Chapter 16
Six weeks until Opening Night
Theo has a crush on Max, which means we are meeting Max and Bailey at the lake on our day off under the guise of cast bonding, or something.
I assumed meeting at the lake meant the main beach along the waterfront, or even one of the smaller neighborhood beaches, but he picks me up and we drive down one of the long cottage roads out of town to a small dirt parking lot where Max and Bailey are waiting for us. And Will.
“You didn’t tell me Will was coming,” I murmur. He waves as we pull in, our eyes catching briefly through the window.
“Didn’t I?” says Theo. “I thought you guys got along.” He’s being overly cheerful and not quite looking at me.
“We do,” I say. “Sure we do.” He smiles to himself. “Jeez, Theo, what?”
“Nothing,” he says innocently as we get out. “Can’t I just surround myself with beautiful men?”
“Sure you can,” I say. “As long as they’re just for you.”
“How dare you insinuate otherwise,” he says with a wink. I know then exactly what he’s up to.
We greet the others, hugs and high fives, even though most of us saw each other yesterday at rehearsal. Bailey hugs Will, and I wonder if I should. I stand there awkwardly and give him a little wave. He laughs and gives me a quick squeeze. He smells of sunscreen and clean laundry.
“Let’s go! It’s just a short hike from here!” says Bailey, as if this is good news.
“Hike? I thought we were going to the beach?” I look down at my flip-flops.
“No,” says Theo. “I said we were going swimming.” He gives me his most charming smile and hands me a small cooler.
“That’s the booze, Mirabel, don’t drop it.
” I nearly stagger under the weight. I look around for a chivalrous man to offer to carry it for me, but they are all heading up the path with their own gear.
It is a short hike, but it is steep and awkward, and I’m wearing the wrong shoes.
Max takes pity on me and hoists the cooler up over a particularly ragged set of rocks.
The rest of them practically skip up with me sweating and swearing behind them.
The last stretch is nearly all rock, no path at all, and I look around helplessly for a way around it when a hand reaches down. I look up. Will.
“I’ve got you.” He smiles and hoists me up easily.
When I stumble to the top and look around, I see why we’re here.
It’s not the big lake at all, but a small lake nearby, shimmering in the sunlight, surrounded by trees and high rocks, including the wide sloping one we are on, which pools out at the water’s edge into a sort of smooth rock beach. There is no one here but us.
“Oh, wow.”
“Indeed!” says Theo, removing his shirt with conspicuous aplomb, and yes, I catch Max noticing. I smile to myself until I see Theo run toward the edge of the rock and leap off, and then I scream.
“What the fuck!” I shriek, running toward the edge. “Theodore Raymond, if you drown yourself, I will kill you!”
Will comes up beside me, laughing. “He’s fine.” He pats my arm. Sure enough, Theo comes up, sputtering, laughing. Will applauds, whooping. He’s loose here. I like it.
“Isn’t it, like, terribly dangerous?” I ask.
“We’ve been coming here since we were kids,” Will says. “Obviously I do not support my friends just leaping from anywhere.” He looks at me. “You gonna try it?”
“Oh, no. No, thank you. Absolutely not.”
“Didn’t you grow up here?” asks Bailey, peering over the edge. “Aren’t you used to doing things like this?”
“I was more of an indoor cat,” I say primly.
I step away from the edge and make my way down to the water to set up my towel.
Next to me, Will peels off his shirt, revealing his full sleeves of tattoos and a few scattered across his (oh, wow) surprisingly toned torso, and one by itself, over his heart.
I feel caught somehow with his naked chest in front of me, my eyes roaming.
“I like that one.” I point to the jagged line over his heart.
“Oh, yeah! It was my first one.” A heartbeat.
“Isn’t it a little on the nose, though, to get your heartbeat on your heart?” I say, trying to sound coy.
“It’s not mine,” he says vaguely, then seems to reconsider. “This is Jonah’s.”
“Oh.” God, that’s sweet. “Oh, wow. And he . . . ?”
“Yeah, he had mine.” He smiles, a sliver of sadness way back in his eyes.
“That’s so lovely.” What a wonder, that there used to be two of him. What a loss.
“Yeah.” He shrugs.
“Yeah.” What else do I say? “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He smiles in that practiced way of people who have lost someone.
Without thinking, I reach out and trace the line tentatively with my finger.
He looks surprised but doesn’t move. His skin is satin smooth.
We stand there staring at each other. We are interrupted by a loud shriek and a splash as Bailey leaps off the cliff.
I jump back as if my hand is on fire. We turn to watch her resurface, and the moment is broken.
We have all cobbled a picnic together, and I find the small cooler I hauled to be full of ice-cold cider from Will.
He hands me a dripping can and our fingers touch.
“This one is my take on a margarita. I think you’ll like it.
” He smiles, some little something now sparked between us, a tether I want to pull toward me.
He throws Theo a can as I crack mine open.
It shocks my throat in that perfect bubbly summer way, and he’s right, I love it.
I seem to love everything this guy gives me.
We lie in the sun, the others taking turns jumping off the rocks.
We open more cider and gulp it greedily in the heat.
Max passes a joint around; I refuse again.
The last thing we need is me on an acid trip from a single puff.
Theo has brought a small nylon pouch that opens up into a hammock, which he sets up between the trees for a nap.
Bailey has brought a book, and Max has brought his script.
I only brought one swimsuit from the city, a basic, scooped navy tank with a plunging back.
Bailey is in a baby-blue crocheted bikini. I wish I were wearing something cuter.
I am hot, the sun is bright, and I feel my skin burning. I reach into my bag for sunscreen, and without a word, Will holds out his hand. The half smile. I hand it to him and slowly turn my back toward him.
“Thanks,” I say as casually as I can muster.
“Sure.” He places his hands on my back gently, rubbing the lotion in, carefully avoiding getting too close to the edges of my suit.
“It’s okay,” I say. “You can . . .” He clears his throat, pausing for a moment before he moves his fingers under the edges of my suit.
Suddenly I am aware of exactly how plunging it is.
The last man who touched me was Nick. We don’t speak.
When he is finished, he pats my face with finality, as if to break whatever tension is brewing.
“All done!”
“Thanks,” I say. “Do you . . . Should I . . . ?”
“Nah, I’m good,” he says. I can’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses. I wish I could.
I lie face down on my towel, and he lies next to me. I see my face reflected in his lenses. I wonder if he likes me. As if reading my mind, he takes the glasses off and looks at me.
“Hey,” he says. He smiles at me.
“Hey.” My heart is racing.
“I’m glad we’re hanging out.” He pauses. “Finally.”
“Yeah, me too!” I say too brightly. He makes me nervous. I swallow hard. “Totally.” My body is buzzing—the heat, the cider, him. I glance over at Max and Bailey, reading on their chairs. I look back at Will. He has rolled onto his back, one arm slung lazily under his head.
“Tell me about your tattoos,” I say. He laughs. “I know that sounds like a pickup line or something.”
“Are you trying to pick me up, Mirabel?”
“Hey.” I point right in his face. “Only one person gets to call me that.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I was trying it out.”
“Mirabel has to be earned.”
“Yeah.” He looks at me closely. “Yeah, I know she does.”
“Hey,” I say. “You’re not in the play anymore.”
He smiles slowly. “I am not.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Sure is.”
I’m a tiny bit tipsy, and the sun is too bright, and there is a half-naked man on a beach towel next to me who promised to kiss me when we were seventeen.
I have the slow-burning sense that I may be in trouble here.
I have half a vision of rolling over, pulling him toward me, tipping my mouth to his, slipping my tongue across his .
. . I glance over quickly, in case my mind somehow projected my thoughts above me, in case I am as transparent as I feel.
Will is still on his back, eyes covered, a small smile on his lips.
I need to cool off. I sit up, then stand up, then walk toward the edge of the rock, a lower spot than where Theo jumped, and slip into the water.
It’s a delicious jolt after the heat. I swim out as far away from him as I can, the sun obscuring the horizon.
When I turn around, Will is sitting up, watching me, and suddenly, it’s inevitable: I swim slowly back to shore, watching him as he stands.
The rocks where we sat are smooth and flat, jutting out to a small point.
Off to one side is a small alcove obscured by a cluster of bushes at the water’s edge.
I tilt my head in that direction, a question.
An invitation. Will walks slowly into the water.
Our eyes don’t leave each other. He slips around the rock point into the alcove, out of sight of the others, waist deep and waiting for me.
My heart is racing, the heat, the cider, and then a near explosion when I arrive and he pulls me into him.
We collide, our mouths meet, his hands are in my hair, lake water running down our faces, my hands running over his body.
I have wanted to kiss him for so long. I am helpless and hungry, pulling him in closer.
I push my knee between his legs and feel him hard against me.
His hands rake my rib cage, sliding down my ass.
We are drowning in each other. We pull back, and he looks at me, almost alarmed, then kisses me again more deeply, more tenderly, so beautifully that I can’t stand it.
I push him away. He stumbles back in the water, and we stare at each other, chests heaving, breathless.
“I can’t,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I thought . . . It seemed like you . . .”
“No, I did, I do, I’m . . . ugh.” I push my wet hair off my face. “I . . . I don’t know. I can’t. I’m sorry.” Whatever I am feeling right now feels completely dangerous. I’ve never felt anything like it. It’s terrifying.
He steps back, his face hurt, confused. “Okay.” He rubs his face. “I—I just can’t tell what you want from me, Mira.”
I may spend the rest of my life regretting it, but for now, all I can do is shrug and sigh and swim away.