8. Weston
Weston
I’m here for the auction.
Then I see her.
She’s across the terrace with Georgia, laughing. Head tipped back, hand at her collarbone, shoulders loose, and relaxed in a way I’ve never seen at the desk.
I’ve seen her amused before. I’ve never seen this. The sight stops me for half a second before I force myself to keep walking.
She sees me before I’m halfway there.
Her shoulders straighten just a little. She says something to Georgia, and ten feet later, she’s already talking to someone else, her back angled away from me.
She’s not avoiding me by accident.
I get a drink and find Ethan by the display. He talks about a third-quarter deal while I listen with about thirty percent of my attention.
Monique crosses the terrace behind him.
I excuse myself from Ethan and cross to her.
She’s near the catering table. I’m about to speak when she smiles politely and says, “I think Georgia was looking for you, actually,” then moves away before I can respond.
Georgia is definitely not looking for me.
I try again near the bar. She’s already moving toward another group, slipping into the conversation as if she belongs there. I stop and get a drink instead.
She meets my eyes for a second, not unkindly, then looks away.
The third time, I don’t try.
I just watch.
She’s talking to Noah by the pool bar, explaining something with her hands. I’ve seen those gestures before at the desk when she’s working through a problem. She points toward the entrance, traces a sightline across the terrace, sketches an angle in the air.
Noah asks a question. She adjusts the invisible diagram. He nods, finally understanding.
I’m smiling before I realize it.
I turn back to the Hinckley listing and read it, retaining not a word.
When the bidding starts, I raise my paddle and win it on the second bid. Noah brings over the paperwork, and we go through the details — storage, registration transfer, the bill of sale. I sign wherever he points, using the nearest pen.
When I set the pen down, my first thought is, She'd like this boat.
My second thought is that I should probably examine what's happening to me.
Ethan appears at my shoulder with a drink I never saw him pick up. He stands next to me and watches the terrace.
A moment passes.
"Where'd you find her?" he asks. "The one you keep not looking at."
I offer him a small smile before taking a drink.
"She just explained to Noah why his bar placement is costing him about twenty percent of his event revenue." He tilts his head. "She thinks like someone who's run a room before."
He says it almost to himself, still testing the idea. Then someone calls his name, and he leaves, the comment hanging behind him.
I don't confirm it. I don't correct it.
I fold the purchase agreement and slip it into my jacket pocket. Then I think of a woman who cut four redundant steps from an overnight checklist, filed a ventilation report no one read for six months, and just handed Noah a sightline analysis for a venue she's been in under an hour.
She thinks like someone who's run a room before.
Yes. She does.
The crowd thins. First, the people with somewhere else to be. Then the people who've seen enough. Then the ones who leave because everyone they know has left.
Eventually, it's just the stragglers, the caterers, and the shape of a terrace after a party.
I've made the rounds and had the conversations I needed to have. The Hinckley paperwork is in my pocket, and there's no reason for me to still be here.
I haven't really spoken to her since the kiss. Two failed attempts, one deliberate non-attempt, and three hours of keeping a terrace between us.
I've respected the distance because she needed it.
But the light is fading, the terrace is nearly empty, and the truth is that I'm waiting.
I noticed the cream-colored scarf she brought. Earlier, it was draped over a chair near the pool. When she left with Georgia twenty minutes ago, she wasn't carrying it.
She comes back around the far end of the terrace, head down, digging through her bag. Three steps onto the flagstone, she looks up and stops.
Her eyes widen, and her chin pulls back slightly. Something catches her unprepared — open and unguarded.
She doesn't have time to hide her surprise that I'm still there, waiting.
It stays for two full seconds.
Then it's gone.
Her mouth settles. Her shoulders straighten. She gives me the calm, measured look I've come to know.
And I think, There. That was the real one.
"I had a feeling you'd come back," I say.
"You waited."
"I didn't go anywhere."
She looks at the scarf on the chair, then back at me. She's doing the geometry — whether she can get to the chair without coming closer to me, whether the angle of it gives her an exit path, whether she needs the scarf badly enough to navigate whatever this is about to be.
"Monique." Just her name. Not a stop, but an anchor.
"Don't."
She doesn't go for the exit, and she doesn't come toward me. She stands at the edge of the flagstone, arms at her sides, eyes on mine.
She’s looking at me with the direct, flat attention she uses when she's deciding rather than deflecting.
"You've been avoiding me all evening," I say.
"I’m not here for you."
"You've managed to stay away from me in a different section for three hours."
Her mouth moves at the corner. She doesn't say anything.
I take one step toward her. "I'm not going to push," I say. "If you don't want to talk about the other night, we won't. Not right now." A beat. "But I'm not going to pretend it didn't happen, and I don't think you actually want me to. We can talk about something else."
She looks toward the pool. Her jaw shifts.
The light has dropped, and the water has gone still, the surface flat and dark now, holding what's left of the sky.
I watch her gaze at it. Her chin is level, her hands loose. She's not afraid of the water; she's measuring it.
"Did you ever learn to swim?" I say.
She turns her head and looks at me. Her eyes narrow slightly. "What?"
"Swim. Do you know how?"
"I…" She stops. "No, I didn’t." A beat. "Why?"
"Just asking."
She watches me for a moment. I let her.
I'm standing at the edge of a pool, asking a straightforward question because it seemed easier than pretending I didn't want the answer.
"I can teach you," I say.
Her eyebrows lift slightly. "Right now?"
"Not right now." It pulls a smile out of me, wider than I intended. "When you want to. The Langford has a pool. Quiet in the early morning, before the gym opens. No one around." I look back at her. "Just time."
She's quiet for a long moment.
The pool makes a small sound at its edge, the water moving against the tile in the faint evening air. Her mouth is closed, and her hands are still at her sides.
She's looking at me with an expression I can't read, which is unusual. She's one of the more readable people I've spent time with, underneath the layers she puts between herself and the room.
Right now the layers are still there, but they're thinner than they've been all evening.
"That's not…" She starts.
"Not what?"
She doesn't finish it. Instead, she walks to the edge of the pool. One step, then another, until the light rising from the water finds the line of her jaw.
She looks across the surface, not down at her feet, but outward, as though trust is something she has to decide before she can move.
"It's easier than it looks," I say.
She's quiet for a long moment. I'm quiet too.
The terrace has emptied around us. The caterers are inside, and the last of the guests have drifted toward the parking.
It's just the pool, the low evening air, and the soft lap of water against the tile.
Her shoulders drop a half inch. Her weight shifts forward, toward the edge…toward the water.
She's about to step closer when —