Chapter 40
New Year’s Eve
Three Years Ago
The blonde beams at me before sipping some champagne with her left hand. Her right is trailing down my stomach, headed straight toward my waistband. She rises on her tiptoes, lips pressed to my ear.
“We could watch the fireworks upstairs,” she tells me. “Make some too.”
A finger curls around one of the loops meant for a belt.
A virgin would know what she’s suggesting, and I haven’t been one for a long time.
I enjoy sex. It’s fun, and it feels good, and it’s rare that I’m not seeking out fun and feeling good.
Yet it’s New Year’s Eve, arguably the party capital of the year, and the prospect of going upstairs to fuck—yeah, I forgot her name—is not as enticing as it should be.
I’m increasingly indifferent, not aroused.
I study her features more closely, trying to recall the blonde’s name. She must have told me. We’ve been flirting and dancing for the past half hour, ever since I left the laundry room.
No matter how closely I scan her face, no recognition sparks. I think it started with an A? Audrey? Andrea? Abigail maybe? None of those seem right.
She’s really pretty. She looks like Rory. Except her hair is shorter and curled instead of straight. Her eyes are hazel, not blue. She’s missing the tiny scar Rory has beneath her lower lip from falling out of a tree in elementary school—Rory had climbed up to help Wren, who was stuck.
The woman smiles, noticing my perusal and interpreting it the wrong way. All I can see in her gaze is interest, none of the judgment Rory aimed my way when I offered Wren champagne earlier.
She doesn’t look that much like Rory actually. And she sure doesn’t act like her.
“What’s your name?” I shout over the music.
“Lydia,” she yells back, not appearing annoyed by the question.
Maybe she never told me. Maybe she’s too drunk to care I forgot the bare minimum.
“I’ve gotta go to the bathroom.”
She nods, indicating she heard me. I turn and push through the hot, crowded room, well aware I have no intention of returning. Or taking her upstairs.
I stop in the kitchen for a water and look around for Kit while I sip.
No sign of him. I’m guessing he’s off with his former assistant.
I’m happy for him. But if this thing with Collins lasts …
it’ll be weird. He’s never shown any interest in a serious relationship before.
He’s my wingman. If he’d been out on the dance floor with me, it would have felt less empty.
No sign of Wren either. Hopefully, that means she’s feeling better and off having fun, not that she’s still upset somewhere. I’ve never seen carefree, bubbly Wren so sad. I figured, like me, she didn’t tend to get attached.
My most recent “relationship” ended in August. Cammie, who lives in the Hamptons, agreed we were nothing serious.
Showing up to a party at the hotel she works at the last week of summer proved to be a mistake.
When we had first hooked up, she said she was hung up on someone else and only looking for casual.
That changed, apparently, but only on her side.
Our split was amicable but abrupt. And she didn’t show up tonight, despite my invitation, so she might still be annoyed.
I continue down the hallway, not stopping until I reach one of the doors that leads out onto the back patio.
This house is huge, my only advantage to navigating it the many times I’ve visited Kit here.
My parents have a summer house in the Hamptons as well, but I spend as little time there as possible.
It’s freezing outside. So cold that it stings like a slap to the face. But it feels good. Numbing yet invigorating.
I walk across the patio and past the pool. It’s so quiet out here, especially compared to the chaos inside the house, the only sound distant surf as water meets sand. My steps echo on the pavers, then crunch as I reach frozen grass.
There’s some illumination from the house’s blazing lights, but it becomes harder to see, the louder the waves become.
I keep walking all the way until I reach the white gate that marks the start of the Kensingtons’ private beach, surprised to find it ajar. I’m sure they have plenty of property managers who maintain the grounds year-round and wouldn’t have been negligent.
I take it as an invitation, continuing onto sand. Rose hips grow wild on either side of the path, nothing but brown sticks right now.
About ten feet farther, I see her.
Well, I see an expensive blanket and blonde hair. But I know it’s Rory, long before she notices me and glances over. A can of soda is beside her, a green spot in the sand.
“Parks,” is her cool greeting.
And that’s an improvement over her typical approach of ignoring my existence. I think the only reason she says anything at all, aside from the fact that there’s no way she can pretend not to notice I’m the only other person on the otherwise empty beach, is because I tried to help Wren earlier.
“Florence.” I take a seat beside her.
My knee bumps hers. I can tell she stiffens, even through the bulky blanket that covers her entirely. It doesn’t matter that I can’t see a single inch of the dress she was wearing in the laundry room. It’s the opposite problem from earlier—I remember too much.
Normally, she corrects my using her first name like a scolding schoolteacher. Tonight, she sighs, then says, “I’m not sharing my blanket with you.”
“No problem, Florence. I’ll freeze to death, and you can show off your legal prowess, defending yourself at my murder trial.”
“You freezing to death because you were too drunk to grab a jacket before going outside in January does not qualify as the intentional, willful, and planned killing of another person. I wouldn’t be charged with your murder.”
“It’s still December for a few more minutes. If we were in Rhode Island, Minnesota, or Vermont, you’d be obligated to help me under a duty of care law.”
I keep my eyes on the water since I’m pretty sure Rory is looking this way.
I’m not sure how much she knows about my dad shoving law school down my throat, but there’s an excellent chance we’ll be classmates in Cambridge next fall.
I know I drink too often and take too little seriously.
That people seek me out as the good-time guy and expect very little of substance to ever emerge.
I know that’s what Rory thinks. She’s too polite to ever say so plainly, but she makes it obvious in subtler ways.
She’s the perfect example of everything I’m not—responsible, hardworking, dependable.
And maybe that is why she’s one of the few people I ever put in any effort around. I respect that she doesn’t respect me, if that makes any sense.
“You’re right.”
Those two quiet words catch me more off guard than anything else she might have said.
“Is Wren okay?”
“She’ll be fine.”
“Where’s Carson?”
I normally get her boyfriend’s name wrong on purpose since it’s another way of needling her and because he’s a forgettable kind of guy.
But it feels like we’re having a mature conversation, so I restrain the urge.
And I’m genuinely curious. When Wren asked earlier, all Rory said was, he couldn’t make it.
Wren didn’t push for an actual answer, but I have no qualms about digging deeper.
“Not here.”
“So … where?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”
I shake my head. I don’t understand—I’ve never understood—why Rory’s standards don’t seem to extend to who she’s dating. I overheard—eavesdropped—what she told Wren about her first time when I left to get drinks. She let a guy fuck her who was more interested in his phone. If it’d been me—
I stop that thought in its tracks. Not only because it’s irrelevant, but because thinking about sex with Rory is turning me on more than the invitation of sex earlier. And that wasn’t in subarctic temperatures. I shouldn’t even be able to get hard in this weather.
“You should dump him.”
“What are you even doing out here, Flynn? Did you already hook up with all the hot women you were eyeing earlier?”
I bristle at the condemnation in her tone.
I’m young, and I’m single, and I’m at a party.
What does she expect me to do? Read a book about quantum physics in a corner?
We were having a semi-civil conversation, so of course she had to bring up my stupid comment about all the attractive girls her cousin invited.
It’s not like I was personally responsible for the guest list.
Why the fuck do I bother? Why do I care?
“Sure did,” I drawl. “Just came out here to rest my dick.”
She makes a disgusted face. “Feel free to rest it anywhere else.”
Feel free. If I wasn’t so annoyed, I’d smile. Even when she’s annoyed with me, Rory can’t muster a get lost or fuck off.
“But I’m so comfortable here, contracting hypothermia. Why would I go where it’s warm or welcoming?”
I’m not comfortable. But I am reluctant to go anywhere else, which makes no sense.
The first firework catches me by surprise.
Before I saw Rory, I was fully intending to head back inside to watch the show.
But now that I’m here, next to her, my muscles won’t cooperate.
I’m content to sit on frigid sand in the dark, watching the sky light up with the person at this party who wants my company the least.
“You should make a New Year’s wish, Florence.”
“I wish you’d learn my name is Rory.”
I smile.
I will never ever admit to Rory that I like saying her full first name because it sounds like the version of her only I get to see. That antagonizing her is only worthwhile because it exposes a side I don’t otherwise get to witness.
There’s so much to Rory that she rarely shows. Maybe I’m drawn to that because I do the same thing.
“Wish for something else,” I advise. “Because that’s not something you have control over.”
“I don’t have control over what I really want either.”
“You’ll get in.”
Her eyes fly to mine. She looks pretty—prettier—in the glow of bright lights that are also reflecting off the ocean.
“How did you—”
“You’ll get in,” I repeat.
She swallows hard. “I know I probably will. But until I get the letter …”
“You like guarantees.”
“Most people do.”
“I don’t. Sounds boring.”
“I know you don’t. I wasn’t concerned we were compatible.”
“Compatibility also sounds boring.”
I’ve missed all but the first firework. All I can see are the colors reflecting off Rory’s smooth hair.
I lean a little closer, and her eyes widen.
“Do you know what’s not boring, Florence? Taking risks. You should try it sometime.”
Her eyes drop to my mouth. I’m not sure she meant to look there. Actually, I’m quite sure she didn’t. Because there’s a sudden flare of panic when she registers she’s staring at my lips, and I’d bet the trust fund that I have to go to law school to receive that she’s thinking about kissing me.
She won’t.
I want her to.
The realization unsettles me. Because I’ve noticed Rory was gorgeous before—I’ve memorized her entire face, apparently—but I’ve never thought about her beauty in personal terms. I notice if her hair is down since she normally wears it up.
I haven’t fantasized about shoving my hands in her hair while I kiss a mouth forming comments like, “That’d be useful knowledge, if you were ever reliable,” which is what Rory told me when I was helping her find Wren earlier.
When I saw her dress, before she covered it with a blanket, I thought it was a nice color on her.
I wasn’t picturing the silk fisted in my hands while I thrust into her.
I’m doing all those things now.
Rory stands suddenly, stumbling to her feet in the sand as though she isn’t wearing flat shoes. “It’s too cold,” she announces abruptly, tugging the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “If you stay and freeze, I don’t want any culpability.”
I don’t smile at her reference to our earlier legal discussion. I shrug. “Be boring, Florence.”
“Grow the hell up, Flynn.”
She stomps past me toward the path.
“You forgot your Sprite!” I call after her, then lie back flat on the sand so I can see the sky better.
And impulsively wish for a chance to kiss Rory Kensington.