Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
brUNO
The sandwich table is stocked with finger sandwiches and canapés. I grab something with smoked salmon and find a spot near the hedge where nobody will bother me about yachts or watches.
Or take my goddamn photo.
Kelsey is terrible at the game, but she seems to be having fun, or at least she’s trying to create fun, trying to be a good citizen, though from where I’m sitting, it looks an awful lot like she’s auditioning for these people’s affection.
She’s standing in a group of women, smiling at her mother who’s going on about something, and definitely not smiling back.
Don’t do it, I think. Don’t put yourself out there like that.
But then, this is her family, not mine. I’m only here for the alibi.
I check my watch. This weekend is forty-one percent over. Soon to be fifty percent over. The curve goes down from here.
And that’s when I hear a voice coming from the other side of the hedge. It has an unpleasant, even spiteful edge to it.
“—absolutely shameless, showing up like this. Nobody but Granny Ernie wants her here.”
Another voice. Female. Sharp with disapproval. “I wouldn’t show my face.”
“And what’s up with Blackwood? What is he doing with her?”
I go still.
“Well, we know what she’s doing with him. Hashtag moneybags.”
“He saw her in some Broadway show—”
“...just glorified stripping.”
Something hot builds in my chest. I shift, trying to get a look at the speakers.
A laugh. Mean and certain. “Buy a clue. Nobody wants you here.”
“Did you see what she’s wearing? Like she’s about to serve tennis balls.”
I spot them and I’m heading over—to do what?—when the father and the uncle appear. The father shows me something vintage on his wrist, seeking commentary. I give him something. I don’t know what. I’m not really there.
Nobody wants you here.
I look around. The two of them are gone.
I think of Kelsey at breakfast, excited about the croquet brunch. Kelsey talking about wanting to create a moment of delight for her sister with the TikTok trick. Kelsey in that terrible basement room, insisting she was fine, she was flexible, she could roll with anything.
She thinks she’s winning them back, but it seems she’s wrong. For whatever reason, they’re faking it. I grind my teeth together.
“Bruno? Mr. Blackwood?”
Tyler is talking to me, pointing to something in my hand. My sandwich. I’ve crushed it. Some of it’s on the ground.
“Excuse me.” I toss the remnants in the garbage, grab a napkin, and head toward Kelsey.
I don’t know what I’m going to say. I don’t know what I’m doing at all. But I’m moving toward her where she stands talking to some relative. She looks up and smiles as I approach, like she felt me coming, and something loosens inside me.
I slide an arm around her. They continue their conversation, which seems to be about an upcoming Christmas. Kelsey seems excited. She loves Christmas and there’s no better Christmas than a Christmas with her family, apparently. It seems they do a lot of caroling.
All I can think of is what those women said. Nobody wants her here. Is it true? That would certainly explain the awkwardness I’ve sensed the whole time I’ve been here. What exactly is going on here? Is this family pretending to want her here when they actually don’t? Playacting at love?
I happen to have some experience with this sort of thing.
And I do not care for it.
Not one bit.
“Kelsey,” I say the first moment we get alone. “This whole thing isn’t going the way you think it is.”
“Excuse me?”
I lower my voice. “These fucking people are not above board. Your family—”
“Not above board?” She searches my face. “That’s an awful thing to say about my family.”
“I’m just telling you—”
“Well, don’t. I won’t have you insulting my family. You don’t know them at all.”
“I may not know them but—”
“I’m serious here.” She grabs her mallet and turns to me, chin up. “They’re my family. You’re my fake date. Stay in your lane, okay?”
I grip my mallet. She’s right. I’m her fake date. This isn’t my family. I don’t know these people. I’m not involved.
The game is resuming. Teams are reforming. I scan the positions.
There—the woman with the sharp voice. Her ball is sitting pretty near the third wicket.
I line up my shot.
The mechanics of croquet are simple, really. Geometry and motion, like everything else. Angles, force, weight, resistance of the grass...
Her ball goes sailing into the hedge. It’ll be a lot of work for her to get it out.
“Oh dear,” I say. “Apologies.”
She gives me a tight smile. “No harm done.”
I spot another target on my next turn: the bridesmaid who was laughing with the sharp-voiced woman; her ball is exposed, a clear shot.
Click.
Into the rough grass. Also very difficult to hit out of.
“Tricky field,” I observe to no one in particular.
Kelsey is watching me. I can feel her attention like a physical thing.
A few turns later, I send the bridesmaid’s ball careening away from the wickets.
“You’re very good at this,” Tyler says, appearing at my elbow. “Did you play competitively?”
“I played as a kid.”
The game proceeds. I notice Kelsey is gripping her mallet too loosely.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey what?” She says this just a little standoffishly—she’s still unhappy about what I said about her family.
“Check this out.” I stand behind her, place my hands over hers, and adjust her hold. “Thumbs pointing down.”
She turns her head. Her lips graze my cheek. “Are you doing a boyfriend thing right now?”
“That is my role.” And I’m liking it a little bit too much. “Think about the mallet as a pendulum, not a bat.”
She feels good against my chest, and her hair smells good—something like sage. We take a practice swing.
“Loosen the grip.”
“Like this?”
“Perfect.” I let her go.
She turns to me. “Thanks. Contrary to appearances, I don’t want to suck.”
“You don’t suck.”
She twists her lips in protest, and I want to kiss them, just like that.
“Another pointer.” I settle my hands on her shoulders. Her eyes catch the sun, green threaded through with golden brown. They’re never the same twice. Like her. “Relax your shoulders and let the mallet do the work.”
“I’ll try.”
“You’re an athlete. You’ve got this.” I force myself to let her go.
She takes my pointers to heart on the next turn and takes a respectable shot and spins to do a shocked embodiment.
“Yes!” I pump my fist.
My next shot hits one of the hedge women’s balls into a sand trap thanks to a clean angle off the third wicket.
Kelsey’s expression has shifted into something I can’t quite read. Curiosity, maybe. Or wariness.
She lines up her next shot and gets it right up to the next wicket.
“So close!” She turns to the group with a theatrical expression of mock despair, bringing the levity, whether it’s deserved or not.
And it’s not.
I take my next shot and drive her mother’s ball into kingdom come.
Kelsey wanders over near me. “Bruno.”
“Hmm?”
She’s flushed from the sun, a few curls escaping from wherever she’d pinned them, standing there in that tennis outfit. Maybe it’s ridiculous that I’m feeling protective over her. I can’t seem to stop. “Are you targeting people?”
“That’s part of the game.”
“It feels like more. What’s going on?”
I say, “What’s going on is that I’m your boyfriend.”
She studies me. “So this is the Bruno Blackwood boyfriend experience? You go insult my family and start picking people off in croquet? Because newsflash: this is a wedding. A celebration of love.”
“Your shot.” I nod toward the field.
“I’m telling you.” She goes over to her ball. She concentrates, takes her shot, and hits it clean through the wicket.
I clap. Nobody else does.
Is she seeing this? Probably not. She’s so happy to be here. She needs to be less vulnerable with her emotions; she’s like light patterns on water, bright and dazzling, but so easy to destroy.
These fucking people.
Did you see what she’s wearing?
I get an idea. I grab my phone and text some very specific instructions to Sadie.
The game stretches on. There’s another snack break. Mercifully, it ends.
Teams drift toward the brunch setup, toward drinks, toward the boat excursion Tyler’s been hyping all morning.
“Everyone’s welcome on the boat tour,” Danielle announces. “They’ll do a lap around the harbor, maybe stop for swimming if the weather holds—”
“We can’t,” I say.
Kelsey turns to me. “What do you mean we can’t? I thought we could—”
I lean in. “You said you didn’t want to go.”
“I don’t want to go at all, but...” She leans in. There’s a light in her eyes, just this side of mischievous. “...we have no excuse.”
I bracket her face, fingertips sliding across her jaw.
“Oh my God,” she breathes, eyes sparkling. “Are we doing a sex excuse? You think you’re going to kiss me now?”
My gaze lowers to her lips. “I am definitely going to kiss you now.”
“When I told you we needed a practice kiss, I didn’t mean in front of everybody.”
“This isn’t for practice.” I press my lips to hers. Her mouth is warm. Softer than I expected.
Her breath catches against my mouth. For a fraction of a second, she goes still—then seems to melt into me.
I stay a half second longer than I mean to. Another half second. She makes this breathy sound of desperation.
Somebody whistles and I come back to my senses. I force myself to let her go.
Her lips are parted. Dumbfounded.
“We’ll see you at the ceremony,” I say to the group. I take Kelsey’s hand and draw her back toward the hotel.
She comes with me in stunned silence for a dozen steps. “Well...what the hell?”
I marshal my thoughts enough to form a coherent sentence. “You’d have to agree it was the logical out.”