery light. He was big, but not so ripped with muscle that he’d gone completely solid. Strong by necessity rather than vanity—with powerful arms and thick thighs from using his body hard, every day. It had been a long time since she’d lingered in the space between his arms, but she knew firsthand that there was just enough give over the broad muscles there that the cuddling experience was truly world-class.
“Well.” Frankie sat up to stretch again. “Since you mentioned it—”
Temperance groaned into the pillow. “Listen, you’ve never told Rowan your secret.”
“Mine doesn’t have any present-day relevance. My secret isn’t around all the time, staring us in the face like a Spanish-Irish god with big brown eyes and a panty-melting smile.”
“My answer hasn’t changed, Frances.”
“T.J. Come on. If I notice it, others are, too.”
“No. You only catch it because you know the full backstory. Duncan and I stay in our corners. Nobody else notices.”
“You go ahead and keep telling yourself that.” Frankie gave her a single tap on her butt and stood. “You’re good. Splinter-free.”
“Thank you.” Temperance reached back to pull her swimsuit into place and rolled to a sitting position.
Out in the lake, the Bradys played a game of Chicken. Maren and Mercy were on their twin spouses’ shoulders, and they seemed to be teaming up against Rowan and Harry. Rowan laughed so hard she didn’t seem to be breathing anymore. Duncan was in the water now, too, with Bess Everett on his shoulders. The eldest Everett brother, Colby, had been a year behind Temperance at Linden High School, and he’d been one of her closest friends from marching band. A late bloomer, Colby’s teenage claim to fame had been his ability to burp the ABCs in one breath. Now, he was enormous, legitimately gorgeous in a rugged man-bun-and-flannel sort of way, and truly one of the sweetest human beings Temperance had ever met. He was the winemaker at Three Birds, the vineyard and winery a few miles down the road from Cloud Tide. They’d shared a field crew for almost a year now, and the Brady and Everett families had begun to feel less like business partners and more like friends.
The Bradys drew people into their world like dandelions drew bees.
Yelping laughter echoed off the water as Duncan and Bess moved in to defend Rowan against Maren and Mercy’s joint attack. Temperance had never known a group of adults who loved games as much as the Bradys did. They seemed to acknowledge that it was a fundamental aspect of human nature to simply want to play, and they refused to believe the urge disappeared at a certain age.
By any material or superficial standards, Temperance had had a good childhood. As soon as she was out of diapers, she did everything—adventure camps, science camps, museum camps, sports camps. She had a live-in nanny who was also a music instructor. She was in the after-school STEM club. In high school, she’d been a cheerleader and in the marching band. At halftime, she’d have to scurry off the field, pull her band uniform over her cheer outfit, march in the show, then rush back to the sidelines to cheer for the rest of the game.
But after only a few weeks with the Bradys that first summer she’d stayed with Maren and Nate, she’d realized the way she was being raised wasn’t a generous and indulgent one. It was that her parents had efficiently outsourced her upbringing in a way that minimized them actually having to parent her.
Temperance had been fourteen that first summer with the Bradys. Her mother had needed to move quickly to fill a gap in executive leadership in the family’s nonprofit foundation after her grandmother passed away. But Laine Talbot-Madigan didn’t go anywhere without Corbin Madigan, Corbin Madigan didn’t go anywhere without Laine Talbot-Madigan, and they refused to let Temperance tag along with them, having convinced themselves that Maren’s exposure to the humanitarian-aid world at a young age had been the true reason she’d washed out of medical school.
So, Maren became useful to them again.
Maren had jumped at the chance for Temperance to stay with her and Nate that summer. Temperance had grudgingly agreed at first—not that she’d actually had a choice. Initially, the biggest draw was that Westfall, the little valley town where Maren and Nate lived, was just a few county roads over from Linden, so she’d be able to see her friends every day if she wanted.
By the second week of June, she was head over heels for the entire Brady family.
They hadn’t been perfect. There were dust bunnies under the couch and piles of shoes left haphazardly by the front door. There was bickering and moodiness, and a family photo on canvas in the hallway that fell off the wall every time one of the brothers slammed their bedroom door after a petty argument. But the occasional hot temper actually endeared them to her even more than the absence of it would have. The way she’d grown up, nobody felt enough or cared enough to bother raising their voice.
The Bradys paid attention. If one of them was going to the library, they’d make sure to round up everyone else’s overdue books. Whenever anyone drove someone else’s car, they brought it back with a full tank of gas. Gia Brady saved the burnt corners of brownies for Duncan, and Will Brady saved the half-popped kernels of popcorn for Harry. Cream for coffee would often spoil in the refrigerator because everyone who usually used it would leave it for someone else once they felt the carton getting low.
For the next four years, Temperance lived her real life during those three summer months. The other nine were just spent waiting.
Temperance swung her legs over the side of the bed and glanced out the window screen. Laughter echoed around the basin.
Again, her eyes were drawn right to Duncan. In a crowd, he was the first person she looked for when she arrived, and the last person she put eyes on when she left.
“T.J.?”
“Hm?” Temperance turned to where Frankie leaned against the doorframe. “Sorry, what?”
“I said—are you ready to get back out there?”
Temperance pushed the strap of her swimsuit back up and fluffed the imprint of her face out of Duncan’s pillow. “Let’s do it.”