Chapter 4
When Carly woke the next morning, a pale yellow light was pressing itself against the shades of her bedroom window. It had been too hot the previous evening to sleep under anything more than a cotton sheet, but now the air in her bedroom had cooled, and she pulled the sheet up over her shoulders and her knees into her chest. She shut her eyes and listened hard to the sounds of Freshwater at dawn. A cyclist whizzing along the street. A garbage truck trundling down the block. Some kind of bird squawking in the frangipani tree in the front yard.
Under the sheet, she stretched her limbs out and groaned to herself. She was getting old. She woke up most mornings with her joints stiff and creaking now, even when she hadn’t spent most of the previous day sitting in a coach plane seat.
You could have asked your parents to fund an upgrade, a voice in her head said. They’d have been only too happy, seeing how they had adored Heather since the first time she’d come to their home for a sleepover. Sometimes Carly wondered if her mother wished her own daughter could be more like Heather. So serious and focused, even at age eleven. Quiet. Carly wasn’t quiet, had never known how to keep quiet. Heather had once said that when she was trying to be brave, she tried to be more like Carly. Well, when Carly was trying to be sensible for once, she tried to be more like Heather. And the sensible thing to do had been to pay her own way.
She’d saved up money for her ticket to Sydney, money she’d earned herself. Yes, she came from a wealthy family, even by New York standards. Edward Montgomery and Marlene Parker-Montgomery were both from old-money WASP families and had once taken Carly to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to show her all four of her grandparents’ names engraved in stone on the list of the museum’s major donors. And yes, her childhood had been one of privilege and ease.
But since she graduated from the NYB school and got her first paycheck from the company, she’d made a point of not asking her parents for financial help. When she and Heather had graduated from the company school and moved out of the dorms, they’d found a dingy little apartment near the Canal Street 1 stop and split the rent until Heather had moved uptown to live with her shithead ex-fiancé. Carly had stayed. She loved that apartment. She didn’t love the lack of light in the bathroom, or the five flights of stairs up to her door. But she loved that it was her place. She paid the rent, made sure the landlord repaired the A/C unit when it broke down, and furnished the living room with secondhand furniture. Not vintage or antique furniture, of the kind her parents collected, but secondhand. She’d never deluded herself into believing that she’d made it all on her own—plenty of families couldn’t afford the kind of ballet training she’d had as a kid, and without that training, she’d never have been able to join NYB. But now that she was an adult, she was determined to prove that she could fend for herself.
That said, there had been moments in the last decade when she’d been tempted to ask her parents for help. Just a little bit, to help smooth the way. Corps dancers were barely paid enough to get by in New York City. Two years ago, when Carly had been briefly unemployed, she’d been tempted to ask her parents for a loan, just enough to tide her over before she figured out what the hell she was going to do next. It would be so easy, she’d thought, and they’d be so happy to help. They’d never understood why she refused their money. “At least let us find you a place closer to the theater, honey,” her dad had said, looking around in horror the first time he’d visited the apartment. She’d never been able to explain it in a way that made sense to them. And before she’d had the chance to give in to the temptation to go running to them, Heather had swooped in and saved her job.
Outside, the mystery bird squawked louder, and Carly opened her eyes. The clock on the bedside table (covered in seashells, of course) told her it was just past 5 AM. Heather had warned her that she probably wouldn’t sleep through the night for a few days but that sunshine and time outside would help her body clock adjust. In other words, she should probably go to the beach. For medicinal reasons, of course.
Ten minutes later, she was padding down the sandy dune track to the beach. She’d pulled her hair into a low bun and slipped on yesterday’s shorts and her favorite old NYB sweatshirt, which had a hole in the armpit but had been washed and tumble dried to soft, gray perfection over the years. The sand was loose and cool beneath her feet as she walked toward the water where, past the break, a handful of surfers were already out on their longboards.
She stopped halfway down the beach and sat down, breathing in deeply and feeling her body sink gently into the sand. Shit, it was beautiful here. None of the photos Heather had sent her had done this place justice. And how could they? A photo could capture the morning sky, all delicate mauves and watery blues, and it could show her the way the golden morning light made the water sparkle like a sumptuous costume under stage lights. But it couldn’t capture the sounds of seagulls cawing overhead, or the fresh, salty scent of the water. Or the steady, comforting sound of the waves as they rolled endlessly in. Carly closed her eyes and listened to the water pound the sand, inhaling as it fizzed and receded, and exhaling with every crash. The soundtrack on her meditation app didn’t do that sound justice, either. Love of her life aside, she thought, opening her eyes, it was no wonder Heather wanted to stay over here.
Out in the water, she watched two surfers preparing to catch a wave, looking over their shoulders as they paddled their hands over the sides of their boards. The wave took them, and one of them hoisted himself onto the board, angling his body along the wave and keeping his balance as the board twisted beneath him. The other surfer stayed on his stomach, and she watched his board come zooming into shore at an impressive clip, as the first surfer toppled off his board and landed with an unceremonious splash amid the breaking wave.
The second surfer climbed off his board and hoisted it under his arm, lifting his feet high to clear the shallow waves as he walked out of the water. Water streamed out of his hair and down onto his lean shoulders, drawing her eyes down to his broad and muscular chest, where more droplets caught in his chest hair and sparkled.
“Good morning,” she muttered to herself, as he made his way out of the water, his clearly defined obliques shifting under his glistening skin with every step. A few moments ago, she’d been wondering what time the closest café opened, hoping she could get some caffeine into her system soon. Now, though, she was wide awake, and her mouth was watering slightly. She couldn’t make out his face, but she ran her eyes down his body, shamelessly following the sharp V of his abs down until it disappeared into his small black bathing suit shorts. Wet and clinging as they were, they didn’t leave much to the imagination, and she swallowed an appreciative groan as she let her eyes linger shamelessly on his crotch, then on his quads, which were flexing and releasing as he walked.
He stopped walking about fifteen feet away from her, and then, because apparently the Beach Gods had decided to smile on her this morning, he set his board down on the sand and turned around to watch the surfers who were still out in the water.
“Correction: best morning,” she muttered, swallowing again as she traced the curves of his ass with her eyes and took in the deep vertical line of his spine, flanked by yet more lean muscle. He was cut like a dancer, but he looked like he was born and raised on the beach. She hoped he stayed there all morning watching the surfers so she could stay here all morning enjoying this view. Well, not all morning; in a few hours she’d have to go run wedding errands with Nick Asshat Jacobs. But she could endure his company as long as she had this breathtaking mental image to work with. She’d just pull this memory up every time Nick started talking, and it would be easy to smile vacantly into his stupid handsome face.
She was so busy committing every ridge of this hot stranger’s muscled back and every inch of his wet, shining skin to memory that she didn’t notice that he was turning away from the water. Before she could avert her eyes and pretend that she hadn’t been gawking at him like the sex-starved weirdo that she was, he had turned around and looked at her. It was only then that she lifted her eyes above his shoulders and saw his face. His stupid, handsome face.
In addition to everything else she was—loud, impulsive, chaotic, and a danger to everyone around her—Carly Montgomery was fucking everywhere. Inescapable. It was bad enough that he had to spend today with her, but Nick couldn’t even go for a surf with Marcus without running into her. A force of nature, Marcus had said. More like Cyclone Carly.
He watched as she scrambled to her feet, spraying sand into the quiet morning air, still staring at him. Her eyes were wide and her mouth had fallen open into a large, mortified-looking O. After one more second of staring, she seemed to snap out of her frozen state, and she turned over her shoulder and hurried up the beach towards the dunes. She moved so quickly that she slipped a little on the loose sand, but she seemed determined to get as far away from him as she could, as fast as she possibly could. Except—
“You forgot your shoes,” he called. She stopped dead, then whipped around to face him, her eyebrows scrunched into a frown. From this distance he couldn’t be sure, but something told him she was clenching her jaw. She marched back down the beach towards the abandoned sandals, her bun bouncing at her neck, and yanked the shoes up off the sand. God, those fluoro pink nails were obnoxious.
“You could just say thank you,” he said, just loud enough for her to hear over the waves, and she stood up and met his eyes, and even from here he could see the irritation and disgust etched all over her freckled face as he repeated her own words back to her.
He waited for her to snark back at him, but instead she simply turned and walked away again, her sandals swinging furiously from her hand. The prickled aliveness that had momentarily swirled in his chest faded as he watched her storm back up the beach and over the dunes. It snuffed out as she stalked out of sight.
“Was that Carly I just saw?”
Nick turned around to see Marcus walking out of the water with his board under his arm.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Nick said quickly. He had the sudden feeling he’d been busted doing something he shouldn’t have. He nodded out towards the waves, eager to change the subject. “Good swell this morning.”
“No, yeah, it’s been great the last few days. When it’s like this I sometimes try to come back in the evening, too. My hair’s never fully dry anymore.” Marcus grinned contentedly and led Nick up the beach towards the surf club building, where two garage doors opened onto the sand and rows of empty storage racks stood ready to receive Nick’s borrowed board.
As they rinsed and dried their boards, Marcus chatted amiably with a few other surfers he seemed to know quite well. They asked Nick where he was from, where he usually surfed, and it was such a relief to be able to speak to strangers here without worrying about his accent throwing them off or making him have to repeat himself. Nick’s French wasn’t bad for someone who’d only taken a year of company-sponsored formal classes, but his accent had caused frequent confusion among native speakers. He hadn’t realized until this morning that he was usually bracing for confusion or repetition every time he opened his mouth to someone who didn’t know him. That was what home was, wasn’t it? A place you understood, and where you could be understood?
As Marcus waxed his board, he and another surfer began what sounded like an ongoing friendly debate about the merits of various wax brands, and Nick found his mind drifting. His friend had stopped dancing two years ago and had found himself an entirely new existence: Marcus had a new career path, a new hobby, new friends, and of course, he had Heather. Somehow, Nick had managed to fail completely at all of the above. Marcus seemed truly happy. He hadn’t been dealt an easy hand in the last few years, between his dad’s death and his injury and getting fired from ANB, but he’d come through it and built himself a full new life after ballet. Nick had done none of that.
“You need a coffee?” Marcus’s question interrupted Nick’s silent self-recriminations and brought him back to the cool, musty concrete room.
“Yeah, I need several,” Nick agreed. He hadn’t slept well the previous night. The noise from the bar downstairs filtered up through the floor.
A few minutes later, the barista at the surf club café slid their takeaway coffees over the counter—she’d started making Marcus’s the moment she saw them coming—and they sat down on a bench overlooking the dunes.
“So what’s on the docket for you today?” Nick asked. After lunch yesterday, Heather had divided up the tasks on her spreadsheet and given each of them a carefully ordered list of wedding tasks to attend to, complete with little checkboxes they could tick off when each job was done.
Marcus sipped his coffee and leaned forward on the bench, stretching his hamstrings with a quiet, satisfied groan. “I need to go to Randwick for my final tux fitting. But first we need to get you Mum’s car. I can drive us both over there, then you can drive back on your own and collect Carly. Sound good?”
Not really, Nick thought. Not to him and not to Carly. Not if their brief and disastrous interaction this morning was anything to go by.
“You were right, she’s kind of a lot,” Nick muttered.
“Who, Carly? Yeah, I know.”
“I mean, I’ve met some ballet brats, but she’s on another level. Did you know she—”
He stopped. He didn’t need to tell Marcus the whole story of yesterday’s trolley-suitcase-dildo disaster. He took another sip of coffee and shook his head.
“I can see why you think that,” Marcus allowed. “Like I said, she’s a lot. But you should hear the way Heather talks about her. I reckon she’d trust Carly with her life. They’re basically sisters. Did you know it was Carly who told Heather the truth about her ex?”
“About him cheating?”
“Yeah. She was the one who busted him with his girlfriend, and she came to Heather and told her about it, and then let Heather sleep on her couch for months after the break-up.”
“Hmmm,” Nick said, noncommittally, unwilling to admit to Marcus that he was impressed. Everyone said they’d tell someone if they knew they were being cheated on, but how many people chickened out when confronted with the choice to actually do it? He had the feeling Carly Montgomery never chickened out of anything. The idea annoyed him.
“Heather owes her a lot. So do I, come to think of it. If not for Carly, Heather would be married to that dickhead right now, instead of about to marry me. To Carly,” Marcus said, raising his coffee cup and bumping it against Nick’s.
“Maybe I’ll put that in my best man speech,” Nick laughed, and Marcus chuckled. “I’ve got a lot of embarrassing school stories to get through, though, so I might not be able to fit it in. Remember that time Justin dared you to do a whole class with your dance belt on backwards?”
“I do, and so do my balls,” Marcus replied darkly. “But you wouldn’t dare mention my balls at my wedding.”
Nick swallowed a mouthful of coffee and gave Marcus an evil grin. “Wouldn’t I?”
Marcus chuckled again and gave him a playful shove. “You go right ahead, then, but remember that I’ll get you back with interest when your own turn comes. Speaking of which, how is the lovely Delphine? Are you going to put a ring on it any time soon?”
Nick felt his smile fade. He’d been hoping that Marcus would be so distracted by his own nuptials that he’d forget to ask about Delphine, but he should have known better. He cleared his throat.
“Euh, Delphine’s kind of French about marriage,” he dodged. “I don’t think it’s really for her. Sorry she couldn’t make it, but rehearsals are just too intense right now.”
He couldn’t bring himself to tell Marcus the truth, not when his friend had his life so completely together. It was bad enough that he’d come back to Sydney with no job and his whole life in a suitcase. He couldn’t bear to tell Marcus that once he’d stopped dancing, once they’d stopped working together every day, Delphine had decided they didn’t have much in common. And that his post-retirement funk was getting ennuyeux. Boring. Better to play the French libertine card and let Marcus hear what he wanted.
Marcus nodded, apparently satisfied by his answer, and Nick took a relieved sip of his coffee. It had been a while since he and Marcus had really talked. But when they were kids, they spent almost every day together, and they’d known each other so well they barely needed more than grunts and body language to convey complicated ideas and feelings.
“You gonna see your parents while you’re here?” Marcus asked.
“I haven’t decided,” Nick lied again. “Things ended so badly last time, and they were already pretty messy. They’re just never going to forgive me for the way I left.” His parents had never gotten over him going behind their backs to audition for Münchner Staatsballett. And after the fight they’d had when he’d last come home to visit—yet another row about him moving home—he didn’t want to go out to Springwood to see them.
“What about Nina?”
Nick nodded. “Yeah, Neens and I are fine. Now that she’s grown we’ve kind of got our own thing, separate from them.” His sister had been so young when he’d left for Europe, and her parents had hidden a lot of their anger from her. But she was smart; she’d figured out that something wasn’t right between them, and she’d spent years trying to bridge that gap, always reminding him whenever she called him that they all missed him, that he was welcome at home. But Nick didn’t want to go home to Springwood, and he definitely didn’t want to face his parents now.
He had been so cocky about his future back then, so sure he was going to go overseas and make a whole glamorous new life for himself, so sure that he was going to get away and stay away from Sydney, and even further away from his little hometown. He was so sure back then. So very, very sure.
He drained the last of his coffee and fiddled for a moment with the empty cup.
“Is, euh, is Carly bringing a plus-one?” he asked Marcus. He didn’t know why he’d asked. He didn’t care. It didn’t matter.
“Nope, she’s flying solo as well,” Marcus said, and Nick ignored the prick of satisfaction that usually came from hearing the answer he’d been hoping for. “It’s a good thing, actually, that you’re both on your own. Makes the seating chart a little simpler.”
“Do I want to know what that spreadsheet looks like?” Nick asked.
“No, but I see it in my dreams. And nightmares,” Marcus chuckled. “I’m telling you, wedding planning is intense. I think Delphine might be on to something.”
Nick forced himself to smile as he stood and tossed his coffee cup in the bin.
“Should we go get your mum’s car?”
“Yeah,” Marcus said, standing and yawning widely. “Let’s get showered and then we’ll go pick it up, okay?”
“Okay,” Nick agreed. He didn’t have to worry about Delphine today. He didn’t have time to worry about her, actually. Today he had to remember how to drive on the left-hand side of the road. And he had to figure out how to spend the day with Carly Montgomery without one or both of them ending up dead.