Nineteen
SO. TO SUM up: in an effort to both save my job for me and get revenge on his objectively cooler older brother, my coworker had lied to everyone and forced me into a make-believe relationship with him without my knowledge or consent.
And then he showed up here—and brought our boss with him.
Our lonely, abandoned boss with lots to work through—and some pretty clear-as-day designs on Hutch.
I’m going to be honest and say that I had been thinking—at least up until his brother messed everything up—that Hutch liked me. The kissing, obviously, seemed like a clear giveaway, if nothing else. Not to mention how mad he’d gotten when the internet was mean to me. And the fact that he was the first person in history, including me, to notice the real color of my eyes.
I don’t suffer from overconfidence, but my best read on the situation had been that we liked each other. Mutually. In a normal situation, if Cole hadn’t intervened like an absolute lunatic, we might have gone on some dates.
Instead, I was somehow in a situation where I had to watch Hutch genuinely detesting me while my boss—my boss!—tried to put the moves on him.
And I’ll tell you something else. Sullivan might have been a full ten years older than both of us, but she was a highly put-together, very well-dressed woman with great style.
She was hot.
Point being: Sullivan wasn’t afraid of bathing suits.
Rue, of course, had rented her a room at the Starlite, and Sullivan set out to enjoy her work trip/vacation with a vengeance, lounging by the pool in a string bikini and straw hat like a Bain de Soleil model and drinking nonstop tropical cocktails.
She wanted to fire me and seduce Hutch, so we were technically enemies, for sure.
But I had to admit: she looked fabulous.
And as weird as the situation had suddenly become, I did not really think that a guy like Hutch was going to—out of nowhere—switch types from someone like me to someone like Sullivan.
But the truth is, there was no question that Hutch was absolutely seething. About everything. And a little revenge sex might not be totally out of the question for him, either.
I guess The Gals felt the same way. I’m not sure any of them fully bought Cole’s story. And so—bless them, bless them—over the next three days, rather than letting Sullivan have free rein to stalk Hutch however she liked, The Gals befriended her.
Aggressively.
And it worked. Strength in numbers. The four of them surrounded her and pummeled her with gifts from Vitamin Sea, and signed her up for snorkeling lessons with their sexy friend Mario , and drove her to Big Pine Key for shopping and lunch, and plied her with fruity drinks—and basically did everything they could to keep Sullivan far away from whatever nonsense was going down with Cole and Hutch and me.
None of them has ever admitted it to this day, but I’m convinced they were running interference for me. And it worked almost too well. Sullivan got so sunburned while snorkeling that she didn’t leave her cottage for a full twenty-four hours. The Gals brought her sandwiches and ice cream, and then hung around in her cottage, keeping her company.
God bless The Gals, Sullivan even missed dinner by the pool the first two of the three nights she was in town.
Not that my boss not being there made my situation better.
It just—maybe—kept it from being worse.
COLE DID NOT remember to never touch me , by the way.
He went the other direction, in fact, finding all kinds of ways to break my rules, from touching my arm, to squeezing my shoulders, to patting my knee.
When I glared at him, he’d shrug like he was in character.
Which made for a special agony when Hutch came back the next night for dinner. And—after Rue implored him to come back again—the night after that, too.
At those dinners, Hutch sat stiff and tense, averting his eyes from everything, even while The Gals buzzed around in their caftans and teased me and Cole for being what Ginger kept calling an unlikely couple .
Meaning, of course, that we had absolutely no chemistry with each other whatsoever.
Props to Ginger. Spot-on.
“But sometimes unlikely couples are the best ones,” Benita said.
Nadine agreed: “And sometimes the couples that seem the happiest are secretly miserable.”
Hutch looked like he knew a little something about being secretly miserable.
“What do you think, Hutch?” Ginger asked.
Hutch was jaw-grinding his food with an expression like he was eating grass. “What do I think about what?” he asked.
“About Cole and Katie—as a couple?”
For the first time all night, Hutch lifted his eyes and looked at me. Then he shifted his gaze to Cole. “I hope he’s good to her,” Hutch said, at last.
I wanted to correct him so badly. But what would I even say? Of course he couldn’t stand the sight of me right now. He thought—and now this really hit me—that all this time I’d been both dating his brother and also throwing myself at him.
And I just had to let him think that.
Until Friday. Just until Friday. One more day.
“We don’t have to talk about this,” I said.
But the ladies wanted to talk about it. In fact, this was pretty much all they wanted to talk about. We were like their own personal reality show—right here at the Starlite. A lifetime of life and love and struggle had tuned their antennas so fine that they sensed all was not as it seemed. They were mystery readers, turning pages late into the night, desperate to figure out the answer. This was the topic for all of dinner—and well after.
“In the past, for example,” Ginger said then, “Cole has always dated Kewpie doll types of girls.”
I frowned at Cole, like Seriously?
Cole shrugged.
“But I’m not quite sure what Hutch’s type is,” Ginger went on. “What’s your type, Hutch?” she asked, turning his way and resting her chin on her hand.
Hutch looked around the table. “I don’t know,” he said then. “Just… anybody.”
“Anybody?” Benita said. “That’s your type?”
Hutch looked down at his empty plate. “I’ll know her when I see her, I guess.”
Cole volunteered: “Pretty sure his type is the Barbarella on the pinball machine at the Rum Shack.”
Hutch looked unamused. “She’s your type, too.”
“I can’t believe that place hasn’t been shut down,” Cole said, clearly glad to have remembered it. “We should go play pinball. Like old times.”
“Wonderful idea,” Rue said, her eyes bright, clearly loving the notion of the brothers hanging out.
Hutch shook his head.
“Let’s go,” Cole said. He stood, and then he reached out his hand toward me. “Come on.”
I hesitated. My interest in going to a seedy bar to play a Barbarella pinball game—or doing anything unrequired with Cole—was zero .
But what would a girlfriend do?
She’d go. She’d want to go.
I stood up.
“That place is pretty squalid,” Hutch said, giving me an almost-imperceptible headshake.
But Rue wanted this to happen. “She’ll be fine! Cole will look after her.”
From Hutch’s face, I could see that he was suppressing a response. Probably something like, But Cole can barely look after himself .
Instead, Hutch stood up.
“You’re coming, too?” Cole said.
Hutch rested his dark, miserable eyes on me for less than a second before looking away. Then he said, “I guess I am.”
AT THE BAR, which was indeed squalid, it was pretty clear that Cole and Rue had baited Hutch into going. And it was also clear that I was the bait.
Cole tried to steer us toward Barbarella—but she’d been replaced with Dolly Parton in her cowgirl outfit from 9 to 5 .
“Okay, Hutch,” Cole said. “Let’s have a pinball contest.”
“No, thanks,” Hutch said back.
“It’s Dolly Parton ,” Cole cajoled.
“I’m good.”
“Come on, man. Loser buys all the drinks.”
“I don’t drink,” Hutch said.
Cole already knew that. But he said, “Still?”
Hutch glanced at me. “Still,” he said.
“I think you need to take a break from that,” Cole said.
Hutch looked away.
“You’re not an alcoholic,” Cole went on. “It’s not that you can’t drink. You just don’t drink.”
“That’s right,” Hutch said.
“But you’re so serious. All the time,” Cole protested. “Don’t you want to loosen up now and then?”
Hutch looked back and forth between the two of us, and then sat down at a table. “Not tonight, I don’t.”
I sat, too, trying to express solidarity.
But then Cole pulled his chair right next to mine and leaned up against me, draping an arm over my shoulder.
As soon as it happened, Hutch stood back up. “Let’s play pinball,” he said.
“Great,” Cole said. “Dolly Parton for the win.”
After that, Cole lost pinball game after pinball game—every single one—progressively playing worse and worse as he drank more and more beer. Also getting louder and ruder.
“What are you doing?” I said to Cole, after a while. “Nobody’s drinking but you.”
“I just want to have some fun tonight.” Cole looked over at Hutch. “You remember fun ?”
Nothing about this seemed fun to me. Or to Hutch, from the look of things.
“Leave him alone, Cole,” I said.
“Afraid you might say things you’ll regret?” Cole challenged Hutch.
Hutch met my eyes. “Always.”
When we finally sat back down at our table, Cole, already half a sheet to the wind, said, “Let’s have a drinking contest.”
Hutch just shook his head at him.
“I just lost six straight games of pinball,” Cole said. “I need a win.”
“Why do you want to have a drinking contest with a guy who doesn’t drink?” I asked.
“Because that way I can beat him,” Cole said—and then burped.
“I’m not doing a drinking contest with you, Cole,” Hutch said.
“Afraid I’ll win?”
“You’ll definitely win,” Hutch said. “Let’s just pretend that already happened.”
But Cole shook his head. “Come on,” he said.
Hutch, clearly trying to shut this down, said, “Why don’t you drink for both of us?”
But that didn’t shut anything down. Instead, Cole stood up. He turned toward the other tables in the bar. “Who wants to have a drinking contest with me?”
The other customers—all of them men—turned toward Cole. He had their attention.
“My brother doesn’t want to drink with me,” Cole went on. “Can I get a taker?”
Nobody volunteered.
That’s when Cole decided to up the ante. “The winner,” he declared then, gesturing at me like Behold! , “gets a kiss from my girlfriend.”
What?!
I stood up—as did Hutch.
“Cole!” I hissed.
But now he was getting some interest.
I waved my hand at the handful of dudes rising off their chairs. “He’s kidding!” I called. I wanted to add, I’m not even his girlfriend —but, of course, I couldn’t.
“I’m not kidding,” Cole said. “Who wants her?”
The dudes started closing in on us with notable zombie apocalypse energy.
In response, Hutch stepped between them and me, and—I think—flexed all his shoulder muscles.
“Cole!” I said. “This isn’t funny!”
“It’s a little funny,” Cole said.
“Shut this down,” I said. “You can’t offer me to a bar full of drunk men!”
“I’m not offering you. They’re going to try to win you, fair and square. Every contest needs a prize.”
“I’m not a prize,” I said, glaring at him.
“I think, actually, you are,” Cole said, looking over at Hutch.
And then I got it. This was all to get Hutch motivated. He was using Hutch’s good-heartedness against him. Again.
“You don’t get to decide who kisses me and who doesn’t,” I said, on principle, even as, if I’m totally honest, I felt a little flicker in my chest at the idea of Hutch stepping in. Hutch was protecting me. That kind of thing didn’t exactly happen every day.
“So?” Cole said to the room then—watching Hutch. “Who’s it going to be?”
Hutch turned to Cole, like he knew exactly what he was up to.
It was so weird to now be on Cole’s side. But can you blame me?
Come on, Hutch.
Hutch turned back to the room. “Please take your seats, gentlemen. Nobody’s drinking against my brother but me.”
I held my breath. Hutch was doing this? What if he won? What if he crushed the contest, and, darn it , I was forced to kiss him—because those were just the rules? Would that be the worst tragedy in the world?
Cole seemed a little surprised that his ploy worked. “Really?”
Hutch sighed. “You really seem to want this.”
“I do,” Cole said. “I absolutely do.”
Hutch spun his chair around and sat down decisively on it—backward. He leaned forward and said, “Then your wish is my command.”
I’d never seen a drinking contest before. I didn’t even think they happened in real life. Drinking games ? Sure. But contests? What was the point? How did anybody even win?
“How does this work?” I asked. “Does somebody have to pass out? Or throw up?”
“No, no,” Cole said. “It’s just whoever gets impaired first.”
“And how do you measure that?”
Cole shrugged at me, like How does anybody measure that? “Field sobriety tests.”
“Like the police do?”
“Yeah.”
Cole explained the rules, like maybe he’d done this a time or two before. They each had to take a shot and then walk a straight grout line in the tile floor for ten steps—heel to toe—from our table to the pinball machine and back. “First one to step off or fall off the line, or stop walking, or put your arms out for balance…” Cole said, “is the loser.”
“Who’s administering this test?” I said—trying to show him how dumb it was for two drunk people to test each other.
“You are.”
Oh.
“So pay attention. Because you’ll be smooching whoever wins.”
I glared at Cole. “That won’t be happening.”
“Never say never.”
At that, the bartender showed up with a tray of whiskey shots.
And so it began. A shot for Cole, a shot for Hutch—and then they both had to walk the line.
It went on longer than I would’ve expected, to be honest. It was a lot of up and down, back and forth. They drank seated, facing each other, and then they got back up, over and over, to walk the line.
Had Cole been wanting to have fun ? Because neither of them seemed to be having any. Hutch was dead serious times ten, and Cole was prematurely triumphant—so certain that Hutch couldn’t possibly have enough of a tolerance to beat him.
It was psychologically transparent—how bad Cole wanted to beat his perfect older brother at literally anything. I was rooting for Hutch for many reasons, but Cole thinking he’d already won was definitely one of them.
Here’s what Cole didn’t take into consideration: he’d already had several beers back at the pinball machine. He was already half plastered before he even had this idea. So it wasn’t that surprising when Cole failed the test: starting along the line, then putting his arms out for balance, then stopping for a second, and then tripping, falling off the line, and hitting the floor.
He didn’t just lose. He lost big.
I couldn’t help but feel relief when it happened. Hutch, for his part, still seemed completely sober.
“Contest’s over,” I declared to Cole. “You lost.”
“Did I?” Cole asked, squinting up at me from the floor, like I might be trying to pull a fast one.
“You did,” I confirmed, letting myself savor it, as Hutch reached out a hand to help him up.
Cole rose to his feet as Hutch pulled, but then, instead of letting go, Cole started pumping Hutch’s hand in a hearty handshake.
“Thanks a lot, man,” Cole said. “I know you didn’t want to do that. I really appreciate it. It was fun for me. You’re such a good sport.”
Hutch and I looked at each other. That was unexpected.
“Go ahead,” Cole said then, letting go and stepping back. “You won, fair and square.”
“Go ahead?” Hutch asked.
“Go ahead and take your prize,” Cole said, gesturing at me.
Hutch frowned, and eyed me like Cole couldn’t possibly mean what it sounded like he meant.
But Cole went on. “For real, man. Make it happen. No questions asked. She’s yours.”
What was he—a feudal lord? “Cole,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s not your permission to give.”
“No? Why not? He won, fair and square.”
“What is this?” I said. “The Middle Ages?”
But now Cole was turning to Hutch. “Just do it,” he said. “You know you want to.”
“I don’t want to,” Hutch said.
“You one thousand percent do,” Cole said.
But Hutch shook his head. “I really don’t. You have no idea how much.”
Okay, that was a little emphatic. But of course—right? Hutch’s understanding of who I was in this situation was completely wrong. I wouldn’t want to kiss me, either.
“You can’t fool me,” Cole said.
“I wasn’t interested in your last girlfriend, and I’m not interested in this one, either.”
“Keep telling yourself that, buddy.”
“We should go home,” Hutch said.
“Absolutely,” Cole said. “Just as soon as you kiss my woman.”
“Shut up. Let’s go.”
“I’m serious. I’m giving you this—and you should take it.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“You could beg me all night, and I wouldn’t kiss her. You could punch me in the face, and I wouldn’t kiss her. You could pay me a thousand dollars, and I still wouldn’t kiss her.”
Ouch.
It was meant to settle things, I guess.
But wow, did it make things worse. Because at that, one of the gross old men in a booth nearby said, “I’ll kiss her for a thousand dollars.”
We all turned in his direction. He climbed out of the booth, a fair bit knackered himself. He was a lot bigger standing up.
Silently, Hutch shifted into position to shield me.
“Not you ,” Cole said, walking closer to the old guy. He gestured back at Hutch. “Just him .”
“I said I’ll do it,” the gross old man said. “You want to pay somebody to kiss that girl? I’ll do it.” Then he looked me over. “Heck, I’ll do it for free.”
“Absolutely not,” Cole said. “No way in hell.”
“Why not?”
“Look at her!” Cole said. “She’s young and pretty! And you are an old, sad, drunk dude at a bar!”
At that, without even hesitating, the old, sad, drunk dude launched a fist forward and punched Cole in the face.
Cole dropped to the floor. And as soon as he did, the old man started kicking him.
That’s when Hutch turned to me. “Stay back,” he said.
Uh—no argument there.
Hutch moved toward them, Cole now doubled over on the bar floor and coughing. Everything I’d ever seen in any movie primed me to expect that Hutch was about to beat the crap out of this old man. But, instead, to my astonishment, Hutch moved in and grabbed him from behind, clamping him into a position that looked remarkably like the cross-chest carry he used in the water.
So versatile.
I guess the only difference was that he used his swimming arm to subdue the old man’s punching arm by bending it behind him.
Then, into the old man’s ear, Hutch said, matter-of-factly, “We’re not going to do this, sir.”
The man seemed baffled to be so immobilized so suddenly. “We’re not?”
“Everybody’s been drinking, and everybody’s looking for a fight. But that’s not who we’re going to be tonight.” The bartender had come over to investigate the commotion, and Hutch met his eyes as if giving instructions, as he went on. “We’re going to call a taxi ”—at that, the bartender gave a nod—“and we’re going to go home peacefully.”
“But who’s kissing the girl?” the old guy protested.
“ No one is kissing the girl,” Hutch said, with surprising force.
“Someone should get to kiss her.”
At that, Hutch jacked the man’s arm up a little tighter. “That’s her decision, and her decision only,” Hutch said. Then, like a pain-based PSA, he threw in: “Just the way it is for all the women in our lives.” Hutch gave it a second and then said, “And that’s the end of that.”
BY THE TIME Hutch had loaded the man into his taxi, the bartender and I had dragged a very drunk, and now injured, Cole out front.
Hutch and I roped Cole’s arms over our shoulders to walk him back toward the Starlite. Hutch took a minute, once we had Cole in position, to close his eyes and steady himself, and I wondered if he might seem more sober than he really was.
“What were you thinking, doing a drinking contest?” I asked Hutch as we walked.
“I was rescuing you,” Hutch said. “Did you want to kiss a random old man in a sleazy bar?”
“That was never going to happen.”
“Also, Cole really wanted me to.”
That was a better reason. “You’re a good brother.”
Hutch shook his head. “I’m trying.”
“He doesn’t make it easy.”
A wry headshake from Hutch. “He does not.”
“How did you win ?” I asked.
Hutch didn’t seem sure himself. “Sheer force of will?”
“You didn’t have to do this. I was fine.”
“You were less fine than you think. Those dudes were ogling you the whole time.”
“I’m not the kind of woman who gets ogled.”
“Beg to differ.”
“I think I’d know.”
“Not so sure you would.”
“Women can tell.”
“Not all women, apparently.”
“Why are we arguing about this?”
“Because you’re wrong about yourself, and it bothers me.”
“Maybe you’re the one who’s wrong,” I said, just to be contrary.
“You think you’re this unnoticed, forgettable thing. But you’re not.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’m not forgettable.”
“You’re not not forgettable ,” Hutch said then, like I was being obtuse. “You’re un forgettable.”
I held my breath at that.
Hutch went on. “You’re a TV jingle you never wanted to learn, but can’t erase. You’re a puzzle that can’t be solved—or a question that can’t be answered—or a dream you wake up from that feels like it really happened. But it didn’t happen. And it can’t happen. Because that’s not how dreams work.”
At that, Cole roused enough to say, “I knew you liked her.”
“I don’t like her,” Hutch said.
“You’ve still got that hall pass, man,” Cole said.
“Stop saying that,” Hutch said, “or I will make us all regret it.”
WHEN WE MADE it back to the Starlite, Rue and The Gals were still out around the tables chatting. They stood up at the sight of Cole.
“What happened?” Rue asked, rushing to us.
“Drinking contest,” Hutch said.
Rue took in Cole’s darkening, swelling jaw and his drunk-and-beat-up energy. “That wasn’t you, was it?” she asked Hutch.
“When has it ever—even once—been me?” he answered.
Rue nodded.
“Can you see to him?” Hutch asked her. Then he tilted his head toward me. “I’m going to need a designated driver.”
“The drinking contest was with you ?” Rue said.
Hutch nodded.
“Who won?” she asked.
Hutch squinted at her. “Who do you think?”
Rue looked back and forth between the two boys. Then she nodded. “Take my car,” she said.