Chapter Twenty-Three
In theory, a spa morning was the perfect idea.
Because Layla woke up sore.
Two kinds.
First, from walking: her feet, her calves, her hip flexors.
Second, from Griffin: the space between her legs, her lower abdominals, her heart.
God, her heart. Too hardworking, the whole night, no matter that she kept scolding it.
You stay out of this, she told it, countless times, when whatever wave of pleasure he put her through ebbed for a moment, until the next one; when she saw him fighting a sheen of wetness in his eyes at their first joining; when she woke early this morning to find him asleep next to her, his hair a mess and his face finally, fully placid, an expression she had not—never once—seen on him since they’d met.
But in practice, there was no massage on the list for that.
“I picked the one for lymphatic draining,” Manon was saying from across the way, lounging elegantly beside Céline on one of the cream bouclé chairs arranged artfully around this calmingly dim, teak-walled lobby, the scent of eucalyptus wafting from places unseen.
Layla breathed in, trying to enjoy it. To be in the moment.
But even setting aside her heart, her body, too, seemed to be fighting her presence here, unwilling to take in the luxury of the space.
It wanted back into Griffin’s bed, the soft, rumpled warmth of it.
It wanted to stretch out, feel the twinges left behind by him, not have them rubbed away by someone else, let alone a stranger.
It wanted to be next to his, to notice more deliberately the new sensations that collected within her throughout the night.
It wanted to flex, to brag, to practice all its newest movements, the ones that felt native to the place of him, already attuned to where not to touch, and where to wander freely.
“It’s slimming!” Manon added, and then repeated the name of her selected massage-menu-item in her perfectly accented French.
At that, Layla’s body finally gave her a break, bringing her back to the moment.
Beside her, she felt Emily tense.
Emily, Layla reminded herself now, the same way she had when she finally forced herself out of Griffin’s bed this morning. It’s tomorrow, she’d told herself, trying not to curl back into him. It’s tomorrow, and you promised you’d be there for Em.
“Even in French, it’s still pseudoscience!” Layla said, and then snapped her mouth closed, widening her eyes down at her lap.
What the hell was that? she thought frantically, even as she tried to recover with a light, polite laugh.
“I’m kidding, of course!” she finally managed, smiling across the way at Manon. “Physician humor. You know me.”
You know me not to ever say anything like that, she thought.
You know me not to blithely walk out of a museum and disappear for a whole entire day.
You know me to show up on time to spa morning, and not ten minutes late to the lobby because I couldn’t get out of the best man’s bed, because I had to go back to my own room so you wouldn’t see me in the clothes you saw me in yesterday.
But if Manon was thinking of any of that, too, she didn’t say it. She laughed, right at the same time Emily snort-gasped, and then said, “Pseudoscience started to look much more appealing when I hit sixty, chérie, I’ll tell you that!”
She clinked her cucumber water glass with the one held by Céline, who was maybe looking slightly askance at Layla, but thankfully, the conversation moved on.
The rest of their party this morning—Damaris and Paula, who both seemed a little put off ever since being coaxed into the wispy spa robes they’d been given upon arrival; Rosie, who gave Layla a dramatically unsubtle wink in the lobby and then promptly linked arms with Samantha, as though she were sparing Layla from what she’d clearly assumed, after yesterday, were jealous feelings over Jamie—started chiming in with their own selected menu items.
“Oh my god,” Emily whispered, leaning into Layla’s shoulder.
They were huddled on a love seat upholstered in the same bouclé, which had struck Layla in exactly one way when she’d first sat down: Griff would hate the texture of this.
But then, Emily had come to sit beside her, and once again, Layla had tried to reset her mind.
Bride, not best man.
“That was hilarious,” Emily continued. “You know she told me to get Botox before the engagement photos?”
Layla pressed her lips together, fearful of another uncharacteristic outburst. But she set a hand on Emily’s knee, squeezing lightly in understanding.
It was centering, this touch, flooding her with a rush of affection and tenderness.
As much as she genuinely loved Manon—her generosity, her openness, even her vanity, which could be charming in its own way, especially since she was so self-aware about it—this moment of commiseration with Em over Manon felt sisterly.
Layla, too, had once been party to Manon’s gentle brand of suggestion, on everything from Layla’s engagement ring (“Oh, a sapphire, I wonder what made him pick that?”) to the way she and Jamie decorated their first apartment (“I’ve always admired bold colors in a home, even if they’re not for me!
”). For the most part, Layla—who had lived without a mom for her whole life—had been weirdly grateful for these maternal intrusions.
But even she could see the way it grated.
And who else could truly understand that but someone in the family?
Who else could get it but a sister?
She turned fully to Em now, crossing her legs and valiantly ignoring the slight chafing sting on her inner thighs where Griffin’s stubble had reddened her skin. She kept her voice low, glad for the love seat’s relative separateness from the rest of the lobby.
“How are you doing today?” she said, trying to inject some extra meaning into it. She sounded more like herself now—calmer, more in control.
Emily’s eyes dropped to her glass of fruit-infused water, one shoulder lifting listlessly, and Layla’s stomach sank with this confirmation of something she’d suspected since she first saw Emily this morning, anxious and tired-looking as she tried to nod along to something Paula was telling her in the lobby.
Maybe it wasn’t full meltdown mode, like it had been on the morning after their first dinner here, but it also was a marked change from yesterday morning at the museum, when Emily’s expression had lit with joy and certainty as soon as Michael arrived.
“Em,” Layla coaxed.
Thankfully, when Emily raised her eyes, they weren’t wet with tears. But they were worried, and Layla felt a guilty, nervous pang.
“Yesterday started so well, honestly, especially after Michael showed up. We had a really nice lunch before we went over to Les Invalides, and that was pretty good, too. There was a ton of medical stuff; you probably would’ve loved it.”
There was that pang again. Layla opened her mouth to apologize, an automatic instinct, but before she could, Emily kept going.
“But, I don’t know.” Here, she raised her eyes, made sure Paula was still on the other side of the room.
Lowered her voice even more as she continued.
“Michael’s parents—it’s difficult there, and I don’t fully get it?
Fitz is hard on Michael about the smallest, stupidest things, and then Michael gets in a bad mood. ”
“That’s tough,” Layla said, meaning it, but she also knew her job here wasn’t really to care about Michael and his dad; it was to care about Emily. “But does he get in a bad mood with you?”
“Not really, but—”
Layla did not like the way Emily was running her finger around the lip of her glass. Over and over.
“But what?”
Em shrugged again, blew out a breath. “Well, it’s like—Fitz makes these little comments to Michael, and then Michael gets quiet.
And Paula”—another darting look across the room, an even softer whisper—“she doesn’t want Fitz going at Michael; she doesn’t want them at odds.
So she sort of…I don’t know. She redirected, I guess. She blamed Griffin.”
Layla’s sore heart stuttered, her face heating.
“Blamed him for what?”
“She said that’s why Michael was quiet. Because Griffin didn’t come to anything yesterday.”
Layla wanted to feign surprise at this. To say something casually unaware like, He didn’t?
But the pang of guilt was now more like a stake through the stomach.
It wasn’t just that she’d abandoned her sisterly post yesterday; it was that she’d lied about it, too, or at least lied by omission.
When she’d texted Em yesterday from outside the Rodin museum, she’d been standing right beside Griffin, but she hadn’t mentioned him at all.
Instead, she’d typed out a too-long and strategically vague explanation, the main gist of which was: I’m a little overwhelmed this morning.
Then, she’d made a few bland, nonspecific assurances.
I’m really okay and Don’t worry about anything and I’ll text in a bit to check in and I’ll be back if you need me.
In that moment, she hadn’t cared if everyone thought she was overwhelmed about Jamie—about the end of her and Jamie, about Jamie and Sam, whatever.
In fact, as she’d stood there beside Griffin, knowing he was making his own excuse to Michael, there was a not-insignificant part of her that thought—about her own divorce!—That’s convenient.
Now, face-to-face with more of Emily’s doubt, the responsibility she should’ve felt yesterday roared loudly back. She was supposed to be making sure this wedding happened. She was supposed to be here for Emily, making it up to Emily—all those months of absence when being amicable felt impossible.
“Was Michael upset that he didn’t come to anything yesterday?”
“I think he was worried, initially, but not overly so. Like, obviously, Griffin has”—she lifted a hand, waved it in a dismissive gesture that was so like one of Manon’s, Layla almost wanted to grab Em’s wrist in censure—“problems.”
Layla’s back teeth ground together.