Chapter 16
WE HAD WAY LESS MONEY THAN I’D THOUGHT we would. Four-fifty a night for five nights had sounded promising, but after all of Here-to-Stay’s fees, it turned out we were only netting three hundred a night. And I also had to pay Ellie and Griff their twenty-five-dollar-per-night pie slices.
In short: I had made less than two thousand dollars.
How was I going to make up the rest? I had spoken to my parents a few more times, and they hadn’t mentioned anything even vaguely related to money, but I could hear the clock ticking in time with my heart.
“We can raise the rate a little,” Henry suggested when I’d called him with the news. “Increase it to five hundred?”
I groaned. “That’s only a fifty-dollar difference.”
On the other end of the line, he was quiet. “You know,” he eventually ventured. “I really don’t mind—”
“I’m not accepting any more money from you.” I cut him off, pulse leaping. Why was he like this? The absolute best? “In case you forgot, you already gave me a grand.”
More silence. “I just feel like it’s partly my fault,” he murmured. “We were so drunk, and I left you alone…”
“Henry, stop.” My eyes started to prickle. “This is entirely on me. I’m the idiot here.” I swallowed hard, wishing I could fall into his arms for a hug. “Maybe we can raise it to five-fifty?”
“Okay, five-fifty,” he agreed, releasing a deep breath. “It’s a plan.”
“AUDREY, WHY IS THERE SOME KID watching us?”
“What?” I was sitting on the diving board, focused on snapping a photo of Henry, who had fallen asleep floating in a classic red-and-white striped inner tube.
A heat wave had hit Essex Harbor, so he and his improv friends had cornered me after class and asked if they could come swim.
Henry’s head lolled to the left, his wet hair shining in the sunlight, but he still looked too cool for school in his Ray-Bans.
Lifeguard off duty, I typed before posting the picture on my Instagram story.
“Over there.” Rory nodded toward the pool gate. “There’s a kid watching us.”
I turned and saw, to my horror, a little boy leaning against the fence. He was maybe five or six, dressed in yellow shorts and a T-shirt with the Brazilian flag on it. Oh my god, I thought, heart rate escalating, as Cam called out, “Hey, bud!”
Henry jolted awake, nearly splashing me. “I’m not asleep, I never fell asleep!”
“Oh, dude…” Alec shook his head from the shallow end. “The footage we have tells another story.”
“Hi!” the boy called back. “I’m Junior!”
“Hi, Junior,” I said, a catch in my voice. Was he who I thought he was? “I’m Audrey. Where’s your—”
“Junior!” someone shouted, and a beat later, a woman with curly brown hair appeared. “I’m so sorry.” She waved to me. “He’s adventurous like his father and has a tendency to wander off…”
“Okay, who is that?” Rory asked. “A neighbor?”
“Define ‘neighbor,’” I mumbled, rising from the diving board. Did I want to meet my new guest in a bikini? Definitely not, but it was happening anyway. My stomach squirmed. “Henry…”
“Go, go,” he said quickly. “I’ll handle the guys.”
“Hi, Valerie,” I said, summoning a smile when I reached the pool gate. “I hope your flight was smooth?”
She laughed. “Traveling with a child always brings some turbulence.” She ran a hand through her son’s hair. “But we made it! Didn’t we, Junior?”
“She yelled at me during our layover in Miami,” Junior told me, but I barely heard him. Instead, I was opening up a new tab in my head, mentally scrolling through Fair Winds’ Here-to-Stay description. No children, please, I remembered typing.
Valerie had also specified that she was coming alone. A party of one.
“Is there a problem with the lockbox?” I asked lightly.
“Oh, no.” She dug the guesthouse key out of her pocket. “Worked like a charm.”
“Great.” I didn’t know what else to say. I couldn’t believe she’d brought her kid!
Valerie handed Junior the key. “Honey, why don’t you go back to the little house and explore? We’re going to be living here for the next few days!”
Junior looked at me.
“Have fun!” I told him in a high-pitched voice, hoping it disguised how pissed I was. All I could see were Magic Markers all over the furniture.
They were washable, right?
“I’m sorry,” Valerie said as Junior raced off and we trailed behind him. “I know you don’t normally allow kids, but my husband is an archaeologist and was invited on a last-minute dig, and Junior rarely sees his grandparents…”
Okay, then why isn’t he staying with them? I wondered.
“Their senior living community is strict about overnight guests,” she added.
“That’s why we aren’t staying with them.
” She sighed a stressed-out-mom sigh. “You’re doing us a huge favor.
This location is perfect, and I knew we had to stay here when I read the reviews.
It sounds like I might even get to relax! ”
We reached the bottom of the guesthouse staircase, and Junior had left the screen door wide open. “Junior has probably already discovered it,” I said, “but Fair Winds has a small second bedroom with bunk beds.”
Valerie lit up. “He will love that.” She smiled. “I promise he will be well-behaved. We’ve brought plenty of games and books, and his grandparents will take care of him tomorrow while I’m in the city.”
I nodded, telling myself I believed her. “You said your husband’s an archaeologist?” I couldn’t help but ask. The cinephile in me wanted to know. It was too funny a coincidence. “Is Junior… ?”
“An Indiana Jones reference, yes.” She rolled her eyes and smiled. “My husband is Gregory Daniels Senior, so we couldn’t resist when we had Junior.”
I laughed. Indiana Jones’s real name was Henry Jones Jr., and it always got on his nerves when his dad called him Junior.
Valerie raised an eyebrow, impressed. “You have excellent taste in movies.”
“Thank you.” I gestured to the pool. “My boyfriend’s is better.”
Why, I wondered after wishing Valerie a nice stay, are you suddenly so obsessed with calling Henry your boyfriend?
When we’d first started “dating,” I’d had to force the word out of my mouth.
Now it rolled off my tongue like the most natural thing in the world.
IN THE TIME I’D SPENT WELCOMING VALERIE (and Junior), Henry not only told his friends about my Here-to-Stay scheme but also managed to grab his laptop and print three copies of the NDA from the printer in my mom’s office. “Who knew you were so badass, Audrey?” Rory said.
“Says the least badass person on the planet,” commented Alec as Henry shot Rory a look and said, “I did.”
I blushed so fiercely that I was tempted to swan dive into the pool.
“You don’t have to worry about us,” Cam told me. “Our lips are sealed.”
“Hopefully with Gorilla Glue,” I said.
Alec winked. “We signed your boyfriend’s NDA, didn’t we?”
There it was again.
Boyfriend.
This time, I leaped into the pool and could have sworn that I felt the cool water turn to steam against my hot skin. I couldn’t deny it was from more than today’s relentless sunshine.
When I came up for air, Henry was an airborne cannonball and splashed me upon detonation. “You got me in the eye!” I whined once he broke the surface. The corners of my eyes stung from the chlorine.
He smiled and whipped back his wet hair before paddling over and wrapping his arms around me. “Wait…” he said when I squealed. “Did I finally find your ticklish spot?” He zapped my waist; my heart sprang. “I swear I’ve tickled you there before!”
Yes, I thought. But, the thing is, we both had more clothes on…
I was very aware of the rise and fall of Henry’s chest against mine. Very aware of his teasing smile and also very aware of the goose bumps that had just bloomed up and down his arms. I was starting to wonder, truthfully maybe even hope, that—
“Audrey, your phone is ringing!” Cam called from the pool deck.
“And not to snoop,” Alec added, “but it’s your dad!”
“Perfect timing,” I muttered before ducking underwater and swimming over to the pool steps. The slate patio was so hot that I walked to my lounge chair on my heels. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Sure enough, my phone screen read Dein Vater. Your father.
I tapped to answer. “Hello!”
“Audrey, this is your father,” my dad said. It was how he greeted me every time he called, one of our favorite inside jokes.
But he sounded so serious that I worried it wasn’t a joke this time. Was this it? Had he received an email about the money I’d recently deposited in our Bank of Fairfield account?
“Hi, Dad.” I tried to stay cool. “What time is it there?”
“A little past eleven. Your mother is asleep, but I’m out on the balcony having a nightcap.”
My stomach dropped like a roller coaster. A nightcap—my dad was having a nightcap? I closed my eyes. “What poison did you pick?” I managed to ask.
If his drink was a scotch and soda, he was unwinding at the end of a long but good day.
But if it was a vodka martini…
Well, my dad sipped those when he was crunching the Barbour family numbers and wanted to take the edge off.
This is it, I thought as I moved away from the guys for a little privacy. My legs wobbled. He checked the account.
I was about to find myself in some deep shit.
“Scotch and soda,” he said. “We had a fantastic day, but it was a long one.”
I let out a very deep, very internal sigh.
Bless the Lord.
“Nice,” I said. “What did you guys do?”
“We went on a hike with some people from our hotel, and afterward I read while your mom enjoyed the spa. We ventured into town for dinner and discovered this tiny restaurant…”
“Delicious!” I said after he’d described their eight-course meal (and wine pairings). “That sounds like a really great day.”
“It was,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “We’d love to bring you here sometime, kiddo.”
“My passport is begging to be stamped,” I quipped, making him chuckle. My dad and I were good at bantering, but sometimes I worried we never talked about anything real.
“What’re you up to?” he asked. “It’s fiveish there?”
“Mm-hmm,” I said. “It’s really hot today, so Henry—”
“Oh yes,” my dad cut in. “Henry, my daughter’s boyfriend.”
I rolled my eyes. My mom must’ve told him. “That’s him,” I said before he could give me any sort of talk. “He and some friends are here swimming.”
“In the Sound?”
“Pool.”
A dramatic gasp. “We have a pool?”
I let a giggle slip.
“Oh.” I heard my dad snap his fingers. “I’m supposed to ask if you could stop by the carriage house apartment to flush the toilet and run the water for a bit. Your mom says it’s been a while.”
I literally felt my blood thicken. “Already done,” I managed to say. “Mom mentioned it before you guys left, so I assessed the situation yesterday.” I swallowed. “Everything’s fine.”
“Wonderful, I’ll let—”
“It’s really pretty,” I added. “Mom is so talented, Dad.”
“Yes, I agree.” He sounded like he was nodding. “What she’s done with the whole property is incredible.”
“Has she heard of Beach Cottage Chronicles?” I asked. “It’s this miniseries that showcases unique waterfront cottages and, like, the stories behind them. I think Fair—I mean, the carriage house—would be perfect for it. She should apply.”
After Sandy’s comment, I’d watched the first episode of Beach Cottage Chronicles and was officially hooked.
“I’ll ask,” my dad said. “Don’t let your expectations get too high, though. You know she only does this because it brings her joy.”
“Okay, Marie Kondo,” I deadpanned.
“Ouch,” he said. “Too dated a reference?”
“We still lived in Philly during that phenomenon,” I replied. “So, yes.”
He chuckled. “You humble me, Audrey.”
I smiled. “I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, too,” he said, then yawned. “I should get to bed. It sounds like you’re doing a great job holding down the fort.”
“Oh yeah,” I told him, unable to suppress a smirk. “I have this place running like a well-oiled machine…”