Chapter 11
By the time Carly presented herself at Heather’s place that evening, she had posted two more of Nick’s photos and added almost a thousand new followers. It wasn’t a lot compared to some dancers she knew—there was one principal in her company with 250,000 followers—but it was a damn good start.
She checked her account one last time before she rang the doorbell, because she needed to know the current number. She wasn’t stalling. She certainly wasn’t dragging out the minutes until she had to be in Nick’s company again, just like she definitely hadn’t spent the day dragging her mind away from the memory of the way Nick had looked as he’d clambered out of the pool this morning. She’d spent the entire day regretting her decision to save the camera. She should have kept Nick on dry land and let his Nikon fly into the pool. Sure, it would have destroyed an expensive piece of equipment and broken Nick’s heart, and sure, it would have set their little project back. That would have been regrettable, obviously. But at least she wouldn’t be walking around Sydney with the mental image of a sopping wet Nick, his shirt clinging to his broad muscular chest, looking down at her like she’d saved his life rather than his camera. Looking at her as though, for the first time since they’d met, he actually wanted to look at her.
She was distracted by the memory of it all day. She barely managed to hold up her end of the conversation as Heather drove them to ANB ballet studios, and she screwed up the frappé combination on both legs because she hadn’t paid attention when the ballet mistress was setting the exercise. As she and Heather walked the aisles of the supermarket, collecting ingredients for a family dinner, she couldn’t stop seeing it: Nick, sunlit and soaked, gazing at her with unmasked gratitude.
She hoped some of those photos had turned out well, because otherwise all she’d have to show for this morning was a very unwelcome memory of Nick with his shirt plastered to his shoulders and droplets sparkling on his eyelashes. Yum, Heather had said the other day, but that didn’t even begin to describe the roaring hunger Carly felt when that image popped into her mind for the four hundredth time that day. Or the unsettling stab of concern she’d felt when she’d seen him about to topple into the water and had to decide, in a fraction of a second, what to do. It had been an easy decision.
He’d been so panicked as he’d scrambled around the pool searching for the camera, and in that moment she’d had a sudden and unwelcome flash of realization, which was that for all his pedantry and pretention, Nick Jacobs wasn’t a monster. He’d looked like a kid in that moment. A scared kid terrified that he’d messed everything up, and Carly had felt a strange, aching sense of recognition as she’d watched him splash and struggle. She knew that feeling, the way dread and self-recrimination slammed you in the chest when you discovered you’d screwed up yet again.
It would be easier if he were a monster, a fuckboy. Monsters and fuckboys she could handle. If he were a fuckboy, she would have let his camera sink to the bottom of the pool without a second thought. But he wasn’t. He was just a person—a person who was helping her, even though he could barely stand her. A person who had thanked her earnestly and hadn’t noticed that she’d played his thanks off with a laugh, then brought the camera up to her face so he wouldn’t see how her cheeks were burning at the unbearable combination of a soaking wet man and a sincere apology.
She pressed the doorbell and the door opened almost immediately to reveal a curvy white woman with tight brown curls and flawless makeup above her flowing hot pink caftan.
“Hiya!” she chirped. “You must be Carly. I’m Izzy. Come on in!”
Carly returned her smile and stepped over the threshold to follow her down the hallway into the little kitchen, which was crowded with people. To her relief, none of them was Nick.
“It’s Carly!” Izzy called into the room, spreading her arms wide and bellowing the words like Oprah announcing her next guest.
“Oh my God, finally,” someone said, and Carly wondered for a moment if she’d arrived late. But then the speaker, a petite Asian woman, definitely a dancer, stepped away from the kitchen counter and smiled at her.
“I’m Alice,” she said, grinning as she wiped her hands on her shorts. “So excited to meet the famous Carly. Heather was actually counting the days until you got here.” She held out her hand and Carly shook it, returning Alice’s smile. Alice had been Marcus’s best friend in the company, and Carly knew she and Heather had become good friends since Heather had joined ANB.
“I’m excited to meet the famous Alice,” Carly said. “Aren’t you the one who told Heather to get her ass back to Sydney to make things right with Marcus?”
“The very same,” Alice said proudly. “And I was right, wasn’t I? God, I love being right. I was just about to pour Iz a drink. Do you want a drink? You look like you could use a drink.”
“Once again, you are right,” Carly smiled, and Alice let out an honest-to-God cackle. Carly liked her already. “Heather said you’re injured. What happened?”
“Standard dancer’s fracture,” Alice shrugged, lifting her right foot a few inches off the floor. “I’ve been putting in my hours in physio, but I’m going to miss the season. So I could use a drink, too.”
While Alice was pulling wine out of the fridge, Carly placed her bag on the couch, then returned to the kitchen, where Heather was standing at the counter next to a woman Carly suspected was Marcus’s mother.
“Anything I can help with?” Carly asked.
“No thanks, dear, we’ve got it under control,” the older woman said, and she turned around to face Carly.
“This is Marcus’s mom, Leanne,” Heather said over her shoulder as she chopped up a cucumber and tossed the pieces into a large bowl where they joined the greens they’d bought earlier.
“The maid of honor!” Leanne smiled, the tanned skin around her green eyes wrinkling deeply as she smiled warmly at Carly. Marcus had the same eyes, and the beginnings of the same wrinkles. Leanne wiped her hands on her apron and extended a hand, which Carly shook carefully; she knew that Leanne had moved out of this house when her worsening osteoarthritis made the stairs too much of a challenge.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Campbell,” Carly said politely, accepting a tumbler of white wine from Alice. As she turned to thank Alice, she let her eyes dart around the kitchen and living room. No sign of Nick. Where the hell was he? Maybe she’d get lucky and he wouldn’t show up at all.
“Oh, please,” Leanne chuckled, waving a dismissive hand. “Mrs. Campbell is my dad. Call me Leanne.”
“Okay, Leanne,” Carly laughed. When she joked, Leanne’s eyes took on the same wry twinkle that Marcus’s did. A kind and funny husband, a house on the beach, a principal dancer job, and a cool mother-in-law? Heather really had won the lottery.
Heather dropped the last of the cucumber into the bowl, then turned around and looked out the kitchen window. “The guys are outside arguing over the barbecue,” she said, and then all four of the women around Carly said, in unison, “Again.”
Carly looked around at them, eyebrows raised questioningly.
“This happens every time,” Izzy explained, pulling out a seat from the dining table and flopping down into it. “Marcus and Davo go twelve rounds over the right way to arrange the coals and the best way to arrange the meat and whatever else there is to argue about. The food tastes the same whichever way they do it, so I’m not sure what the point of the argument is,” she shrugged.
Carly met Heather’s eyes, and Heather gave her head a tiny shake. It’s fine. Carly knew that Marcus and his older brother had had some serious shit between them in the past, and based on what Heather had told her, it had only gotten worse after their dad had died. But a long-running dispute over the best way to light a grill seemed harmless enough. Some brotherly bickering over the barbecue was apparently just a Campbell family tradition.
“The food would get done quicker if Marcus and David didn’t do a song and dance about it every time,” Leanne said, reaching for her own glass of wine and taking a sip. “But since we’ve added Nicholas to the equation, we might get to eat before midnight.”
Carly swallowed a mouthful of wine too fast and tried not to cough. Throat burning, she gave Leanne a polite, interested nod, then turned slowly around and looked out the window. On the back deck, crowded around a smoking old-fashioned barbecue, were Marcus and a pale, freckled man who must be Davo. And between them, gesturing calmly with a pair of tongs, was Nick. She watched him for a second as he waved the tongs gracefully in the air, his shoulder muscles shifting visibly under his T-shirt.
“We’ve known Nicholas since all three of them were shorter than me,” Leanne said. “He’s always been the peacemaker between my two. He’s so levelheaded and sensible, nothing seems to get to him.” Nothing except me, apparently, Carly thought. She seemed to have a unique ability to piss him off, to get under his sensible, levelheaded skin.
“So, Carly, how are you enjoying Sydney so far? And how many checklists has Heather given you to work through?” Alice asked, her hand on Izzy’s shoulder.
“Um, I really like it here. And just one checklist … so far,” Carly said ominously, and Izzy and Alice laughed.
“Excuse me for being organized,” Heather said. “You’ll all be thanking me at the open bar. Marcus’s plan was to have everyone BYOB. To a wedding.”
“Hey, you said you wanted it to be low-key,” Marcus said. He’d opened the sliding door just in time to hear Heather’s comment. “What could be more low-key than everyone bringing a six-pack?”
Carly laughed. When Heather and Jack had been engaged, they’d talked about getting married at his parents’ house in the Hamptons, surrounded by the biggest names in New York arts and philanthropy, with a champagne fountain and a performance by the first chair violinist of the New York Philharmonic. Carly had once caught her lovingly scrolling her mouse over a pair of white Chanel pumps that cost as much as a month’s rent. Now she was planning to marry Marcus barefoot on the beach and have the reception right here in their backyard. Apparently she’d drawn the line at BYOB, but still, it was hard to imagine two wedding plans more different than the two Heather had made. Then again, it was hard to imagine two men more different than Jack and Marcus. Thank God.
“Is the meat nearly ready?” Leanne asked.
“Another five minutes or so,” Marcus said, slipping inside and closing the door behind him, but not before Carly caught a whiff of barbeque smoke and frangipani. Marcus took three cans of beer from the fridge and kissed Heather on the cheek on his way back to the door. Carly watched as Heather grinned, then tried to school her smile, then gave up and grinned even wider.
“Oh, get a room,” Alice groaned dramatically as Marcus pulled the back door open and stepped onto the deck, but then she stooped down and kissed Izzy’s cheek, to Izzy’s obvious delight.
“Speaking of checklists,” Heather said, when she’d stopped blushing, “we need to nail down our cocktail recipes so we can put in an order at the bulk liquor store. Carly, do you and Nick have any ideas?”
Carly took another sip of her wine and swallowed it slowly, buying time to pull her mind away from the vaguely jealous thoughts that had occurred to her.
“We can schedule a time to test out some options,” she said. “I’ll talk to him tonight.”
Heather nodded, and Carly could almost see her rearranging a color-coded spreadsheet in her head.
“Will has the cake design all set,” Alice told Heather. “My brother,” she said to Carly. “He opened a bakery last year. His Bake Off obsession escalated until he was taking days off work to bake, so he quit his IT job and went all in. Now all he wants is to be the Australian Paul Hollywood, but Chinese.”
“And less of a prick,” Izzy chimed in.
“Right,” Alice agreed.
“And Alice has been writing her remarks for the ceremony since the day after you got engaged,” Izzy said, smiling up at her girlfriend. “She’s going to do a brilliant job.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” Leanne said.
“What’s your role in all this?” Carly asked Izzy. It seemed like everyone at the table had one, along with a string of in-jokes built up over weekly Sunday dinners.
“Oh, I’m basically a professional wedding guest at this point,” Izzy said with a proud smile. “So many of my friends have gotten married in the last few years that I’ve got wedding guesting down to a science.”
Carly looked over at Heather. “I think you’re the only bride in the world who’d be reassured by that approach.”
“That’s correct,” Heather said cheerfully, and all five of them laughed. “But she’s also doing my hair and makeup on the day. Yours, too, if you want a little something extra.”
Carly was about to reply when the back door slid open and Davo stepped into the room. He was taller than Marcus and had a broad, muscular frame, and with his pale face, dark brown hair, and watery blue eyes, he looked nothing like his brother and mother.
“Meat’s done,” he said, stepping aside to reveal Marcus holding a plate of cooked steaks and sausages in each hand.
“Thanks very much, boys,” Leanne said as Marcus set the plates on the set table. Behind him, Nick walked in carrying two more plates of roast vegetables and what looked like plant-based meat. Carly’s eyes were drawn to his forearms, which were straining under the weight. “And thank you, Nicholas, for keeping the peace out there.”
“No problem, Leanne,” he smiled, putting the plates on the crowded table. “I’m glad I could negotiate in a situation with such … high stakes.”
His smile widened as six groans erupted in unison at his pun, and Carly chuckled despite herself. He looked over at her before she could wipe the smile off her face, and their eyes met amid the cacophony of terribles and ought to be ashameds. Carly felt suddenly shy as they looked at each other, and it occurred to her that if they had met each other like this, instead of in a series of billowing dumpster fires, they might have actually liked each other. If she’d met this version of Nick—surrounded by people he knew and liked, loose and a little goofy—maybe she wouldn’t have immediately decided he was an asshole. Maybe he wouldn’t have decided she was an insufferable ballet brat. They could have become friends during this trip, instead of unwilling errand buddies who tolerated each other long enough to take photos. Yet again, the memory of his face this morning, awash with gratitude and relief, swam unbidden into her mind. He’d been drenched in sunlight and water, and he’d stared at her like he could actually see her. Like he actually liked what he saw. Carly looked down at her drink and caught her breath, but when she glanced up again, he was still looking.