“I promise you, I’m not. And you know who Oprah is very, very good friends with?”
Lulit and I looked at each other and smiled. “The Obamas.”
“The Obamas,” Hayes said. “And last I checked, Sasha was still prime August Moon age.”
“Shut up,” Lulit laughed.
“And you thought your best friend dating a guy in a boy band was going to lead to nothing but trouble.”
“I never said that.”
Hayes cocked his head and rolled his eyes before walking out.
“Fuck, he’s good.” She smiled at me.
I nodded. “He’s good.”
After, we scooped up Isabelle from her fencing class, and the look on her face when Hayes walked into the gym was priceless.
“That’s quite a getup.” He smiled. “You look like a Musketeer.”
She laughed. A big, bright, confident laugh. She’d gotten her braces off two weeks prior and she was sharing it with the world.
“Holy fuck.” Hayes turned to me. “That’s your mouth.”
I gave him a look, and he turned away, and we never spoke about it again.
We made a quick detour to the Whole Foods in Brentwood, and no one stopped him to request a photo or an autograph or his time. And watching him openly pick out wine while Isabelle sifted through the cheese selection made me content in a way I had not been in a long time. The idea that maybe this could work.
We dined at home: ratatouille and rack of lamb. The three of us seated around the oblong table, the lights of Santa Monica twinkling in the distance. Hayes, at turns amused by Isabelle’s tales of middle school, and seemingly enamored, stealing glances at me, wistful. When Isabelle got up to clear her plate, he leaned forward, his hands flat against the rosewood.
“Do you know what this table makes me think of?” His voice was low, raspy.
“Yes.”
“Good,” he said. “So long as you’re thinking of it, too.”
Following dinner, when Isabelle excused herself to FaceTime her friends, I took the opportunity to lure him into my office on the pretense of checking my availability for the South American tour dates. But the second he stepped into the room, I shut the door.
“I have something for you. I wanted to give this to you before Aspen, but it wasn’t ready.”
Hayes raised an eyebrow, curious, as I handed over the large flat package that had been propped up against the far wall.
“Did you get me something for my birthday? You didn’t have to do that.”
“It’s small.”
“It doesn’t feel small. Is it art?”
“Open it.”
I watched him carefully unwrap the brown paper to unveil a float-mounted watercolor. Sunrise, as viewed from our bedroom in Anguilla. For a moment he did not speak, his eyes taking it in, and when he finally looked up at me, they were smiling. “You made this.”
“I made this.”
“You’re giving it to me?”
“I’m giving it to you.I made it for you.”
