One To Watch: this summer's must-read romcom to fill the Love Island-shaped hole in your life

by Kate Stayman-London

  “Hey, you.” Bea ran into his arms, and after all the uncertainty Sam had instilled in her, it felt so simple to kiss Asher in the plain, bright light of day.

  Getting outfitted in life jackets (Bea was forced to wear a men’s XXL, which was comically long on her) and into the pedal boat was something of a production, but once they were off on the lake, surrounded by canoes full of camera operators, Asher and Bea pedaled through the green waters into the mouth of the gorge, where limestone cliffs towered over them.

  “So, my kids loved you,” Asher said, unable to suppress a grin.

  “Excuse me?” Bea was skeptical. “Gwen tolerated me at best.”

  “Nope,” Asher corrected. “Last night she emailed me an article she thought you might enjoy about the handlers who work with animals in Hollywood. That’s basically Gwen-speak for ‘be my new best friend.’”

  Bea was genuinely surprised. “And did they like the movie?”

  “Bea, I swear to you, I’ve heard of little else since you left. Linus wants to know when you can come back to teach him how to contour his cheekbones to look like Katharine Hepburn’s.”

  Bea cracked up. “Do you even know what contouring is?”

  Asher looked affronted. “I’ll have you know I once spent two hours of my Saturday at a Sephora in Burlington learning exactly what contouring is and how one achieves it. It was terrifying.”

  “I cannot believe you went to a Sephora class.”

  “Yeah, well. I tried to persuade Linus we’d have more fun at a Revolutionary War reenactment, but he was unconvinced.”

  “So, tell me, young grasshopper.” Bea gathered herself up very seriously. “What did you learn in Sephora school?”

  “Well”—Asher traced the lines on Bea’s face with his fingers—“when you contour, you want to use bronzer under the cheekbones, here, and along the jaw. To create shadow.”

  “Don’t forget the hairline.”

  “Yes, of course.” Asher pressed his thumbs to the center of Bea’s forehead, then ran them down to her temples, massaging her gently. “The hairline.”

  “Good.” Bea relaxed into his touch. “What else?”

  “You highlight all the places that draw light—the cheeks, the bridge of the nose, and just above the lips.”

  He rested a finger on her cupid’s bow, and she kissed it softly.

  “Did you know you can also contour your décolletage?”

  Asher smiled, somewhere between turned-on and incredulous. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. But I can’t show you that right now.” Bea was holding back laughter too. “Because it would be very dangerous to remove our life jackets.”

  Asher shook his head and grinned. “Can I please just drop the pretext and kiss you?”

  “I swear to God, you’d better.”

  It was a little too cold to dine outside that night, but Bea insisted—they were eating at one of her favorite restaurants in the world: La Bastide de Moustiers, Alain Ducasse’s boutique Provençal property, where they also had rooms for the night. The restaurant’s terrace was built into the hillside, and all the tables faced outward so diners could eat while gazing at the beautiful mountains. The waitstaff brought out thick woven blankets to keep them warm, then course after course of the most bright, delicious food she’d ever tasted. They had the whole place to themselves to eat and watch the sunset, the mountains drenched in orange, then pink, then gold.

  Once the food had been cleared and the light was almost gone, they nestled together, drinking a champagne toast, the intensity of their connection—how strong her feelings were getting, the fact that his children were now involved—both reassuring Bea and, in its own way, unnerving her.

  “I didn’t expect this,” she murmured, “any of it.”

  “I know.” He leaned in close. “After Vanessa, I thought I was done. For a long time anyway. But now …”

  “Now?” she urged.

  “I’m rethinking things.”

  He kissed her, and she stayed close to him, caught between her curiosity and her desire to preserve the moment.

  “You never talk about her,” Bea said quietly.

  “Vanessa?”

  Bea nodded, and Asher sighed.

  “I keep expecting that one day I’ll wake up and it won’t hurt anymore. That I’ll finally understand what happened, and I’ll be past it. It’s been seven years, and still. No such luck.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  “Do you?” Asher looked at her. “The guy who hurt you last year?”

  “Of course it’s not the same,” Bea said quickly. “I would never compare the two, she left her children. But waking up every morning, not wanting to think about it, but not being able to help it? That part I know really well.”

  “I thought that meeting someone new would help,” Asher admitted. “And in some ways it has—to be with you, to feel so hopeful for the first time in years. But in other ways, I find I’m thinking about her even more. With every milestone you and I cross, I think back to what it was like with her. I don’t mean to compare you, and I hate that I’ve been thinking of her so frequently.”

  Bea exhaled. “Asher, it’s only natural that we’re comparing this experience to past ones. How could we not? Especially if we’re looking for warning signs to make sure we won’t be hurt again.”

  “I suppose we could will ourselves to forget them, focus on moving forward.”

  “That doesn’t really sound realistic, does it?”

  He took a sip of wine. “Perhaps not.”

  “So, um. How did you meet her?” Bea asked, hoping this question was small enough to draw him out.

  “In college,” Asher started. “She had this brilliant energy, and I was enamored. There was this shop near campus where we’d order tea rolls and Nepalese chai, and we would sit there for hours, arguing about moral determinism and the nature of humanity. I was so in love with her—and I was hardly the only one, men always fell all over themselves around her. But she told me she loved how reliable I was. How I never let her down.”

  Bea tried to imagine him, this young, earnest person who hadn’t yet become untrusting. She grieved a little for what he’d lost—and what she had.

  “Senior year, we started talking about whether to stay together after graduation. She wanted to travel, but I was accepted into a PhD program. We didn’t want to break up, but we thought we had to. Then we found out she was pregnant.”

  “Oh wow.” Bea exhaled. “Did you consider an abortion?”

  “Of course. But we were taken in by the romance of the situation. She said it would be a new adventure, and we would be homesteaders, raising our little family. It was a sign, she said. We were meant to be together. I couldn’t believe I was so lucky that she wanted to be connected to me for the rest of her life.”

  “What happened after you moved?”

  A dark expression came over Asher’s face. “We didn’t have any idea how hard it would be. We had no money and this tiny grad-student apartment, I was working all the time, it was freezing cold in Ithaca and she was cooped up all winter long with only an infant for company. I made friends through my program, but whenever I tried to include her, she would make some excuse, say she couldn’t leave Gwen. I didn’t understand how depressed she was.”

  “That must have been so hard for both of you.”

  “It did get better,” Asher asserted, “for a while anyway. When Gwen got old enough for daycare, Vanessa got a job in town, working at the local co-op. She started working on their farm, making all these friends. We finally moved into our own house, and she seemed happy again. She was always cooking some exotic new vegetable, bringing people over, hosting dinners, music circles in the yard.”

  “Music circles?” Bea raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t really sound like you.”

  “It wasn’t,” he conceded with a laugh, “but I was so happy that she was happy. When we found out she was pregnant with Linus, I thought, This time will be different. This time,
we’ll be the family we were always supposed to be.”

  “And was it? Different?”

  Asher shook his head. “It was worse—much worse. After Linus was born, Vanessa was angry all the time. She would fly into rages over the smallest things, me bringing home the wrong brand of milk, whatever; storm out of the house and not come back for days. She refused to be around the kids, spent all her time at the farm. I started to feel like I was keeping the love of my life in a cage, and she despised me for it.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I guess I should have known,” he clipped. “All that time she spent away from home, you’d think it would have been obvious. But I was still devastated when I found out she was cheating.”

  “What?” Bea gasped. It hadn’t been obvious to her. Asher nodded sadly.

  “I went to the co-op one day to pick her up, and there she was, kissing another man in broad daylight. Not just a peck on the lips, either.” Asher shook his head, as if trying to rid himself of the memory. “She said she forgot I was coming, but I think the truth is she wanted me to see. Maybe she’d wanted me to see for a long time, but I refused to look. I couldn’t take it. I knew we were unhappy, but to see her, to actually see her with someone else—I just lost it. I felt my whole life collapsing on top of me. I kept hearing that word in my head, ‘reliable’—thinking, Is this who I am? Is my character defined by my capacity to be used and punished again and again by someone who thinks so little of other people’s feelings?”

  “That’s not true,” Bea protested. “You deserved so much better than that.”

  “I didn’t think so.” He looked pained. “I wish I could tell you that I screamed at her, that I stood up for myself at all. But I did the opposite. I sat on our couch sobbing, begging her to stay. After everything, how angry I was, how much I hated her by then, how much I knew she hated me, I still couldn’t let her go. It didn’t matter. She left anyway.”

  “Asher,” Bea whispered, and she pulled him into her arms, unable to hold back any longer. He tensed at first, but then he exhaled and let her hold him.

  “Where is she now?” Bea asked, gently smoothing his hair. “Do the kids ever see her?”

  “Last I heard, she was working as a diving instructor in Thailand, but we’ve barely talked since the divorce was finalized. I used to send her these emails, begging her to come home and see the kids, or at least call on their birthdays. Now I think it’s better that she doesn’t. It only gets their hopes up—it’s not fair to them.”

  “Or to you,” Bea added.

  “I only hope—” His voice broke. “I hope Gwen and Linus will be able to forgive me.”

  “Hey, hey, no, for what?” Bea’s heart was cracking open. “You stayed, okay? You didn’t leave them. There was nothing you could do to control Vanessa, she made her own choices. You do everything you can for your kids, you came on this show for them, and I promise you, they know that. They adore you.”

  Asher looked into Bea’s eyes; there was something desperate in his expression.

  “Was this too much?” he asked. “Should I not have told you?”

  “No,” Bea said fervently. “I’m so glad you did—it helps me understand you so much better.”

  Asher looked at her sheepishly. “Like why I had a meltdown when I thought you’d spent the night with Luc?”

  “Yeah, for one.” Bea laughed kindly. “And why you’re so fiercely protective. Of your heart, of your kids. Of me.”

  “I wish I could protect you from ever getting hurt,” Asher said, his voice tinged with emotion. “If you want to talk about—what happened to you last year, I mean. You can. I’m listening.”

  Bea sighed; she’d barely talked about this at all, let alone on television. But Asher had been so vulnerable with her, and she knew she owed him the same honesty. The same bravery.

  “I’ve never had much luck with dating,” she started, her heart beating quickly. “Sometimes I tell myself that’s about my size, but of course I know that’s ridiculous, there are plenty of women who look like me in wonderful relationships. That’s just never been the case for me.

  “But then there was—a man,” Bea stopped herself before she said his name. She couldn’t do that on camera; it wouldn’t be fair to Sarah. “We were best friends for years; he had this way of making me feel like I was the smartest, funniest, most interesting person in the room. And even though we were just friends, even after he moved across the country, I was so in love with him. He was kind of my escape, you know? A place where I retreated from how terrified I was of dating anyone else. For years, I compared every new man I met to him, which wasn’t fair to anyone. I had no real reason to believe it could actually work out between us, but I just kept holding out hope. Anyway, it’s not like anyone else was beating down my door for a chance to be with me. It’s not like I gave anyone the chance.”

  Bea exhaled deeply, and Asher rubbed her palm with the inside of his thumb.

  “Last summer, he came to visit me, and I don’t know why, but everything was different. It was like we were together, like we had always been together, like it was suddenly so obvious that there was nothing platonic about us. We had this one perfect night, and it felt like my whole life made sense. Like all the years of loneliness were finally going to be over. Except.”

  Asher squeezed her hand. “Except what?”

  “He left. He left before I even woke up, and then he was just gone. He wouldn’t respond to my texts or emails, ignored my calls. He wasn’t my friend anymore, he wasn’t my anything. I was despondent. I felt so weak that one night could destroy me like that, but to have dreamed my whole life of finding love, to experience it for a few hours only to have it snatched away …”

  “Why did he disappear like that?” Asher demanded. “You two had all this history, how could he just abandon you without an explanation?”

  He didn’t need to explain—he was engaged to someone else. But she couldn’t tell Asher that, not right after he’d told her how devastated he’d been by Vanessa cheating on him. So Bea shrugged.

  “He never told me,” she said. “I guess I wasn’t what he wanted.”

  “He didn’t deserve you.” Asher pulled Bea close, and she felt so good to be with him, so relieved to have told him about Ray, so guilty not to have revealed the whole truth about his engagement. But, Bea reasoned, disclosing too many specific details with the cameras rolling would be as bad as saying Ray’s name outright—it was only right that she should keep the story vague.

  “So what do you think?” Asher asked. “Can we move past our ghosts?”

  Bea looked up at him—was he asking her to spend the night together? She felt a surge of hope, and of certainty.

  “I should tell you,” she said, “I haven’t been with anyone since him, since last summer. But I want to—I mean, we don’t have to actually—I’m sorry, I’m so flustered. What I’m saying is, I want us to share a room tonight, if you do.”

  To Bea’s horror, Asher’s whole expression changed—he looked embarrassed and awkward, like he had no idea what to say.

  “Oh God,” Bea mumbled. “How did I read this so wrong?”

  “Bea,” Asher sputtered, “I want to spend the night with you; believe me, I want that. Do you believe me?”

  Bea forced a nod, but she felt sick.

  “I have to think about my kids. This is going to be on TV in a few days, and they just met you—it’s too fast. I can’t throw caution to the wind. I have to show them I’m being more careful than that with their future. I’m so sorry, I should have brought it up much sooner that sharing a room was never an option for me.”

  “But …” Bea couldn’t get a clean breath. “I thought it went so well with them.”

  “It did,” Asher entreated. “Bea, it was better than I could have hoped. But we have time, right? We don’t have to do this tonight. We have all the time in the world.”

  He hugged her tightly, and she wanted to feel comfort, but the gnawing, ragged emptine
ss tore through her a pit, like a whisper: First Sam, now Asher. He doesn’t love you. None of them do.

  After they wrapped their shoot, Bea had to walk alone across the entire property to her secluded, romantic suite, the one where she and Asher had been meant to stay together. Asher had offered to walk with her, but somehow, that felt worse. When she got to the room, she closed the door and turned off all the lights, hoping that, if she could make the space quiet enough, the voices in her head would stop screaming.

  For so long, Bea’s recollection of her night with Ray had felt like a movie on loop, playing over and over in her mind’s eye, more vivid and alive than any other memory she had—the colors more intense, the sensations more acute. These past few weeks, though, Bea had started to feel the movie fading—after all these months, it was like she finally had the ability to change the channel. Tonight, though, after hours of tossing, restless and alone, Bea gave in. She let the movie wash over her, bright and gripping, and imagined Ray beside her, subsisting for one more night on the memory of how it had felt to fall asleep in his arms.

  Bea woke feeling groggy, her head pounding with exhaustion and dehydration and general wretchedness. She wanted to be excited for her final date of the week—a day with Luc at her favorite château—but after all the pain and rejection of her nights with Sam and Asher, she found herself wishing she’d kept Wyatt around after all. She just wanted some part of this to feel easy.

  “Hey.” Lauren approached her on the little propeller plane they’d chartered. “This seat taken?”

  “All yours,” Bea said glumly, and Lauren strapped in beside her.

  “Shitty week, huh?” Lauren looked like she genuinely felt for Bea.

  “Not the greatest,” Bea said quietly. “Any chance I can skip today and just go home?”

  “Sadly, no,” Lauren sighed. “I wish I could tell you that this was all for show, that I’m the one who made the guys decide to spend the night on their own for ratings, for a twist. I told you this would get a lot harder if real feelings got involved.”