As she toweled off, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.
Her face was flushed, her eyes wild.
She was unabashedly naked.
Suddenly, there was only one thing she wanted to do today.
Chapter Twenty
Tom
Coward.
Ever since Megs had launched that particular grenade, he’d tried to scrub the word from his brain.
Tom repeated his long-believed mantra: I’m not a coward, I’m a peacekeeper.
He hadn’t spoken up during Megs’s speech because he knew she could handle herself. Furthermore, he’d had no idea what she’d been trying to accomplish and therefore couldn’t see what he was supposed to do to help her.
After throwing his tantrum, and his luggage, by the docks, Tom started walking. Friday Harbor was downhill from everything else and the incline was making his quads burn in a way he actually enjoyed. So he kept on. There was enough of a shoulder on the road to keep the walk from being too dicey. Part of him wished the security of the shoulder away.
Coward.
She thought he was a coward. And for how long?
Megs didn’t have the faintest idea what it was like being a full-time Prescott.
When Tom was eight, he’d begged his father to teach him to play chess, a bid for his attention. John directed Tom on how to set up the board, then told Tom he could go first. After pestering his father with questions about how every piece moved, Tom had tentatively nudged a pawn forward.
John beat him in three moves.
When Tom asked John to teach him how, his father replied, “Ask your brother,” and left the room. Tom ran after Brody and wore his brother down until he agreed to play. They set up the board, but this time Tom demanded to go second, thinking that was part of the secret.
Every move Brody made, Tom mirrored it. Brody’s pawn moved ahead two spaces; Tom met it in the middle of the board. Brody moved a knight; Tom’s knight galloped out. Tom hoped his father would walk back into the room and see that Tom had survived, that he hadn’t been beaten yet.
But John never materialized, and Brody became so irritated with Tom’s inability to make his own moves, he tipped over the board and went to a friend’s house.
Tom braced himself as a pickup truck whizzed past him. He moved farther into the trees, his thoughts meandering to his mother.
As a child, he’d never placed a kiss on Carol’s cheek without seeing her delicately wipe it off with a handkerchief afterward. She’d never been affectionate. And she never would be. Her interest in Tom seemed to be based solely on John’s moods, because if Tom irritated his father, Carol would scowl at him from across the room.
And so he’d learned to move carefully when instructed to…or not to move at all.
Maybe that did make him a coward.
Megs didn’t get it. She couldn’t possibly. If you were a Givens, you knew what you were dealing with. The dangers weren’t disguised. Alistair’s inability to be a productive member of society was out in the open. Brianna almost always said whatever was on her mind. Donna’s mania was on display. The Givenses’ potholes were clearly marked.
Being a Prescott, on the other hand, was like walking through a funhouse of expectations—every time you thought you’d figured it out, you realized the mirror was warped. Mistakes were made quietly and judged equally as quietly. Every encounter within the Prescott bubble was therefore accompanied by a low-grade terror.
Tom had thought that by the age of thirty, he’d feel like his own person rather than John and Carol’s son. Now it seemed he’d forever be the kid begging for their attention and then regretting it when he got it.
That was ending here. Today. On this endless day.
Today, he’d take a jackhammer to the prescribed path he’d been on. He wasn’t going to try to please anyone but himself.
He just had to figure out how to do that.
The farther he walked, the less he noticed the crick in his neck. Instead, he felt the burning in his legs, the trickle of sweat trailing down his chest and in the matching canal down his back. It was getting hot. Tom tossed his suit jacket into the trees. He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his dress shirt and rolled the sleeves up to his forearms. He was feeling better already.
Until he realized where he’d subconsciously walked to.
The golf course.
Before he could turn around and run in his Italian loafers, he heard his brother call out, “Spare Parts! You made it! But what the hell are you wearing?”
The notion of playing golf with Brody and his father while he was sticky with sweat and indulging his angst filled him with dread.
Until.
Tom remembered something paramount: not a damn thing he did today mattered.
Leo and Tom had an expression they’d come up with in college, one they’d use whenever they were burned out from studying or tired of telling their self-aggrandizing roommates, who referred to themselves as the Philosophy Kings, to clean their moldy tofu out of the fridge. It came from deep within their guts, where their basest instincts lay. They’d look at each other and they’d yell, “Anarchy reigns supreme!”
And then they’d do something stupid. To take the edge off.
They’d never grown out of it. The last time Leo was in New York, he’d talked a very stressed-out Tom, who’d just learned about his potential relocation to Missouri, into going to a piano bar intended for Broadway fans. Megs had gone upstate for the weekend with a few friends from work, a detail Tom now understood with new clarity, and Leo persuaded Tom to stay out all night. Alongside dozens of strangers, they belted out songs Tom only sort of knew, and he got drunker than he’d been since the last time Leo’d been in town. It was exactly what Tom had needed.
Tom had loved Leo more than he’d ever loved anyone, with the exception of Megs. The fact that he’d had to lose them both in one fell swoop was the cruelest of fates.
But today, right now, Tom was going to love himself enough to create his own anarchy.
“Let’s golf, motherfuckers!” he cried to the mild alarm of his father and bottomless amusement of his brother. When Brody offered his flask, Tom drained it. Let the games begin, he thought.
“I hope this crass enthusiasm means last night’s client dinner went well,” John said, narrowing his eyes at the flask.
“Oh yeah. The client dinner was amazing. And did I tell you how super-pumped Megs is to move to the Midwest? We’ve been talking about it nonstop.”
Although obviously annoyed at Tom’s caustic flippancy, John let it go while they paid for the round. Tom vacillated between giddiness and an anxious sort of awe at not questioning what his father would want him to do before making each move.
“Broderick, your stance is too wide,” John hollered on the first hole from the shade of the cart.
Tom had nothing in his stomach, so the early-morning alcohol hit his bloodstream like a freight train and he immediately felt punchy. “Criticizing your firstborn?” Tom tossed at his father. He ran to Brody and his flask. “That calls for a drink!”
“You cleaned me out, remember?” Brody shifted his weight and swung.
Without a top-up of booze, the next several holes began boring Tom. A quick glance at his watch told him the restaurant that doubled as a clubhouse would be open and serving alcohol.
“Let’s take a break and get some brunch,” he suggested.
Brody had been uncharacteristically quiet and readily agreed.
“You two go ahead.” John waved them off, pulling his phone from his pocket.
John had never received a phone call this early in any other loop, which meant he was faking it to get out of spending time with his sons. Classic.
Tom and Brody took a table on the patio and ordered greasy food and beers. Their sixty-something server didn’t even bat an eye.
“No tablecloths.” Brody knocked on the wood. “No wonder Dad didn’t want to join us.”
“Screw him.”
; “Wow. Strong words. That’s basically patricide coming from you. You nervous or something, Spare Parts?” Brody asked between bites of sausage.
“For tomorrow?” Tom was riding a solid buzz now. “Nah. Why should tomorrow make me nervous?” As far as Tom was concerned, tomorrow didn’t exist.
Brody put down his fork and gazed meaningfully at his brother as though he were attempting telepathy. “Marriage, man. It’s not what you expect.”
Even through the day-drinking buzz, Tom felt a palpitation in his heart that told him not to waste this moment. A Prescott was about to say something real. He could feel it. “What do you mean?”
“I mean dating, even living together, it’s all sex and playing house. Something changes when you sign that piece of paper.”
“What could possibly change with a signature?”
Brody guzzled the rest of his beer and held the empty pint glass up like an asshole to get the attention of their server. “All the little things, the gripes, the complaints, the stuff you thought was rolling off your back and hers…it’s not actually rolling off. It’s seeping in.”
“What’s seeping in?” Tom’s buzz was in danger of wearing off. He blamed the ominous turn this conversation had taken, so he drained his glass. And because he was being an asshole today, he wordlessly held it up to her too.
She was definitely going to spit in their next round.
“Emmeline and I are getting divorced.”
The hairs on Tom’s arms stood on end. He nearly dropped his glass. He knew things weren’t great between Brody and Emmeline, but he’d had no idea they’d call it quits. “What? Why? Do Mom and Dad know?”
“What do you mean, what? I said we’re getting divorced. We can barely stand to be in the same room. And yes, they know.”
“Mom and Dad know and you’re still their favorite?” Tom’s tipsy id had formed that response. He wished he could take it back until he remembered he was in the land of no consequences. Even so, he reached out and put a hand on Brody’s arm. “You okay?”
“Yes, I’m fucking okay.” Brody snatched his arm away. “I’ve got more money than most people see in a lifetime, an apartment in a city that will leave me drowning in one-night stands, and parents who like me better than my little brother. Just because my wife can’t stand me doesn’t mean I’m not okay.”
He was deflecting, Tom knew that. But he still hated Brody in that moment, just a little.
They finished up, tossed a hundred-dollar bill on the table, drained their third (or was it fourth?) beers, and headed back to the golf game, swaying as they walked.
It was the somethingth hole. Tom wasn’t keeping track anymore. Nor was he even trying to play a good game. Because this was boring. Golf was boring. Almost as boring as law. Oddly enough, he was winning. Or at least, he assumed he was. He wasn’t keeping score.
Brody was shifting his weight, readjusting his grip. Ready to swing.
A breeze came up and the trees had the nerve to sway just enough for the sun to get in Tom’s eyes. He took Brody’s forgotten visor from the golf cart and plopped it on his head as he took a seat. Brody was still waiting to take his shot. John stepped up to physically correct his stance.
Tom wondered if the brunch beers combined with the shit-mix from Brody’s flask (which had tasted like every bottle in the hotel minibar combined) were giving him x-ray vision. He swore he could see his dad’s insides, all high-pressure valves, jokes about how they had Tom for spare parts, and variations on You know what you’re going to do, son?
Come to think of it, Tom wasn’t even sure he liked law. Or that he’d ever actually wanted to be a lawyer.
Brody pulled his nine-iron back, ready to show off how fucking far the ball would fly, and when he did…time stood still.
Because, why not. It’d already brought Tom back to the same day over and over again.
And while time paused, Tom saw his brother. Truly saw him. His crumbling marriage. The lithe yet lethal barbs he and Emmeline launched at each other.
Death by a million paper cuts.
Just as Brody was about to swing, Tom also thought of Leo, of his dad…of Megs. And then Tom screamed, “Anarchy reigns supreme,” pushed down on the gas of the golf cart, and blazed out of there like Lewis Hamilton on lap seventy of an F1 Grand Prix.
In the distance he could hear his father yell (politely) and Brody curse because he’d missed his shot. Tom let out a maniacal laugh.
For the amount of time it took a lightning bolt to split the sky, Tom was elated. Free from the trappings of his family, his choices, the loop ensnaring him and Megs.
And then, just as quickly, his sense of freedom evaporated.
This golf cart wasn’t cornering like a Ferrari. Tom nearly tipped himself out on the first turn. A group of retirees gaped at him rolling by, so Tom flipped them all the bird and attempted to drive faster. However, the golf cart topped out at fifteen miles an hour, making this bit of anarchy slower and less satisfying than intended.
The cart might have been traveling at a playground-zone speed, but Tom’s resentment was flying far and fast.
Brody, golden child, was shaming the family by divorcing his shiny pedigreed wife and Tom was still the disappointment.
He ripped off Brody’s visor, threw it at an elderly lady on the putting green, and peeled straight for the exit. Tom had a plan.
And it involved driving that cart all the way back to Roche Harbor.
Chapter Twenty-One
Megan
Hotel bathrobes were cozy, but they definitely weren’t sexy. Her wedding night La Perla lingerie, on the other hand, was very sexy. Still, the idea of putting it on today made her feel like she couldn’t breathe.
Megan opted for a jewel-toned bra and a matching pair of lace underwear and contemplated the top layer. She felt as though she were wrapping a gift, but the gift was what she wanted, and she was giving it to herself.
She clearly needed to sober up a little. She started the coffeemaker—possibly without putting in a filter—then promptly forgot she’d started it and opened the minibar.
The startling price of one bottle of water didn’t stop her from chugging the entire thing. The way things were going, she’d never get the bill. She chased it with an energy drink. Then she had to pee.
Her skin tingled with anticipation when she thought of Leo. Wasn’t this what she’d wanted late in those nights while Tom slept and her shadow self emerged? Wasn’t this what she’d imagined every time she’d gotten angry about having her post-college life mapped out for her? When she’d thought about every opportunity she’d either given up or not even reached for because her role had always been to contort herself into the shapes others wanted to see?
She’d done a lot for Tom and his family. She’d done so much for her own family. Now she was going to do something for herself.
And she refused to feel even a smidgen of guilt about it, even if the guilt was peering through the curtains of her conscience.
She threw her jersey dress over her carefully selected underwear, sprayed her hair with dry shampoo, and applied blush, mascara, and a light sheen of lip gloss.
And then the guilt stared her down, so she gave herself a pep talk.
After a quick call to the lobby to find out which room she needed (normally they didn’t give out that information, but she was staying in the bridal suite and they apparently made exceptions for brides), she walked the length of the hallway to the elevator and pressed the down button.
A little light-headed from gin, caffeine, and a tiny dose of panic, Megan slowed her breathing and asked herself if this was what she wanted. And then she got off the elevator and knocked on the door of Leo’s hotel room.
He opened it; his face registered surprise, followed quickly by longing.
“Hi,” she said. It was cliché in its breathlessness, but it was real. “Can I come in?”
Instead of answering, he pulled her into a hug so warm and strong, she thought she could live there.
Have food delivered to that hug. Sleep in that hug. Never leave.
She thought again about the fraying connection she had to Tom, measured it against the pull she felt to Leo. How had she never realized how powerfully they were linked despite time and geographical distance?
“I wasn’t sure if you were going to avoid me, but I want to talk to you.” He pulled her into the room and closed the door. With his hands gently on her shoulders, he pushed her away just far enough to drink her in with his eyes. “I thought about calling, about writing, and I know my timing—”
Megan shook her head and he stopped talking. A slow smile crawled across her face, growing wider by the second. “Your timing is perfect.”
Not knowing how to communicate what she had planned, she started by placing her hand on his chest, enjoying the feel of his muscles under her palms.
Today was about what she wanted.
She knew what Leo wanted already, but she still checked in with him, raising her eyes to his as she let her fingers trail achingly slowly down the muscles of his abdomen to the waist of his worn jeans. He nodded and reached one hand around to the small of her back, the other behind her head. His fingers tangled in her hair and he pulled her closer until their parted mouths met and they melted into each other.
Their tongues, warm and slick, teased as their bodies pressed together harder. She heaved her chest just to feel more of him against her. She could live in his hug, but she could die in this kiss.
Greedily, Megan fiddled with the button fly of his jeans. While she did so, he whipped his shirt off, revealing a torso that was familiar and yet firmer, his shoulders broader.
His pants dropped to the floor and she dug her fingers into the light dusting of chest hair that had grown in the years since she’d last taken off his shirt. She wanted to lick, nip, feel every part of him, but she was still far too clothed.
Leo reached for the hem of her dress, ready to pull it over her head, and paused, a question in his eyes. The look was so tender it nearly undid her.
The Rehearsals Page 16