Chapter 27 #2
We found our groove—slow days, good food, the kind of peace that makes you forget life ever hurt.
Which is probably why I never saw Carol Parker coming.
We were grabbing drinks at the club’s bar the first night I met her. I can’t be sure if she waited for Beau to step away or if it was merely an unlucky coincidence. But when Beau spotted Will in the lobby, he told me he was going to say hi, and that’s when Carol pounced.
“You must be the new member,” she said, and the double string of pearls around her neck made me uneasy.
“Carol Parker.” She extended her hand. “Etiquette committee chair.”
“Este,” I said.
“Este Todd, is it?” She narrowed her eyes, and I would have sworn I saw the specter of Simon’s emails flash behind them.
I nodded. “Thank you for having me.”
“Oh, don’t thank me. Thank your boyfriend.” The drawl on that last word delivered the implied judgment with surgical precision—this woman had a doctorate in passive-aggressiveness. “I’ve heard he’s quite the philanthropist.”
And then another woman slipped in beside Carol—tall, redheaded, and bubbly in a way that begged for approval.
“This is Autumn Kensington,” Carol announced, her voice going up a full octave in admiration. “Our new head of events. She started last week, but she hasn’t wasted any time whipping us into shape.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Autumn laughed. “But I am excited to be here. So many ideas.”
“Isn’t she a breath of fresh air?” Carol beamed. “She’s already planning a garden gala in April. Maybe a Derby watch party, too.”
Autumn’s eyes pulled wide with an incoming idea. “What if it was ‘Derby de Mayo’?”
“I love it,” Carol said. “It’s perfect.”
“That does sound thrilling.” I smiled, but I could feel the dread trickling in.
Country clubs were never really my scene—too curated, too coded.
But when we joined, I had thought I could be myself.
The check cleared, didn’t it? Something about the way Carol looked over my bare shoulders and beachy maxi dress, though, told me I had fallen short of her expectations.
Autumn turned to me, offering her hand. “Carol said you’re new in town, too? Moved here with your boyfriend? Some tech success story?”
I watched the way Carol’s eyebrows went up at the word “boyfriend,” and I could feel what she wasn’t saying.
Freeloader. Temporary. Arm candy in the wrong dress.
There were rules here, too. Just like in Simon’s office, but the politics were at an angle.
People at the club didn’t want financial power—they already had that.
Here, they wanted popularity. It was like high school with a driving range.
Old me would have lunged for the top of the food chain.
But the last time I did that, it cost me everything I had.
I couldn’t risk it again. So I did the opposite.
Let them whisper. Let them think what they wanted.
I had already survived worse than Carol could ever throw at me, so I tuned her out and smiled at Autumn. “I am. We’ve been here a few months. We bought a place we just wrapped up the renovations on.”
Autumn’s smile was bright and a little too fixed. “That’s so exciting. I love HGTV.”
“Me, too!” Carol beamed.
Oh, brother.
The way Carol and Autumn started tittering about shiplap solidified my suspicions that being new in Winter Park wasn’t a problem for Carol. But breaking from formation? That would cost you with her.
When Beau returned, having said good night to Will, I smiled and whispered to him softly, “Have you met Carol? She finds my status as your girlfriend to be quite the scandal.”
And I couldn’t be certain, but I think he kissed my bare shoulder for the sole purpose of making her nostrils flare.
“I love you,” I mouthed.
He winked.
When we got home, I went out to sit by the pool, where the soft slap of water against the dock blended with the low hum of cicadas in the trees.
It was humid, but not in a bad way. The kind of warmth that settled under your skin. I pulled my hair off my neck and leaned back in my chair, thinking I could get used to this version of myself.
She’s rested. She’s loved. She’s shielded by money. She doesn’t give a single fuck.
I heard Beau’s feet coming and then saw a glass of wine being offered. I took it, and he settled into the chair next to me.
“Wonder what the poor folks are doing,” he said with a slight drawl.
I looked at him.
“Southern expression. Something my grandfather said every time the air-conditioning kicked on in the summer.”
I touched the Buffalo Nickel—the one his grandfather had given him—on my neck and then tapped my drink to his in a quiet toast.
“I’m really happy,” I said softly.
I could see the awe spread across his face. He started to say something, but he didn’t get the chance. Because just then, a shriek ripped through the quiet.
We both sat up and looked toward the sound.
The male voice started, “I was at the club. I—”
“Because I do everything!” a woman shouted. “I want to be you for twenty-four hours, Will. I’d like one day of ‘Oh, hello, I’m everyone’s golden boy!’ ”
It was Constance Somerset. Will’s wife. Our next-door neighbor.
The sound carried cleanly through the hedges, echoing off our lawn.
“We should go inside,” Beau suggested.
Then, a puff of white rose above the hedge line—laundry, maybe? A crumpled dress shirt caught a breeze and then flopped back down.
I stifled my laughter. “Are you crazy?” I said, eyes trained on the hedges. “This is the best entertainment I’ve ever seen.”
Will didn’t shout back. From what I’d gathered in our few neighborly conversations, he was the even-keeled type. But Constance was only getting started.
We had never heard them fight like that before. And I don’t remember them fighting like that again. It would be years before their divorce. Before Nora. But that fight lasted for hours.
“Carol’s throwing shade at me because I’m not signing up for that?” I rolled my eyes. “She’s out of her mind.”
“We would never be married like that,” Beau said.
“No,” I agreed, knowing he was right. “I guess there are lots of different kinds of marriages.”
The thought had only just occurred to me. Perhaps because I was living in some kind of denial about what this had become. What we had become.
Before Beau, I had never given marriage a second thought. I was going to be hardworking like my parents and carefree like Delia.
Nothing is permanent.
Maybe I had come to believe it was selfish to ask for more than a thrill. Life doesn’t owe anyone anything. Better not to expect something lasting.
I found myself memorizing the way he smelled after a shower, storing away little moments like this as though it could all be over—he could walk out on me or cast me aside any second. We might be just as ephemeral as everything else I had ever known.
But if I could make one thing permanent, choose one person to hold on to for the rest of my life, it would be him.
Suddenly, the world narrowed to just us, and I knew what I wanted to do next. Because losing him felt like a fate I wouldn’t survive.
“Maybe we should get married,” I said. My voice was almost a whisper, but I was certain.
“So you have spousal immunity when you set Carol’s house on fire?”
“No.” I swatted at him. “I don’t care what Carol thinks. Or how much emphasis she puts on the word ‘boyfriend.’ ”
He laughed, but when our eyes met, he seemed to realize I wasn’t kidding. Something hopeful and unguarded softened his expression.
“I want to be Este Walker,” I said. I liked the way it sounded, and not because changing my name would distance me from the Simon scandal.
He reached for my hand, turned my palm upward, and pressed a kiss to the inside of my wrist. It reminded me of the night he gave me the Buffalo Nickel and told me to trust him. I felt loved. Protected.
“I want to always be with you. Like, forever,” I said quietly. “And I want the courts to make it mandatory.”
“I don’t know why people don’t commission you to compose their vows.”
His eyes were watery, but he still hadn’t given me an answer. Anxiety flashed through me.
“Are you saying no?”
“Are you going to get down on one knee?” he asked as if he was holding back by the thinnest measure, in case I was kidding.
I took the Buffalo Nickel off my neck. His coin on my chain had rested near my heart ever since he gave it to me.
It had been his promise to me once, and I wanted to make him a promise, too.
So I wrapped the chain around his left wrist, like a tether to the safest place I had ever known. “Say you’ll always be my home.”
Tears were rolling down both our cheeks as he drew me into his lap for a long kiss.
“And promise we’ll never fight like that.”
I giggled, because laughter was easier than admitting how terrified I was by my own longing. I’d watched my life collapse before and wanting forever with Beau felt like an act of love—yes. But also an act of defiance.
“I promise,” he said before he kissed me again.
It was a smug lie. The kind you tell yourself before you know better. But at the time, I believed him. I believed in us.