Chapter 5
chapter
five
Clover
Walking into the resort spa feels like stepping into a fever dream of eucalyptus and soft lighting. There’s a veritable army of women in matching robes who look like they’ve never had a bad hair day in their lives.
I, on the other hand, look as if I’ve been through something.
To be fair, I have been through something. I’ve been through a transcontinental travel day from actual hell, an almost-sleepless night in a stranger’s suite, and an orgasm so thorough it rearranged my understanding of what my body was capable of. All before nine in the morning.
I am thriving. I am also barely upright.
“Clover!” My sister materializes at my elbow, already glowing in her fluffy white robe, her dark hair twisted up in one of those effortless knots that take other people forty-five minutes and three YouTube tutorials to achieve.
Okay, not other people, just me. Whatever. It’s one of the reasons I cut my hair into a sassy bob.
This is Juniper Hill in her natural habitat.
Though she is my younger sister, she has always been the beautiful one, the capable one, the one who knows what to do in pretty much any situation.
Meanwhile, I have always been the one who gets fired from cake decorating jobs and accidentally invites ridiculously hot strangers to join the Mile High Club.
“You look amazing,” I tell her.
“You look—” She pauses in that diplomatic way that means she is choosing her words carefully. “Like you need a robe and a mimosa.”
“Both of those things are correct.”
A spa attendant with a practiced, serene expression appears and steers me toward a changing room.
I follow her gratefully. Inside, I peel off my clothes and wrap myself in the kind of robe that makes you understand, on a cellular level, why rich people are in such a good mood all the time.
It’s not the money. It’s the robes. It’s always been the robes.
When I emerge, Juniper is already installed in one of the pedicure chairs, feet soaking, mimosa in hand, looking like a bridal magazine brought to life. She has saved the chair next to her, and I climb into it, wincing when I realize last night’s activities used some long-dormant muscles.
Worth it though.
The water is warm and smells faintly of lavender, and I let out a breath I feel like I’ve been holding since I landed.
“There she is,” Juniper says.
“Here I am.”
She hands me a mimosa from the little side table between us.
The glasses are garnished with tiny sprigs of rosemary and I think, not for the first time, that my sister has always occupied a more refined dimension of existence than I do.
When I plan things, they involve sticky notes and good intentions and at least one moment of genuine chaos.
When Juniper plans things, they involve rosemary garnishes.
“How did you sleep?” she asks.
“Intermittently.” This is technically true.
She narrows her eyes at me in that particular way she has, the way that means her sisterly radar has clocked something and she’s deciding whether to press it. I take a long sip of my mimosa and stare at the ceiling, which is painted to look like a cloudy sky, serene and improbable.
“You’re acting weird today,” she says.
“I told you my travel day was terrible. I didn’t get much sleep.”
Mostly because of a beast of a man I met who rearranged my insides with his massive schlong. And likely rearranged my heart while he was at it. Can you fall in love that fast?
The spa attendant reappears and begins the quiet, methodical work of making my feet look like they belong to a person who has her life together.
I focus on this. On the warm water. On the sound of soft instrumental music drifting through the room.
On not thinking about grey eyes and a rumbly voice and the way Heath had held me like I was something worth holding.
I am focusing very hard on not thinking about this.
“So,” Juniper says.
“So,” I say.
“When are the rest of the ladies getting here?”
Her expression shifts to the soft, happy glow that she’s worn like a second skin since she and Leo got engaged.
“They’re coming tomorrow. For when we get our hair done for the ceremony.
As soon as they found out the date for the wedding they went and got their nails and toes done.
” She leans forward to inspect her own toes, currently being massaged by a woman with the patient hands of a saint.
“I told them they could come by just to meet us and visit if they wanted.” She shrugs.
“But Leo’s uncle Graham’s new wife evidently has a sister, and they’re close like we are, and she said that this was sacred sister time. ”
That makes me smile. “I like that.”
“Me too.” She leans back and sighs. It’s the sigh of someone who is genuinely, deeply happy.
I have not heard that sigh from her before.
Not like this. “So during this time that is sacred between sisters,” she says, turning to look at me with the precision of a laser, “you must be honest and tell me why you are glowing.”
“I’m not glowing. I’m dehydrated. Totally different phenomenon.”
“Clover Annabeth Hill.”
She only uses my middle name when she means business. Our mother only gave us middle names for exactly this purpose; it has been a tactical weapon our entire lives.
“It was a long travel day,” I try.
“You said that.” Her eyes narrow further. Then, like a woman who has just solved a particularly satisfying puzzle, they go wide. She gasps. “You had sex,” she hisses. “Didn’t you?”
And here is the thing about me and lying. I simply cannot do it. I have tried. I have taken runs at it with genuine commitment and good preparation and I have failed every time.
My face is apparently a feelings billboard, large font, easy to read from a distance. My mother once said I had the poker face of a golden retriever. She did not mean it as a compliment.
So right now, in this moment, when my sister is staring at me with the triumphant expression of someone who already knows the answer, I weigh my options.
I could try to play it cool. I could be breezy.
I could deflect with a question about her wedding timeline or the floral arrangements or literally anything else.
What actually happens is that I smile so wide my face hurts.
“Yes,” I say. “I met someone. Yes, we had all of the hot sex. But this weekend is about you, not me. Tell me more about Leo. I can’t wait to meet him, and seriously, how have I not met him already?”
Juniper points a finger at me. “Nope. That is not happening.” She leans closer, nearly sloshing her mimosa, eyes alight with amusement. “You are not changing the subject. I want to know more information about the man who has you looking like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like a woman who has been properly... managed.” She waves her hand at my general aura. “You’re luminous, Clo. Who is he?”
I roll my eyes, but there is no wiping the smile from my face. I couldn’t even if I tried, and frankly I’ve stopped trying. “He’s so super hot,” I say.
“Woo! That’s what I’m talking about!” My sister makes grabby hands at me. “Give me more!”
I glance around the salon area of the spa to see how many people are within earshot.
The women in the chairs nearby are engaged in their own conversations; the attendants move quietly and with the professional discretion of people who have heard everything.
I lean toward Juniper slightly anyway, because some things are still better said quietly.
“The sex was unreal.” I make an explosion gesture with my hands. “Mind-blowing.”
Juniper sighs with her entire body. “That’s how it is between me and Leo too. It’s like fireworks and a parade and magic and intimacy all at the same time. I never knew it could be like that.”
“Exactly.” I stare at my feet in the warm water for a moment.
The attendant has moved on to the scrub portion of events and I watch the bubbles form and dissolve while I try to sort through what I want to say.
What I can say. What I even understand about last night well enough to put into words.
“Do you think you can fall in love with someone right away?” I ask.
Juniper doesn’t hesitate. She turns to look at me with an expression so certain it makes something in my chest ache.
“I do,” she says. “I think it probably happens more than people realize and maybe they’re just not paying attention or they’re too afraid to recognize it.
I know that’s how it happened for me and Leo.
I was reluctant, but he didn’t let me walk away, and I’m so thankful. ” She pauses. “Is that what happened?”
“I mean I don’t know if that’s what this was,” I say, which is a lie.
I’m certain my face immediately broadcasts this to anyone paying attention.
“But I know it was amazing and intense and wonderful.” I reach for my mimosa and take a long sip.
“It’s likely I’ll never see him again, though.
We didn’t exactly exchange contact information. ”
This is the part that sits in my chest like a stone. Warm and heavy at the same time.
Juniper puts her hand over mine on the armrest between us. “If it’s meant to be, you’ll find each other again.”
I look at her. My sister, who ran headlong into a whirlwind romance and came out the other side engaged, happy, rosemary-garnished, and certain. She has always known things I’m still learning. “I hope you’re right.”
“Me too.” She squeezes my hand once, then releases it and picks up her mimosa. “Now,” she says, settling back into her chair, “I’m going to need at minimum three more details. Start with the hair. Does he have good hair?”
I think of Heath’s brown hair shot through with grey, the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, the rumbly voice that made my insides feel like warm caramel. “The best hair,” I say. “Silver fox energy.”
Juniper’s eyes go round. “Oh, Clover.”
I wince, fully acknowledging that I have it bad. So very, very bad. “I know.”
“Tell me everything.”
So I do. I tell her the edited version, the version where I skip the Mile High Club thoughts and the part where I talked to myself out loud, and he may or may not have heard me.
I tell her about his laugh and the way he listened and the feeling of being near him, like standing in a patch of sunlight that had decided to take a specific interest in you.
I do not tell her his name. Something makes me keep that close, like a thing that still belongs only to me, at least for now.
By the time the facials begin, we have moved on to wedding logistics.
Juniper talks about the ceremony on the beach, about the way the coordinator has choreographed the whole thing, about Leo’s insistence on going barefoot, which she finds both charming and a little bit unhinged.
I listen and laugh and feel the tightness in my shoulders slowly unknit itself under a series of warm towels and something that smells like neroli and possibility.
For a couple of hours, the stone in my chest lightens.
It comes back when we’re leaving. When Juniper links her arm through mine in the lobby and I catch a glimpse of a broad-shouldered figure at the far end of the corridor. He’s too far away and gone too fast for me to be sure, but my whole body goes electric for the three seconds I’m looking.
I stare at the empty hallway.
“You okay?” Juniper asks.
“Fine,” I say. I smile at my sister, who is getting married tomorrow to a man who loves her, in a place that smells like the ocean. I squeeze her arm. “I’m really happy for you, you know.”
She beams. “I know. I’m really happy for me too.”