“I have skills? This, everything, was amazing,” I told him, stealing another bite of chocolate cake. “And I don’t toss around that word lightly.”
“I know you take your words seriously,” Ryan said, taking a slice for himself. We devoured it. After we emptied the rest of the wine bottle into our glasses, we sat side by side, watching the waves crash. With an arm around my waist, he pulled me closer. Then he kissed each of my cheeks, my jaw, and trailed his way down my neck. I heard myself gasp. Then his mouth was on mine, tasting like chocolate, and wine, and Ryan.
He kissed like someone who wanted me to forget who I was. And in a way, it was working. With him, I had the momentary sensation of just being Kate. I clutched his back, aware of every ridge of muscle, wanting to touch his skin but holding back.
We came up for air. Ryan’s forehead was pressed against mine and I peered into his eyes. “I guess you did like the food.” He smiled.
The beach was still ours, and dusk was settling over the ocean. Here, at the elbow of the Cape, we could see lighthouses and bluffs stretching out in both directions. Boat lights twinkled in the water.
Down the way, I heard voices, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. I peered over Ryan’s shoulder. Across the beach, coming down the path, were Eliza and Devin. Devin was carrying a bottle of wine. Apparently, he’d been able to get out of work. And unfortunately, the two of them had had the same idea as Ryan. A sudden thought made icy panic wash over me. Was this Ryan and Eliza’s old place? Had he brought her here before me?
“We have to go,” I said, pulling away and downing the last of my wine. “I just remembered, I, um, promised Tea I’d, um, help her with some PSAT prep tonight.” I prayed Tea didn’t have a shift at Landrys’ tonight. Though if she did, I could pretend I’d mixed up the days.
Ryan’s eyebrows lifted. “She’s doing that already?”
“You don’t know Tea. Well, you do. But she’s borderline scary with her goals. Like a robot or something. I’m really sorry. This was great. Thank you.” I fumbled with the picnic basket, and tried to fold the blanket while Ryan was still sitting on it. Devin and Eliza still hadn’t seen us. “I mean it.”
“You’re welcome.” His grin had faded.
“Let’s go the long way, though, after all that food. I can’t be a good quiz master with such a full stomach.” I pointed my bike away from Eliza and Devin.
“Whatever you want,” Ryan said, but his words made my chest ache.
I hated myself more than a little for cutting the date with Ryan short. The whole evening, which had started so wonderfully, had left me in a foul mood. I was resentful of Eliza—for showing up at the beach, for bossing me around since we’d arrived, for seeming so entitled to everything, not to mention for having Ryan first. And I was starting to resent the summer here. We could have stayed away and kept the house in our memories, instead of coming here and opening wounds that had only started to heal. The job I’d hoped for hadn’t panned out and every day, I found myself seeking alone time in Mom’s old studio, when I was supposed to be bonding with my sisters. Nothing was going as planned.
And now I’d probably destroyed things with Ryan when they’d just begun. The worst part was, maybe they shouldn’t have started in the first place.
I took my computer downstairs, planning to at least spend some time in the main house with my sisters. It was late, and I needed sleep, but I was too worked up. Maybe Tea really was studying for the PSAT, at least making me less of a liar.
But the house was empty. I set up my computer on the kitchen counter and checked my e-mail. I had a Twitter notification for a direct message. It was from Grace Campbell: “NY a no-go. Back in Cape after all. Can you start in two days?”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. This was a nice development, even if it was a little late. I wrote back that I would and promptly began to daydream about what I might be working on. The characters in Grace Campbell’s books always had interesting backstories and occupations, like war veterans, archaeologists, or astronauts, the kinds of things that required research. I wondered if she’d send me to interview people, or just send me to libraries and museums.
I was clicking around on some of my favorite writing sites, telling myself not to worry about the Ryan thing right now, when Eliza and Devin stumbled into the kitchen, groping and making out. They didn’t even see me at the counter.
From the way they were going at it, they’d clearly enjoyed their picnic and I was more annoyed than ever that I’d cut my time short with Ryan. Did Eliza’s sisters-before-misters rule really apply when one of the sisters in question had so obviously moved on? Or did it only apply when one of the sisters was Eliza?
Eliza’s cheeks were flushed and she had one arm tightly around Devin’s neck. His hands were on her hips, pulling her into him. Eliza started to tug Devin’s polo shirt off when I finally cleared my throat loudly.
Devin backed away from Eliza like he was spring-loaded, toppling a half bottle of water that had been left open on the counter. “Uh, hey, Kate,” he said, his dimples the only parts of his face that weren’t red. “We, uh, we were just . . .”
“She’s eighteen. She knows what we were doing,” Eliza said, waving him off. She came around to my side of the counter, her movements loose. She leaned her head on my shoulder. She was obviously a little tipsy. “Whatcha doing?”
“Just e-mail,” I said. I couldn’t look her in the face. I felt like she’d see right into me or would know by scent or something that I’d been with Ryan.
“How was your day?” Devin asked. “Anything interesting?”
I knew he was being sweet and brotherly, but today was the last day I wanted to tell Devin and my sister about.
“Eh, the usual. Smokey’s. Took a bike ride,” I said, hoping if a person could ooze nonchalance, I was oozing it. Plus, it was not entirely a lie. But Eliza’s expression mimicked Ryan’s from when I’d abruptly ended our date. Like she wanted to believe me, but was having a hard time.
“Devin, I didn’t know you were coming today,” I said casually.
“Yeah, he flew in, but the poor thing got called back to work tomorrow when he thought he could take a day off.” Eliza made an exaggerated sad face for Devin’s benefit.
“That sucks,” I said.
“It’s newbie stuff, I guess,” Devin said. He opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of beer. “I thought newbie stuff ended after my first two years, but I guess they can abuse me until I get another promotion.” Devin was a few years older than Eliza and had been working long hours since the day he graduated. Eliza had always been a little bit proud of his crazy schedule, even when she was still in college and humble-bragged that she felt like the widow of her sorority because Devin could never visit. But to Eliza’s credit, she always seemed most proud of Devin’s drive, not his paycheck. My sister liked nice things, but she resisted her boyfriend’s attempts to spoil her with expensive gifts.
Eliza had been a business major, and had graduated early in January, always a step ahead of everyone else. With nothing standing in her way, she had gotten engaged in March and then rushed to plan and hold her wedding on the Cape. She had no qualms about being a young bride. And, true to everything Eliza did, she’d probably not suffer for it in the least.
Now, she lingered next to me, and it made me uncomfortable. “It’s my last day at Smokey’s tomorrow,” I told her. It was something to say that wasn’t about Ryan. I faked a yawn. “So I better get some rest, too. I actually get to start as Grace’s assistant on Friday.”
Eliza’s eyes brightened as I pushed away from the counter. “Wow, so do you know what you’ll be doing for her?”
“I’m sure research for her next book,” I said, even though I really had no idea. It was a lie that was easier to tell than one about any of my other summer activities. “Maybe some publicity stuff.”
“That’
s great,” Devin said. “You’ll have to tell me what she’s like. My colleagues are reading Bent Castle for their book club.”
“It is great!” Eliza came to my side of the counter and threw her arm around me, squeezing my shoulder. “See, aren’t you glad we’re spending the summer here? This is going to be so good for you!”
I squeezed her back, trying to be affectionate. Only Eliza would try to make my decent summer job seem like an outcome of her decision to come here. I wondered if she’d see the developments between me and Ryan the same way. Doubtful.
“Yeah, I’m super excited,” I said, remembering Ryan’s face as I’d rushed us from our picnic. With a closed-lip smile, I shut my computer and walked past her to the front door.
“I’m really happy for you,” she called after me.
“Thanks, good night,” were the safest words I could think to say as the door shut with a click.
CHAPTER NINE
I WOKE UP later than I wanted to for my first day at Grace’s. I wasn’t going to be late, but I also wasn’t going to be able to make my swim. Instead, I took a long shower, trying to process everything. Was there a way to get things on track with Ryan again, but without him knowing I thought anything was wrong? I knew it had only been two nights, but the way we’d left things made me anxious.
Sitting on my futon, I toweled off and—though I’d resisted for days—opened my curtains just a few inches. Before, in the main house, I could see out to the street, to where Ryan parked his truck. Now, I had a direct sight line into his room.
His blinds were shut.
I ran a comb through my hair, telling myself things would either be fine or they wouldn’t. My priority had to be putting in a good first day with Grace.
Something flickered in my peripheral vision and I instinctively looked left. Standing in his window, blinds up, and wearing only a towel around his waist, was Ryan. Or, what I assumed was Ryan, since I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his taut abdomen, with its narrow trail of hair leading south from his belly button. When I managed to pull my gaze up, raking my eyes greedily over his still-wet chest, we were looking right into each other’s faces. The right corner of his mouth turned up in a smile.
Ryan scribbled something on a pad next to his bed. He held it up. “Have a good day, sexy.”
I had a pink towel around my chest and he thought I was sexy? If that was the case, there were no words expressive enough for what he was. I picked up a legal pad and scrawled the words “You, too” and offered what I hoped what my sexiest smile. Reluctantly, I turned to get dressed and leave for work.
My new job, I thought, had better be interesting.
Grace Campbell’s house was far down the beach, away from all the tourists and not far from where Ryan and I had picnicked a few days ago. I’d left on a bike from Smokey’s at nine in the morning, hoping to be early for my ten o’clock start time.
Smokey had understood when I’d told him I had to quit. It probably had helped that I’d suggested Tea to work for him instead. Even though she had the hostess job, it wasn’t that many hours. And at fifteen, Tea desperately wanted to work. Either hanging around the empty beach house was getting to her, or someday she’d run the world. Maybe both.
Grace’s front porch was a collage of plants in various stages of life. Some were healthy and abloom while others looked like they’d been left in their pots to die. The front door was painted an iridescent blue that glittered in the sun.
I knocked.
I waited.
I knocked again. Looking down at my phone, I checked the address. It was right. But the house didn’t even appear to be inhabited, let alone by a writer I assumed was very productive. Maybe someone had hacked her Twitter account, and Grace Campbell was still in New York.
“You’re early.” The voice came from behind the array of plants on the windowsill.
“Ms. Campbell?” I crouched to make eye contact with the face peering through the screen. “I’m Kate Sommers. You hired me? As your assistant?”
“Don’t make statements sound like questions or you’re fired.” She cackled. “And don’t get here early again. But since you’re early today, come in. The door is unlocked.”
I opened the front door and stepped into the small foyer. On my right was a large room that must have been Grace’s office. A writing desk was just behind the window from which she’d spoken to me. The rest of the room was filled with bookcases brimming over with books. Some looked ancient and some brand-new. The room had the lovely smell of dusty pages.
To the left of the foyer must have been a dining room. Or, it would have been. All that was in it, besides a painting of a reclining nude woman that took up most of one wall, was a large rectangular table. On it were scraps of paper, plastic bags, takeout menus, and newspapers, all of which contained bits of scrawled text.
“I am blocked,” Grace said. She swept over to the table. She wore a faded blue bathrobe over a completely normal and flattering outfit of a white button-down and black ankle pants. Her hair was swept up into a loose bun held by a bejeweled pin. Gray streaks through the dark brown hair made her look very regal, and her bathrobe almost seemed like a cape. “These are my notes. Some are scraps of dialogue, some are ideas, some are characters, some might be my grocery lists, for God’s sake. Some, I’ve probably used in other books.”
I was starting to feel an impending sense of doom but I kept a smile glued to my face. “And you need me to organize them?”
Grace smiled. “Organize them, type them into a readable document, unearth something genius I forgot about. Read it the wrong way so it sounds better than it is, whatever you want.” She pushed a creaky laptop in front of me. “Here you go.”
She handed me a small USB drive. “Oh and there’s this,” she said. “My e-mail mailing list. My publisher suggested you organize these and select a service provider, or something, so I can start sending newsletters in advance of my next book. I think it’s their nice way of reminding me I don’t have a next book. I hate technology.”
I looked at her skeptically. “But you’re on Twitter.”
She shrugged. “That’s me rattling off one-liners for easy attention,” she said. “The rest, I don’t get. But start the newsletter. See if one of my fans knows what I should write about next.”
She left me with the laptop, which I was pretty sure wheezed when I pressed the power button.
“I’ll go make some tea,” she said.
So much for my big research aspirations. Looking at the sea of random notes, I was starting to miss the ocean view at Smokey’s already.
“Oh, guess I’m out of tea,” Grace called from the kitchen. “Before you start, can you run out and get some? And watch out for the neighbor’s cat. She has it out for me.”
CHAPTER TEN
RYAN TEXTED ME for another date. I was at Grace’s when it came through, sifting through papers, and unsticking them from some Chinese hot sauce that had spilled. “Can we go out again? Make sure you don’t have other plans.”
And I, being of an eternal crush on him, said yes, despite my fear of how awkward and awful things could get if Eliza found out.
After our early morning towel sighting, we’d spent the next few nights texting one another. I’d jumped at every chime from my phone, unfolding myself from my hunched position over the laptop from Grace’s. (I’d taken it home and was trying to catch up since she’d spent the first two days of my job just gossiping about her various neighbors’ eccentricities, which seemed ironic.) Ryan’s texts arrived during his breaks at the restaurant, where he sometimes worked well past midnight.
It was funny, because Matt, my ex, was sending texts at the same time. But the backlog of Matt texts grew steeper as I enjoyed the bounty of missives from Ryan.
Last night, he’d urged me to meet him outside, in the space between our yards, for a quick kiss goodnight. If it hadn’t
been for my fear of getting caught, the kiss would have been way more than quick. But still, Ryan needed only a few minutes to send me back up to my room understanding what cloud nine meant.
“So when can I see you?” he asked.
“How about tomorrow? This time, I’ll plan everything,” I told him over the phone. Grace had told me on day two that she hated texting. “It seems like the perfect way for two people to never really say anything to each other. Life should be lived with all five senses, not on screens.” So, here I was, watering Grace’s plants and listening to Ryan’s voice on the line as he uttered a semisurprised, “Okay, if you insist. But I did ask you out.”
So now I was waiting for him at the marina, where my family had a small motorboat. I saw that Dad had previously been here, because the boat was cleaned and fueled. He must have taken the boat out without us, even though we usually had the first day out as a family. Not that I could really complain, given that I was using it for a secret date with Ryan.
I’d arrived a bit before him and brought a cooler of beer and sandwiches onto the boat. It wasn’t nearly as good as what he’d prepared, but I didn’t have his years of experience in the kitchen and I couldn’t exactly ask Becca.
“The S.S. Merlin, nice. I’ve missed the old girl,” I heard Ryan say. We’d named the boat after our eleven-year-old cat, who could never join us on the Cape. Now the poor thing barely left his corner in the sun, and Tea had gotten a friend to watch him while we were gone. I turned from the cooler and couldn’t help but stare. Ryan belonged to the water and the beach. He looked so perfect against the backdrop of the bay. The sun even did its part, reflecting off the water and dappling light across his hair. Already, the tousled tips were turning golden.
So when he pulled me up by my hand and kissed me, deep, and his sun-warmed skin touched mine, I wondered for a second if he was really here for me or if he’d made some mistake. If he had, I was going with it. I may have been the tallest of my sisters, but I felt small as I pressed myself against his body. I nestled into his shoulder as he kissed the top of my head. Even though I liked feeling strong, I didn’t mind being in his arms.
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