The Summer of Him

by Stacy Travis

  “How many women have you brought out on this boat?”

  He looked at me quizzically, as though unsure how our conversation had shifted to that. “I dunno. A couple. Why?”

  “Just trying to get a sense of you. Your life.”

  His smile was more of a smirk. But it was still gorgeous. “And what have you gleaned so far—that my life consists of gazing at myself on the sides of buses and taking women out on sailboats?”

  I couldn’t tell whether he was amused or offended by the concept. I scooted back so I could look at him, putting a hand on his knee. “Chris. This week has been amazing. You’re amazing. I’m just curious about what your life looks like outside of here. I only know you in vacation mode. Which is awesome, by the way. But what’s it like the rest of the time?”

  “Probably not that different from your life. If we’re filming, I have call times, sometimes really early, and I work. The complicated action scenes take a lot of time, so it sometimes takes months to get everything filmed. And I’m still reading, thinking about what I want to do after that, sometimes preparing for the next thing if I’m not gonna get a break in between. Then when a film gets close to opening, there’s the publicity tours and the premieres, so there’s travel. Pretty much, I go where I’m told.”

  I nodded. “You forgot about the bus gazing.”

  He pinched my thigh right above my knee and I jumped. “Ouch.” I swatted him.

  “That didn’t hurt.”

  “It might’ve hurt.”

  He shook his head. Then he kissed the spot where he’d pinched. Then he brushed his lips across mine and pulled me in. It wasn’t until I felt his full soft lips claiming mine that a semi-absurd thought presented itself. After a moment, we drew back for air and the thought came tumbling out before I could stop it. “I’m a little worried kissing you is an addiction. I think I’m a junkie.”

  “I’m not sure I see the problem.”

  As if proving himself willing to feed my habit, Chris kissed me again.

  We’d sailed so far out into the Mediterranean blue that at one point I could barely see land. Chris brought our conversation back to my inquisition about his work life and turned the tables. “What is your life like when you’re not seducing guys on vacation?” he asked.

  We were sitting next to each other on a cushion at the back of the boat.

  “Well, most of my life does consist of that, but in the off-season, when I head home, I’m a workaday stiff. I go to my office, put out press releases, or put out fires, depending on the day. Then I go home and hang out with friends or walk on the beach or stay in my apartment and watch art films or whatever’s new on Netflix.”

  “Sounds like a pretty good life.”

  “Living the dream.” I scooted back until I was lying on the bench with my head resting on his leg. He shifted as well so he could lean back against a pillow, and we floated like that for a while, feeling the waves under the boat.

  “Do you love your job?” he asked.

  “I’m good at my job.”

  “Not what I asked. I can see you’re smart. I’m sure you’re good at it. But do you love it?” he asked again. I didn’t answer. I knew the answer but I didn’t want to tell him after hearing how passionate he was about acting.

  “I like it, and I like that I can do it well. But is it my life’s passion to write press releases? I’d have to say no.” I’d never admitted it out loud before. Maybe because no one had asked.

  He was thoughtful a moment, nodding. There was no judgment in his expression. More like concern. “Do you have a life’s passion?” he asked gently.

  The problem was that I wasn’t sure I did, and it had always bothered me. “I’m not sure.” It was a sore spot and I blamed myself for not having figured out some essential career that I was dying to have. “I feel like a millennial cliché, like I’m casting about and trying to find myself. But I’ve tried a lot of things. I double majored in computer science and literature. I’ve worked in fashion, I’ve tried painting. They’re all interesting and fine. It just may be that I just don’t have one thing I like more than anything else.”

  “I don’t believe that. You haven’t found it yet.”

  “It may be that variety is my passion. I like lots of different things. I probably won’t keep this job forever. Maybe I’ll design wedding dresses. Maybe I’ll go to veterinary school. I like that I have choices.”

  “I respect that. Choices are good.” He picked up my hand and held it between his. I’d been staring at him as he spoke, mesmerized by his swoony eyes. Then his expression changed and he looked suddenly vulnerable when he spoke. “You still may find something you love more than anything else. And you’ll know when you find it.”

  The way he said it, I wasn’t sure if he was talking about my job anymore. I was kind of hoping he wasn’t. “I think you’re right. I’ll know.”

  His eyes were stormy and focused on mine, maybe trying to read the same thing from my words. He looked at my mouth and reached for my chin, tilting it gently upward. His kiss was gentle at first, but it soon became heated and intense. It almost felt ravenous, as though a part of him needed to be fed, needed to be satisfied.

  My hands twisted in his hair and I moved closer to him on the cushion, turning to face him more squarely. In seconds, he’d wrapped an arm around my back and pulled me harder against him, his mouth crushing mine, his tongue sweeping across mine. Consuming… Insatiable…

  I heard his voice in a low growl against my lips. “Let’s go downstairs.”

  “What’s downstairs?” I asked, breathless, but curious whether he planned to have me in a tiny bathroom.

  “Come,” he said, not elaborating. He kept his arm wrapped around me and pulled me up, his lips still on mine while he walked us down a set of stairs and into a full-sized bedroom below.

  It was big enough to fit a queen-sized bed and a small sitting area. The quilt on the bed looked like it had just been fluffed. He walked me to the edge and lifted me to the center of the bed before he straddled my legs and sat up, assessing me. He looked like a puma deciding which part of his dinner he wanted first. I had no problem being his main course, but I still didn’t know what had shifted to bring on his intensity.

  “You make me crazy,” he said, quietly. “I think I can control myself around you. I tell myself to let you relax enjoy the boat. Then I can’t stay away from you.”

  I reached for his hand and pulled him toward me. He rested on his elbows, his eyes never leaving mine. “I am enjoying my day. Very much. And I don’t want you to stay away.”

  He dipped his head down and slowly kissed up the column of my throat. When he got to my chin, his tongue traced a line along my jawbone. I just about lost my mind. “Oh my God, Chris. That sends me over the edge,” I said, my voice shaky with lust.

  He was hovering over me, his eyes roaming over my face, then downward, like he was trying to decide what part of me to devour. Abruptly we heard loud voices right outside the door, which we’d neglected to close. Chris froze for a moment, then rolled off the bed. “Hold that thought. Then I’m going to test the limits of every edge,” he said.

  He hopped over to the door and slammed it shut.

  Then he made good on his word.

  When we came back upstairs, Louis and the crew were talking to each other at the stern of the boat. Suddenly the sails were starting to move and flap. Chris pointed up toward the mainsail. “We’re getting ready to tack.”

  “What do I need to do?”

  “You do nothing. You watch how beautifully this boat handles the wind.”

  One of the crew pulled on ropes, and the other helped him crank something on one side of the boat. The mainsail soon moved across the middle of the boat to the other side, where it refilled with wind, and suddenly, we were sailing in a different direction, parallel to the coastline.

  “See?” Chris yelled something to Louis, who seemed to approve. “So that’s called a tack. Turning into the wind. If we turn the
other way with the wind pushing us more, it’s called a jibe. Boat lingo is a whole other language, but you need to know it if you’re captaining a boat, because everyone expects you to use the right terminology. You can’t just say, ‘Turn right.’ It’s all about where you are relative to the direction of the wind and relative to other boats.”

  “Interesting. Do you ever go out by yourself as the captain?”

  “Sometimes, on a smaller boat. But it’s work, and I wouldn’t be able to sit here with you and drink champagne.”

  I nodded. The non-captain version of Chris was certainly nice. He refilled my glass from the bottle, which he’d stowed in an ice bucket built into the center of the table in front of us.

  We spent a good part of the day heading toward Nice, where we dropped anchor a few hundred yards from shore and took a dinghy the rest of the way. From there, we walked into Old Nice, which was charming and packed with restaurants and centuries-old architecture. We had lunch at a small restaurant with an ocean view, sharing a plate of mussels and splitting an omelet and a pile of shoestring fries.

  “This may be the best meal I’ve ever had,” I said, knowing that was only going to be true until the next exquisite dining experience I’d have in this country.

  Chris regaled me with political trivia about the city, peppered with historical facts he couldn’t have gotten without reading an obscure textbook. “The mayor here used to be a professional motorcycle rider. He raced in more than thirty world championship Grand Prix but never came in first. He got fourth a couple times. Evidently, politics offers better odds of winning.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “He’s had a good run.” Chris told me more about the mayor and some run-ins he’d had over a mosque that a businessman wanted to build. I was impressed by the depth of Chris’s knowledge, which clearly had nothing to do with his day job.

  The city beckoned to me with its Chagall Museum and Matisse Museum, and Chris did his best to indulge my enthusiasm for the large open market, where we bought fresh produce we could bring back to his house and a bag of apricots for Louis and the crew. Every so often, I’d catch someone looking at Chris, recognizing him and debating whether to ask him to pose for a selfie.

  A couple of times, he was approached, and he graciously acquiesced, posing, smiling and thanking his fans in French or English, depending on what language they spoke. Nice in the summer had its share of American tourists, and some were delighted to have stumbled across an actor who was willing to pose in photos with them. I got a tiny glimpse of Chris Conley, celebrity, and I was impressed by how well he handled the attention.

  “I don’t think I have the disposition to be a public figure,” I told him after the last gaggle of French teen girls had posed with him six different times before they were satisfied that their shot was Instagram-worthy. We’d plopped into chairs at a café and were having a glass of wine before meeting the boat.

  “Oh, you’d be fine. You’re good with people. It’s just about being approachable.”

  “But I’d get annoyed if I was on vacation, trying to mind my own business, and I couldn’t just walk down the street in peace.”

  “Is it annoying to you now, being with me?” he asked.

  “Oh, not at all. I just feel a little bad for you. You can’t even have a meaningless fling in peace. It seems like your life isn’t totally your own.”

  “Like I said, you get used to it.”

  He took a long sip of his wine and didn’t speak for a minute. Finally, he turned to me. “Is that how you see this—a meaningless fling?”

  I hadn’t expected that question, and I wasn’t sure immediately how to answer. “Well, isn’t it? We’re both on vacation… and we’re both going to opposite coasts and opposite lives afterward, so I just figured…”

  “Meaningless fling …”

  “I… am I wrong?”

  Again, he didn’t answer. He had the same distant, slightly sad look on his face that I’d seen earlier. “I don’t know… I just don’t want to think of it like that. It sounds like something empty and frivolous, and I… like you more than that.”

  There was such vulnerability in his voice and his face. I hadn’t even allowed for the possibility of my time with him feeling like more than a fun summer romance. The relationship could only end badly for me if I started to have feelings that could never be reciprocated in the real world.

  I didn’t want it to be a fling, but didn’t it have to be one? Maybe that didn’t need to be debated yet.

  “I like you too. A lot. So let’s call it something else,” I said.

  “I’m open to suggestions.” He sipped his wine.

  “Hot summer sex fest?” I suggested.

  “Ah, that carries a lot more weight.”

  “So what do you want to call it?”

  “I don’t really want to put a name to it. I’m growing pretty attached to you. I like us together. And I don’t want to cheapen a beautiful thing by calling it a fling,” he said, and right then, I wanted him more than I had since I’d first felt his arm around my back on the bridge. And I felt something that alarmed me a little bit—the beginnings of falling for him. I sipped my wine and tried to push back that feeling because I knew it had no business intruding on our vacation.

  “I’m good with a nameless lovely vacation,” I said, careful not to let my alarming feelings show. “And one more thing… I have no idea what a White Serpent is.” I figured I’d better just lay it all out on the table. If he decided that made me unworldly or uncultured, so be it.

  Instead, he laughed quietly. “I kinda had a feeling. And I love that about you.” There it was, that little word I’d been pushing out of my head.

  Hearing Chris toss out the word love, even in that context, made my heart gleeful and sad at the same time.

  After lunch, we walked quietly for a while as I thought about what it would feel like to be recognized wherever I went, always on call to do a fan’s bidding. Of course, I knew there were celebrities who were famously rude when fans approached for an autograph or a photo, and I actually understood their perspective. People didn’t have a right to get in Chris’s face and interrupt his vacation.

  Or maybe he was right, and I was the one annoyed at having an intrusion into my fantasy vacation. I realized I’d need to adjust my expectations. This was his life, and if he was fine with it, I could go along for the ride.

  We didn’t have hours and hours to walk around because we still had to sail back before dark. I could have spent a week in Nice, but I knew I’d just have to visit the city my next time in France. I knew there would be a next time. I’d given Paris short shrift, and the people I’d been introduced to so far made me want to dig in deeper. I wanted to ride a bike through Provence and visit cheese caves in Normandy and taste wine in Bordeaux. It would take many visits to satisfy my craving for this country.

  When the sailboat started heading back, with the sun following us on the right side of the boat, I felt more content than I had in years. I wanted nothing more than to be sitting next to Chris, under his arm, watching the glow of the setting sun on the water as we sailed back to Antibes. The wind began dying down by the end of our sail, so Louis eventually turned on the motor to get us the rest of the way into the harbor.

  I’d heard stories about boat maintenance from friends who occasionally sailed, and they always detailed the work done right after the boat docked in the slip, washing down footprints, cleaning the seawater off the visible parts of the hull, covering all the wood, tying all the lines, and returning the boat to pristine condition before heading home. I knew without asking that Louis and his crew were paid to do that work and all we had to do was thank them and make our way back to Chris’s house.

  “I was a little worried all this produce was gonna go bad on the boat,” I said, lifting the full bag from the farmer’s market in Nice. “Should’ve figured there’d be a fridge on the boat.”

  “All your wants and needs… we try to accommodate,” he said
as we rode in the hired car back to his house.

  I wondered why he didn’t just use Uber, but I figured someone in the film empire that hired him had to be footing the bill. And what did it matter, anyway? “I had an ulterior motive, buying all this,” I told him. “I’m cooking tonight.”

  “Not gonna fight you on that. And I’ll even volunteer as your sous chef. What are we making?”

  I looked into the bag of luscious produce, which I’d bought without a real plan for how I was going to use it. As much as I could eat a big salad any day of the week, I wasn’t sure that would work for Chris, so I had to get more creative.

  “I’m not sure yet… but I have a feeling your elves have already figured it out for me and stocked the kitchen with something I haven’t thought of.”

  “They’re good that way,” he admitted.

  I wasn’t sure if he’d think it was strange to ask, but I’d been feeling awkward about this couple who lived on the property and always disappeared into the night when we were around. “Would it be weird to invite Clothilde and Henri to eat with us?”

  “Well, they’ll probably yank the knife right out of your hands and take over the kitchen if I invite them over… but if you don’t mind being bulldozed by a pair of French grandparents, I’m game.”

  “Are you kidding? Bossy French grandparents with knives? That’s all kinds of awesome.”

  But not as awesome as Chris.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Villa

  Evening

  Clothilde and Henri were nothing like I expected. They really were like a pair of grandparents who looked out for each other and doted on Chris like he was one of their own. Apparently, they had three grown children and eight grandchildren living in various parts of southern France. But aside from appearances and grandparental demeanor, they were a couple of twenty-year-olds in spirit. Clothilde came over wearing a faded denim shirt over black yoga pants and immediately tied a long white apron over Henri’s khaki pants and long-sleeved T-shirt so he could commandeer the kitchen. That left me to do minimal helping.