Eleven Months Ago
A heat wave was rolling through DC during the Fourth of July weekend.
Tori was home alone for the holiday— Leo was with her ex, and Autumn was away with friends.
Tori spent most of Saturday on a chaise on the back patio, tanning herself in a string bikini.
Two of her clients had ended their therapy with her in the past few weeks, which meant her income would be taking a hit in the next month.
She ought to have been inside, on her computer, networking with other therapists and counselors trying to drum up business. But something stopped her.
The realization that she didn’t want to do this anymore.
She was closing in on thirty-five, divorced, with no man, and a job she’d come to resent, and she was living in a neighborhood that treated her like a pariah.
Oh, and in a house her ex was renting for her because of her disastrous financial mistakes.
Now when she thought of the Allards, it was anger that bloomed, not shame.
The embarrassment of that public scene had worn off, leaving only a sense of resentment.
How dare they treat her as if she were some kind of disease that had infected their pristine neighborhood?
Especially when their son was breaking into people’s houses and coming on to older women. They weren’t so perfect.
A loud bang bang went off in the distance, followed by a rat-tat-tat.
Someone lighting off early fireworks. The Fourth was tomorrow, and there would be a big celebration on the National Mall downtown.
Tonight’s fireworks were courtesy of neighborhood kids and a nearby country club.
Tori rolled over and took a swig of a frozen margarita on the table beside her only to find it had melted to slush.
She’d made a huge batch this morning after breakfast, all alone in the house.
The other option had been crawling back into bed.
She glanced at her watch and saw it was almost five.
She’d been out here for hours and must have dozed off.
A thud and then a rustling sound startled her.
She sat upright, her head spinning from the combination of sun, sleep, and booze, only to see the Allards’ goldendoodle come bounding through the hole in the hedge.
She watched him run to the narrow strip of mulch on the left side of her yard.
There, he grabbed a tennis ball in his mouth and turned around in circles a few times, excitedly.
A moment later, Van popped his head through the hedge.
Tori’s heart skipped a beat. The afternoon sun caught the angles of his face, highlighting his high cheekbones. She felt her body tense, a mix of alarm and something else she didn’t want to acknowledge.
“You didn’t see a goldendoodle run by, did you?” He was wearing sunglasses, shorts, and a T-shirt that clung just enough to show the outline of his shoulders.
“Did you throw that ball into my yard on purpose?”
He shrugged, and the casual movement sent a ripple of muscle visible beneath his shirt. “Hey, buddy, gimme the ball,” he called to the dog, who ran toward him but kept a distance. “Muffinhead’s got the chase part down, but not the retrieve part.”
“Some dogs just love the chase.” Now why had she said that?
What was she doing? Thank God she was wearing sunglasses to hide the way her eyes lingered on him.
She imagined Jo’s face if she could see her now, the lonely divorcée, the financially ruined therapist, eyeing her precious son like she was a predatory cougar.
Jo already thought Tori was trash, and this would confirm every suspicion she had about her.
But she couldn’t deny she enjoyed flirting with Van.
He made her feel alive and young, and it sent a little frisson of electricity through her to think how insane it would make Jo and Daniel if they knew.
Anyway, as Cyrus had conceded, she was a grown woman who could do what she wanted.
“What are you up to tonight?” he asked.
“Umm, adult things.”
“Watching the fireworks?”
She shifted on the chaise, suddenly aware of how exposed she was in her bikini, how his eyes might be taking in her body behind those sunglasses.
“No. Are you?”
He shook his head. “My parents are in France for a few weeks, and Elo?se is at lacrosse camp at Stanford.”
“They have lacrosse camps at Stanford?”
“Sure. My mom thinks it’ll give her an edge when she applies next year. I need to stay home tonight and give the dog his anxiety medication. The fireworks totally freak him out. You got plans for dinner?”
She didn’t, but she didn’t want to admit that. Didn’t want to seem pathetic and alone on a Saturday night, though that’s exactly what she was.
“How about I grab sushi and bring it over?” he asked when she didn’t answer.
She swallowed hard. “Sushi, huh?” She tried to sound casual, responsible—anything but eager. Her stomach gave a little growl, and she wasn’t sure if it was from hunger or anticipation.
They decided on a plan. She would go inside and shower, while he would walk and feed the dog and then get the sushi.
But he wasn’t to come over until it was dark.
And even then, he’d go through the hedge and come to the back entrance, the one that led to Autumn’s apartment, which she’d leave unlocked.
No one could see him come through the front door.
The ache for company was strong enough to make her take a risk, but she wasn’t stupid.
She couldn’t let anyone in the neighborhood report back to the Allards that their son was seen entering her house.
Nothing is going to happen, she told herself as she applied mascara in the mirror. It’s just dinner.
Still, she picked out a maxi dress with a halter top that accentuated her collarbones and her toned arms, which she considered her best features.
And she put on her prettiest thong, only for the confidence boost, she told herself, not because she was going to let Van see her undressed.
The mirror reflected back a woman who looked dolled up for a night out, desperate for affirmation, and she hated herself a little for it.
Tori made them both Manhattans, and when she heard the basement door open and his footsteps coming up the stairs, she had to take a gulp of hers to steady her nerves.
Every sound seemed magnified—his footsteps on the stairs, her heartbeat in her ears, the ice clinking in the glass clutched tightly in her hand.
In the dim room, he looked older, like Daniel’s younger, fitter brother.
A man. She thought of the disdain those wives had shown her when they first met at the block party—the divorced woman living alone, someone to stay away from.
Of Jo’s anger when she thought Tori was trying to steal her man. If she could see her now.
“Cheers,” she said, handing Van his cocktail, trying to steady her trembling fingers as their hands briefly touched.
They ate over candlelight, sitting on the floor of the living room.
She put trays on the large, tufted leather ottoman, which they used as a table, her legs tucked beneath her and his outstretched, crossed at the ankles.
His shorts had ridden up slightly, revealing a strip of untanned skin on his upper thigh, and she had to fight to keep from staring at that paler patch of flesh.
“You don’t have any plans this weekend?” she asked him, swirling some wasabi in her soy sauce, trying to maintain the facade that this was just a casual dinner between … what? Neighbors? Friends?
He smirked. “I’m supposed to be doing all this college stuff. My coach has been nagging me.”
“College coach?” The reminder of his age hit her like cold water. He was going to college in a few months.
He nodded, mouth full, holding up a finger to let her know he’d answer once he had swallowed.
“Yup. I’ve been seeing this guy since ninth grade.
He’s the one who helped me”—he paused and looked at her with mock sincerity—“craft my narrative. Tell my story. But now that I’m in at Stanford, I have to do all these stupid online orientations.
My dad wants me to take a placement test in chemistry.
The school wants us to read three books this summer, but I’m just going to have AI summarize them. ”
“Your parents hired a college coach to help you get into Stanford.” She didn’t try to hide her contempt.
“Yup. A guy my mom knew from law school, who was kind of a loser the way she describes him. Partied a lot. Got kicked out for cheating. But then he started like the most successful college consulting business. I’m serious.
Like all his clients get into Stanford, Georgetown, Brown, you name it.
And because he and my mom are friends, he really helped us out.
I mean, I would never have gotten into Stanford without his help.
I didn’t even break fifteen hundred on my SAT. ”
“And that’s not good?”
He laughed. “No. The average for Stanford is, like, fifteen forty? I thought my mom was going to have a stroke when she found out, but then she called Rick, that’s the guy, and he just like, I don’t know, fixed it.
The day I got into Stanford she actually wept.
It was kind of gross. Were your parents like this? ”
“Mine?” Tori lets out a little laugh. “Not exactly. Neither of my parents went to college. They married right out of high school. My dad was in the Navy, he was gone a lot, and my parents divorced when I was young. My mom thought I was wasting my time when I went to college.”
“Where did you go to school?”
She felt her face redden and was grateful for the poor lighting.
“You’ve never heard of it. It’s not in the top twenty.
It’s not even in the top one hundred. Just a small school near the mountains in Virginia.
” She looked up to see how he was taking this, but his face was open and unguarded.
No judgment, unlike his mother’s perpetual look of disdain.
“It was cheap, I worked through college, and I still graduated with twenty thousand in debt.”
“Your parents didn’t help?”
“What? No. My dad was gone by then, and my mom worked minimum wage. She couldn’t afford to help. I mean, she might send me twenty dollars here or there.” The contrast between their upbringings hung between them—his privilege, her struggle. Another reason this, whatever it was, made no sense.
“But you went on to graduate school?”
She nodded. “I worked at George Mason while getting my master’s in counseling. But I’ll probably be paying off student loans the rest of my life.”
“Yeah, but you did it all yourself. That must feel good.” His admiration felt genuine.
“I didn’t want to have to.” She hated not having money.
It was the one constant of her childhood, the feeling of never having enough.
Always being on the edge of life and not having as much fun as everyone else seemed to be having.
Knockoff clothes, generic cereal, no money for eating out or vacations or toys when she was little.
Money had influenced every decision she had made, including the one to marry her ex.
Despite all the red flags, she said yes when he proposed.
If she had had money of her own, she would never have gotten married.
“But at least you know you can take care of yourself.” There was passion in his voice.
“My mother wants to micromanage every freaking detail for me. She used to go into my school portal and email teachers pretending to be me, asking for retakes on tests or if I could rewrite essays. She thinks she’s helping me, but it has the opposite effect.
It makes me want to do less and less. You know they spent thousands to send me to sailing camp every summer when I could have just stayed with my cousins on Long Island, where my mom grew up, and worked on a real fishing boat?
Her brother owns one, and two of my cousins are working on it now. ”
“Your mom’s from Long Island?” Tori asked. “She seems so…”
“She’s embarrassed by her family. But I like them. I want to work with them. It’s a family business. More than a hundred years old.”
“You want to be a commercial fisherman?” She couldn’t hide her surprise.
Van thrust his chin out. “Why not? It’s a real job, doing something important, feeding people.
Did you know that almost all the fish caught by commercial fishers in New York state are landed on Long Island?
I don’t want to be a lawyer or a finance bro or whatever.
Inside all day. I’m happiest on the water. And I just turned nineteen. I’m a man.”
“Happy birthday.”
“But here I am, stuck getting ready for a college I don’t even want to go to.”
“Then don’t go. You should do what makes you happy,” she said. “It’s your life.”
His face brightened. “It is, right? It’s just that my parents would flip.
” He leaned forward and pulled his phone from his back pocket.
The movement brought him closer to her, close enough that she could smell his cologne—something expensive, no doubt, that Jo had picked out.
“My mom has Life360 on this thing, tracking my every move.”
Tori’s stomach tightened. “She can see you’re here?” Panic rose in her at the thought of Jo realizing the dot on her screen was Van, sitting right here.
“Don’t worry. I turned it off. I’m sure I’ll get a text telling me to turn it back on. But I have a few hours of freedom.” His eyes met hers, and in them, she saw a hunger that mirrored her own—for connection, for understanding, for escape.
“So what do you want to do with your few hours of freedom?” she asked, the words barely above a whisper. Her heart hammered against her ribs, knowing she was standing at the edge of a cliff.
He didn’t answer, just held her gaze for a moment. Embarrassed by the silence, she brought her hand to her face to brush a stray hair away. From outside came a rumble and then a pop pop pop.
“We’re missing the fireworks,” she said.
“I think we’re doing all right,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Don’t move. I want to look at you.”
His eyes traveled her body, thirsty, drinking her in.
A splinter of fear cut through her. Was he just like his dad?
Would he spurn her as Daniel did, taunt her, humiliate her?
But before she could brace herself for rejection, his mouth was on hers, and she was lying back on the thin rug of her living room feeling herself being crushed by him, the thrilling sensation of helplessness that her mind had forgotten but her body remembered.
In that split second, she knew she should push him away.
Nineteen or not, she knew that across the hedge, in the well-appointed houses of Eastbrook, there was a world eager to judge her, to condemn her being here with Van.
Jo and Daniel would destroy what little reputation she had left if they found out.
But as Van’s weight pressed against her, as his hands found her skin, she couldn’t bring herself to care.
She was falling, and for now, the fall felt too good to resist.