by Sophie Swift
She said that finding me again was somehow like filling that hole her mother had left behind. And that I was the only reason she had the courage to come back here and face her house and her family. Up until then, she had been forced to keep her distance. Because it was just too painful.
I’ll admit, it’s strange here without Marianne around. It feels like someone lifted the needle from a record player. Let the air out of a balloon. Vacuumed the energy right up. I can’t imagine how difficult it’s been for Lia, having to hold together the two things her mother abandoned: a husband and a restaurant.
I don’t envy the challenges she’s had. But I applaud them.
I’ve always admired Jack, though. He’s quiet but strong. Reticent but warm. He sells insurance to the good people of Eastbrook. Not the most glamorous of jobs, but a necessary one. And he’s good at it.
It was his money that funded the opening of La Bella Vita when Alex was in high school. I remember spending so many nights there after school. Alex loved having a restaurant in the family. There was always a place to get free food with her friends. We would come in huge groups and Marianne would bring us platters of delicious pasta and eggplant parm, and chicken marsala, feeding us until our stomachs couldn’t take any more.
And then, after hours, Alex would send her friends home and Marianne would pour the two of us glasses of house Chianti from the giant barrel on the bar. We would drink wine and I would help her make sauces for the next day. She taught me so much about combining flavors and using my sense of taste and smell to guide my cooking.
To this day, Chianti is still my favorite wine.
Alex, on the other hand, refuses to drink it.
By the time we arrive at the first hole, I’ve convinced myself that Lia won’t say anything to her sister. She would have to be crazy to dump another scandal onto this family just when everyone is starting to get over the last one. I know Lia. I’ve known her for years, and she wouldn’t do that. Not to her sister. And definitely not to her father.
No matter how pissed off she might be at me—and with good reason—I have to believe that she’s not that selfish.
But I do know that I have to talk to her. I have to get her alone and sort this out.
Her text message last night was vague and unusually dismissive. And then she simply stopped responding all together. Was she mad that I kissed her? But it’s not like she put up a fight. She kissed me back. Hard.
And from what I could feel, she seemed to like it. Really like it. I mean, her body was…
Enough.
I manage to wrangle in my thoughts before they go down that dangerous road again.
Regardless of whether she liked it or not, we still need to talk about this. Clear the air. So we can both move on.
I feel a firm pat on my shoulder and glance up to see Jack and his two friends staring expectantly at me. It’s my turn to tee off. I place my ball on the tee and step back, eyeing the pin in the distance. I grip the rented 5 iron firmly in my hands and take a few practice swings. Then I approach the tee, coil back tightly and whip my body around fast, smacking the ball into the air. The men let out simultaneous whistles as we all watch the little white orb sail straight for the green.
My face no doubt registers my surprise. I’ve never been very good at golf. But apparently the stress of kissing another woman has greatly improved my swing.
The ball bounces twice and lands approximately thirty feet from the pin. Jack applauds and congratulates me on my considerable improvement since we last saw each other. All the men insist on calling me Tiger Woods for the rest of the morning.
I refrain from telling them that actually, I’ve barely picked up a club in four years.
But the Tiger Woods part feels true enough.
Eight years ago...
I didn’t see Grayson for three days after the party but that doesn’t mean I didn’t think about him nearly every minute of every day. I thought about his eyes. I thought about his hair. I thought about his strong arms wrapped around me as he carried me through the woods and delivered me to my front porch.
But most of all, I thought about the way he looked when my sister answered the door.
Like someone had frozen time.
Like the earth had stopped spinning.
Like the mountains had been moved.
For a moment, I thought he might drop me. His arms stiffened around the backsides of my legs. His heart pounded beneath his T-shirt. His breath caught in his chest.
I felt all of it.
Because I was right there. Crushed against him.
I was right there. Helpless to stop it.
I was right there. When he first laid eyes on Alex Smart.
And that’s when I knew that those thundering heartbeats, those hiccups of stolen breath, weren’t for me. Would never be for me.
I was just the helpless child who needed to be rescued.
Who ventured out at night alone and couldn’t fend for herself.
Three days later he came wandering up the beach in front of our house. Alex and I were stretched out on lounge chairs, soaking up the last rays of summer before school started in a week.
Alex’s body shimmered in her turquoise bikini and spray-on tanning oil. I, on the other hand, looked like an imp. With my baggy basketball shorts that fell below my knees, saggy T-shirt, and a bandaged ankle that required the use of crutches.
I was drawing a particularly gruesome battle scene in my sketchbook while Alex was on the phone, lamenting about how much she was dreading the start of senior year and how uninspired she was by the selection of boys at Eastbrook High.
“I mean, I’ve been in the same class with all of these losers since kindergarten,” she whined into the phone. “It’s a bad sign when you’re seventeen and you’ve already seen every single penis in your entire class.”
I glanced up from my drawing and she smiled conspiratorially at me and then mouthed, “Just you wait.”
The muffled voice of Jamie, Alex’s best friend, came sifting through the speaker as Alex picked at her fingernail, looking incredibly bored.
“Yup,” she said, “seen his too. It’s curves to the right.”
I found it confusing that Alex seemed to know so much about penises when she was still a virgin. And I knew this because she had confided in me at the beginning of May when she swore she would lose her virginity this summer. But apparently, the pickings were just too slim.
She did have a point, however.
About the selection of boys, I mean. Not the penises.
Like I would have known anything about that.
When you grow up in a town as small as Eastbrook, your crop of eligible bachelors is pretty much decided by the second grade. The class sizes are miniscule, and by the time everyone has hit puberty, you pretty much know everything there is to know about everyone.
The mystery of dating is completely removed from the equation.
Hardly anyone moves in or out of this place. It’s just that kind of town.
Which, I knew, was one of the big reasons Alex had decided to go to NYU next year. She was all too eager to trade her pool of forty for forty thousand.
“So unless a new penis just happens to walk into my life, I guess I’m doomed to go off to college a virgin.”
And right then, on cue, as if being summoned by the penis gods, Grayson Walker appeared over the top of the sandy knoll.
He looked like he’d been jogging. His bare chest was glistening with sweat. His shorts were tugged down low to reveal two perfect hip bones and adjacent dimples.
Alex responded by unceremoniously hanging up on Jamie.
“Hey,” Grayson said as he approached, shielding his eyes from the sun, “how’s my favorite superhero?”
I set my sketchpad down and shielded my eyes to look up at him, trying to fight the idiotic grin that threatened to hijack my entire face. I felt a small flicker of smugness that he had chosen to address me before Alex. “The crutches suck ass, but I guess I�
�m okay.”
He laughed and tilted his head to steal a peek at my drawing, grimacing at the macabre I had almost finished depicting. “Yikes. That looks bloody.”
I shrugged. “How else is someone supposed to prove their worth?”
He pointed at me. “You, Miss Lia, are dangerous. I can tell. In fact, I’m going to have to start calling you, Lil’ Killer.”
My heart sunk slightly as the nickname was bestowed. The killer part was flattering but did he have to qualify it with the word “Lil’?”
Meanwhile, Alex’s face flashed with annoyance at being so obviously left out of the exchange.
“So,” Grayson said, sitting down on the bottom of my lounger, “let’s have it out. Right here. Right now. Superman. Most definitely not a—”
But he never got to finish the thought. Because Alex had apparently reached her threshold and decided at that moment to officially insert herself into the conversation. “I don’t think I got the opportunity to thank you,” she began. “For saving my poor, little sister the other night. You’re a regular knight in shining armor, aren’t you?” She narrowed her gaze on his glossy bare chest. “Or rather, no armor at all.”
And there it was again.
A locking of eyes. A shortness of breath. A fluttering of hearts.
Two kindred souls trapped inside a timeless world.
And I was watching it all from the outside.
Grayson was the first to break the fragile silence. “You’re welcome. But I don’t think I got the chance to introduce myself.”
“Oh right. Sorry about slamming the door on you,” Alex went on in that light, flirty voice she reserved for cute boys. “My parents had just gotten home. I couldn’t risk you blowing my cover.”
“And what cover would that be?” His coy smirk was intoxicating.
Alex flipped her hair casually over her shoulder. “The usual. At home studying on a Saturday night. So terribly boring.”
“Terribly,” he agreed.
“Well, now is as good a time as any.” She pushed her sunglasses onto her head.
Grayson tilted his head inquisitively.
“To introduce yourself,” she prompted, her eyes twinkling.
His grin broadened. “Grayson Walker. My mom and I just moved to town.”
“A rare commodity,” Alex commented without missing a beat.
“Like beans that grow into magic beanstalks?”
“Even rarer.”
Grayson glanced back at me for the first time since the nauseating exchange had begun. “Is she always like this?” he asked me with a wink.
I forced a tight smile. “She’s usually worse.”
Alex stood up, tossing her sarong onto the chair. “It’s really hot out here. I’m going in.”
I never blamed Grayson for looking. It was impossible not to look at Alex. Her figure was enviable. What I blamed him for was everything that happened from that moment on.
Or maybe I blamed Alex for swooping in like a hawk and stealing the first person I’d ever felt anything for.
Or maybe I blamed myself for not guarding him like the rare commodity that he was. For not fighting for him.
“You never told me your name!” he called after her.
“Alex,” she tossed back over her shoulder.
She waded into the ocean, giggling slightly when the waves splashed up around her knees, waiting until the water was around her stomach before turning around. “You look hot, too,” she called out casually. Effortlessly. Alex-ly. “Maybe you should join me.”
And just like that, the game was over.
There was nothing that could be done except admit defeat. Alex was victorious. Just like she always is.
Grayson was already hers.
I won.
The round of golf, I mean. I came in ten strokes below everyone else. It’s the first time I’ve ever won a round of golf. I’ve already come to the conclusion that it has absolutely nothing to do with my skill, and everything to do with my guilt.
I never was much for golf growing up. Too preppy. Too much of a “rich guy’s sport.” I always preferred rugby. Gritty. Dirty. Physical.
I remember the time I taught Lia to play rugby. Of course, Alex would never play. It was too “barbaric” for her. But not Lia. She jumped right in without fear. And she was pretty good. I offered to play the two-hand touch variety with her, but she wouldn’t have it. She wanted to tackle and everything.
Back then, she was a girl. An awkward tween in oversized gym shorts. Now, of course, the idea of tackling her on the warm sand makes me shift awkwardly in the passenger seat of Jack’s car and check the front of my shorts.
“Grayson,” Jack’s voice pulls me out of my reverie.
“Yeah?”
His hands are gripped around the steering wheel and he’s staring intently at the road. “I want to say something to you and I know it’s not going to come out right but I feel like it still needs to be said.”
I suddenly feel my throat constricting. “What’s that?” I squeeze out.
He is silent for so long, I begin to squirm in my seat.
Does he know? How could he know? Did he hear something from upstairs last night?
Jack takes a deep breath. “I want to tell you how happy I am that you are marrying Alex.”
His voice breaks as he gets the words out. “You’re good for her. I’ve always thought that. I know you guys have had your rough spots. But Alex needs someone like you. Especially after...” he bites his lip and I glance at him, immediately noticing the pools of moisture coating his eyes.
“After Marianne left,” he finishes with effort.
I nod silently, unsure what to say. If anything was happening below the belt a few seconds ago, it’s long gone now.
“She’s had a rough time with it,” Jack goes on.
“I know.” Great, now my voice is breaking.
Jack blows out a gust of air as he blinks rapidly. “You’re so steady. So dependable. She needs that right now.”
My stomach churns like it’s preparing to regurgitate the contents of my breakfast.
That’s all I ever wanted to be.
Dependable.
Steady.
There.
For my mom. For Alex. For me.
Someone who wouldn’t leave. Who wouldn’t bolt in the middle of the night. Who wouldn’t leave a mountain of rubble and heartbreak in his wake.
I’ve spent twenty-five years making sure I was that person.
And not the other kind.
The kind who does what I did last night. Who makes a mess. Who breaks things.
“Thank you, Jack,” I say, even though my vocal cords sound like they’ve been tossed in a blender. “That means a lot.”
He flashes me a smile and reaches across the console to pat my arm. Like the father I never had. Who never cared enough to stick around.
“Well, okay, then,” he says thickly.
I realize just then how hard it was for him to tell me this. How hard it is for Jack to express his feelings.
Maybe that’s why Marianne left. Who knows.
We pass through town and I catch sight of La Bella Vita on the left. The parking lot is empty except for one car: Lia’s. Alex must have taken her to get it from Hank’s this morning.
Did she tell her why it was left there in the first place?
Did she admit I’m the one who picked her up?
But the bigger question is: Why is Lia’s car at La Bella Vita now?
I thought they were supposed to be dress shopping. I glance at my watch. It’s almost one o’clock.
I know I don’t know much about wedding dress shopping, but if it’s anything like other kinds of shopping there’s no way it would be over this soon.
And that’s when the walls of Jack’s car feel like they’re starting to close in on me.
Lia told her.
They fought.
She came here.
It’s all over.
Stop! I co
mmand myself. You don’t know that.
“You know what,” I find myself saying aloud, “I just remembered I have to pick up a few things in town. Can you just drop me on Main Street? I’ll call Alex to pick me up later.”
“No problem.” Jack pulls the car off to the side, a block away from the restaurant.
I say thank you and get out, waiting for him to pull away before I turn around and head toward the restaurant.
Enough is enough. Lia and I have to talk about this. Like adults. We’re not in high school anymore.
I have to make this right. I can’t leave this mess for someone else to clean up. Or worse, for no one to clean up. That’s not the kind of guy I am. I have to deal with it.
Before it gets worse.
I hold the measuring cup to eye level and dust off the top layer of sugar until the snowy white grains are perfectly aligned with the rim of the metal cup. Then I carefully pour the contents into the stock pot that’s boiling on the stove, making sure to stir constantly. I count my rotations—1, 2, 3, all the way to 10—before adding the next ingredient.
A new recipe that I found on the internet last night is printed up and lying on the counter. I double-check the next measurement—two cups of red wine—and reach for the bottle.
There’s no way anyone can call this sauce bland. This arrabbiata was the top-rated recipe on my favorite cooking website. It had over five thousand 5-star reviews. And I’m following the directions to the decimal point.
I’m just pouring the wine into the glass measuring pitcher when the security beep of the back door startles me, causing me to spill liquid all over the floor and down my white apron.
“Damn it!” I curse, peering over the back of the range to see who just walked in.
My heart does a jittery quickstep in my chest when I see Grayson’s face.
Oh God.
What the hell is he doing here?
“Um, we’re not open until five,” I tell him, like he’s just an everyday customer stopping by to eat. Like he’s not the guy my sister is supposed to marry who just happened to put his tongue in my mouth last night…among other places.