Chapter 16 #2
“So this thing just kinda happened.” I have to be careful.
She’ll know when I’m lying, and my face is very bad at lying, especially to Hyacinth.
But there’s so much else to talk about. “And I met his mom. And we’re going to New York tomorrow.
And you can’t tell the news that if they call, okay?
It’s actually possibly scandalous that we’re dating so soon after my divorce?
I don’t know that part for sure, but it’s like, the Rutherford family .
Frowning wrong at a camera is scandalous, right?
And apparently there are security considerations with travel plans, blah blah blah. ”
“ Gossip Minute just posted a picture of you from dinner tonight and it looks like you’re giving him the Heimlich. All I can say is, what? ”
“I told him the clay giraffe story while he was eating clam chowder.”
Her face twists like she’s both horrified and amused, which is fair. The clay giraffe story is legendary. “ Begonia . You can’t keep the world’s last billionaire bachelor interested if you’re trying to kill him!”
“Hy. He survived . And you can’t tell me any of his other options for dinner companions would’ve been nearly as entertaining.
He’s never dated a commoner before. Wait.
No, he has, but none quite like me. He thinks the fact that I use drug store shampoo is adorable.
Confounding, but adorable. Also, oh my god , he has this hundred-dollar-an-ounce hand cream from this spa called Silver Crocus , which is just the best name ever—wait, excuse me, it’s Silver Crocus hand crème , spelled with that funky symbol over the first e, and I keep calling it cremm-aye just to watch him stare at me like I’m one of those poison frogs that supposedly just went extinct, and yet he found me in the wild.
Like, shocked and worried but still enthralled and like he can’t believe the very last poison frog in the world is his? ”
“Only you, Begonia. Only you.”
“I don’t have any expectations that this is forever—I mean, who marries their first boyfriend post-divorce? Other than Mom, who loves being married?—so I’m going to enjoy the thrill of the ride while I’m on it, you know?”
“Is it… thrilling … in all the ways?” she asks.
If I tell her we’re sleeping together, she’ll know I’m lying. If I tell her we’re not, she’ll figure out this is a ruse. Hello, pickle.
I need to pick my truth carefully, so I lean into something that’s so true it hurts. “The first time he kissed me, it was like, oh my god, is this what I’ve been missing ?”
Her eyes light up and she squeals, shaking the phone like she’s making excited happy hands and forgot she’s holding it.
“Shh! I don’t want to talk about it.” I’m flapping my hand too, which is making Marshmallow think it’s time to play.
He leaps, then bows down on his front paws, back end waving in the air.
I pull a jerky stick out of my pocket and toss it out into the night.
“It’s like…sometimes you just want to enjoy something without analyzing it too much, you know? ”
“Analyzing is most of the fun.”
“Do I need to talk to Jerry about that?”
She laughs.
I try to.
But honestly? Sometimes I worry about Hyacinth. She married a guy who doesn’t hit her, who provides for her, and who doesn’t cheat. Mom’s definition of perfect husband material. He also gets on her nerves sometimes, and they have lovely children together, but I just feel like…
I feel like she settled.
And I don’t want to settle anymore, so I don’t want her to either.
And I can’t tell her that, because I have to let her live her life, even when I don’t like it.
“Enough about Jerry,” she says. She knows.
She knows where my brain goes, even when I feel disloyal and I don’t want her to.
We’re both trying to respect each other’s life choices, and I know she was on Team Mom for a while over my divorce, even though she never said as much.
“Have you met Jonas yet? Oh my god, I’d probably ask if I could lick him if I ever met him.
Yes, Jerry, you knew that when you married me.
Hush. He’s on my freebie list, not that it matters, because he’s a Rutherford, and he’s married now, which means he won’t let fans lick him anymore.
Not that he ever did. But you can rest assured you’re the last man I’ll ever lick, okay?
” She drops her voice and pulls the phone closer to her face so all I can see are her eyes and nose.
“Do you think he’d let me lick him if we were in a dark room with no witnesses? ”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Is Hayes as weird as the news says he is?”
“ No . They just like to have something salacious to report, and he doesn’t fit the mold is as juicy as it gets, which makes him an easier target than the rest of the family. He’s such a nice guy, Hy. And—cone of silence?”
“I won’t say a word, unless it’s to Mom, and only under extreme duress if it’ll improve the situation.”
“His mom doesn’t like me, but he told her off for me.”
My sister gasps. “What the fuck’s wrong with his mom?”
“Oh, don’t be like that. I’m a suburban art teacher who’s recently divorced, can’t cook, and doesn’t know which fork to use during a seven-course meal, and he’s the world’s last eligible male billionaire.
Of course she’s concerned. I would be if I were her.
And did you see my hair?” I lift the phone to highlight the disaster that’s my short glowing hair.
It’s a disaster that I love, for the record, but I can still acknowledge that it’s a disaster.
Hyacinth growls at me. “His mother needs to know you’re a fucking catch .
Shut up , Jerry! If you don’t like my language, take the kids outside and play a damn game with them!
Sorry, B. He’s taking the kids out now. As I was saying.
His mother’s had an awful lapse in judgment, and I’m sure she’ll see the error of her ways soon. So long as you don’t cook for her.”
I wince.
“ Begonia . Tell me you didn’t.”
“I didn’t know I was meeting her and I got nervous and stayed nervous for the entire time she was here! But it won’t happen again. At least Marshmallow didn’t do anything crazy like find a vibrator in her luggage and deliver it to my room. That would’ve been awkward.”
There’s a beat of silence on the phone, coupled with a strangled noise from the balcony above me, confirming my suspicions that Hayes is listening in to make sure I don’t say anything he’ll regret, which I have clearly done, since I didn’t mean to mention that thing that I’m pretending didn’t happen.
Then there’s another beat of silence, both on the other end of the phone and also above me on the balcony, while neither Hyacinth nor Hayes asks how I know it was his mother’s vibrator, and yes, I know it was hers, and no, I’m not saying anything more about it.
I wince again. “You should see this estate, Hy. It’s on the southern tip of the island, so we can see both the sunrise and the sunset from the gardens, and Hayes rowed himself out here in a rowboat to get to me the day after Jonas’s wedding, because he didn’t want to wait for a ferry, and that’s hot .
Here. Let me remember how to flip my camera, and I’ll show you the sky here.
The sunset is so gorgeous tonight. Pinks and blues and purples…
” I trail off while I try to remember the right combination of buttons to press to flip the phone around while not hanging up on my sister.
“Tell me you don’t have Giovanna Rutherford’s vibrator in your possession.”
“ No . It’s back in the nightstand drawer in the guest bedroom, and you are not welcome here until it’s reunited with its owner, and do you know what else?
Good for her . Now, can we please discuss how my boyfriend has the most delicious chest known to man?
You think Jonas is hot. You should see Hayes without his shirt on. ”
“Hair or no?”
“Yes. And it’s like, not just a token amount of hair, but it’s also not like a rug. It’s just right.”
“Are his nipples even?”
“Will you never quit mocking my poor high school boyfriend and his crooked nipples? That’s how his body was made, Hy. Knock it off.”
She wiggles her brows. “And his…?”
“Sorry, I actually had to sign a non-disclosure agreement about that part. It comes with dating a billionaire from the country’s most famous family, apparently.”
“You didn’t .”
“I did. And if I had a little more money in my vacation fund, I might’ve hired my own attorney and asked him to sign one in return, agreeing to never mock my art or my cooking in the event that we break up.”
“Oh my god, Begonia. Only you. Fine. Tell me he’s at least treating you to the rarest oysters and albino lobster and gold-crusted chocolates that will make your poop glitter.”
I laugh. “No, but I think he would if I asked. But I don’t want the fancy stuff.
I like just having lunch or dinner with him out at the cute little local places with all the funny people who tell stories about the times they’ve spotted him out here, or what they do in winter, or that time that a carton of lobsters spilled at the grocery store and they kept finding them in random places under the shelves. ”
She smiles. “And once again, only you. Are you really just hiding out in Maine with him for the next forever?”
“No, he’s taking me to Paris next weekend to see Monet’s water lilies.”
She frowns. “But you were saving up for that.”
I wave a hand again. “I’ll find another dream to save up for.”
“Another dream as big as seeing Monet in Paris? It doesn’t get bigger than that. And you were so excited about anticipating it for the next four years.”
“ Two .”
“Begonia. You spent every dime in your first rainy day fund for Paris when you heard about Marshmallow and hopped a plane to fly halfway across the country to rescue him. You can lie to yourself about how long it takes you to save up for something, but you can’t lie to me. I’m your sister .”
“Quite obviously so,” Hayes says behind me, startling me so badly that I drop the phone. When I recover it, all I can see is Hyacinth’s textured ceiling, suggesting that she, too, has dropped her phone.
Her face pops back into view, eyes wide, mouth gaping open. “Oh my god, it’s you.”
“Your tea, darling.” He sets a steaming mug on a small picnic table tucked in amongst the wildflowers, then drapes an arm around my shoulders and kisses my temple.
“Hyacinth, I presume. Lovely to meet you. From a safe distance. I’m off to bed, darling.
Don’t be long, and don’t let your tea get cold. ”
He lifts a hand and waves to my sister, then disappears behind me again.
“You should see your face,” Hyacinth whispers.
“You should see yours,” I whisper back.
“Make sure to tell him I’ll kill him if he hurts you. And then go jump his bones, okay?”
I nod, even though there will be no bone-jumping.
Him moving into the other bedroom made that very clear.
I manage to get off the phone without Hyacinth catching on that this is all just for show.
But I’m starting to wish my heart would remember that part.
He made me tea .
Chad never made me tea.
And Hayes Rutherford isn’t my soulmate.
But he’s doing a damn good job of resetting my standards in the meantime.