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There are two nearly identical master bedrooms with wall-to-ceiling windows and bleached hardwood. I take the one on the left and stare at the huge bed, covered with a fluffy duvet and pillows. It’s hard not to picture a romantic trip here with a bed like that one. But not with Matt, or even Sam. Not with someone soft and safe, but with someone whose nostrils will flare when I’m beneath him, like an animal about to devour prey. Someone who would pin me there for hours, days, weeks…
“You’re staring at that bed like it’s done something to you,” Hayes says, behind me.
I glance back at him. He’s leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded, all square-jawed beauty and bulging biceps, radiating dominance.
His nostrils would flare. I bet he’d use his teeth.
My knees wobble with how much I’d like see that for myself. I have to get him out of this room before I do something insane.
“We need to go to the store.” My voice is breathy and uncertain.
“That does not sound relaxing at all. You’re terrible at this.”
“Come on,” I say, grabbing my purse and charging past him toward the door. “It’ll be fun.”
I say this, knowing there is nothing fun about going to the grocery store. And Hayes bitches most of the way there, driving while I navigate. But when we walk in—hit by a rush of cold air and the smell of baked goods—his face lights up like a child’s and he makes a beeline for the display of pies in front.
“I think we need some, don’t you?” he asks.
“Pie?”
He’s already got two in hand. “It’s a combination of fruit and crust. Quite tasty.”
I struggle not to smile. I’ve seen Hayes’s enthusiasm for triple-cask-matured whiskey. I can’t believe he’s just as excited about shitty store-bought desserts. “I know what pie is, but I’m not sure why you’re getting two. We won’t even be here forty-eight hours.”
He hitches a shoulder. “I can eat a lot of pie in forty-eight hours.”
Within ten minutes, our cart also holds cinnamon-flavored soda, banana-flavored Oreos, truffle potato chips. It feels as if we are an actual couple, albeit one well on the way to insulin resistance. I want to lean into the experience as much as I want to lean away from it.
“I had no idea these even existed,” he says, throwing maple Pop-Tarts in the cart. “Did you?”
“It’s been several years since I carefully scrutinized the Pop-Tart section of a store.”
“And look at these,” he says, holding up something claiming to be a healthy breakfast food that looks a lot like a Snickers bar. “Perhaps normal life isn’t so bad.”
“Normal people probably don’t leave a store with seventeen boxes of Pop-Tarts,” I reply, pushing our cart toward the register.
The checkout girl eyes Hayes, then gives me a look that says don’t let this one go, my friend. It fills me with completely undeserved pride, and I have to check myself.
Remembering it’s not real is vital.
* * *
We make dinner together when we get back. I’ve never pictured him as the dad who works the grill and helps with the dishes. It was safer to see him as the kind of guy who’s not going to offer the life I want—and he won’t—but it’s getting harder to remember. Domestic bliss comes naturally to him…and it seems to make him happy.
We eat on the deck in a double chaise lounge, our plates resting in our laps. To my right, a bottle of shiraz sits on a small round table with two glasses. A light breeze blows as the surf pounds the shore and the sky turns from hazy violet to ink blue. Long after dinner is over, the two of us remain right where we are. This is what he should be doing every night. What would his life have been like if Ella hadn’t left? Would he be tucking a child into bed right now? Would it all have gone wrong anyway, or did it really just hinge on that single event, the one that had him questioning his career and pulling away from her?
I bite my lip. “Can I ask you something?” I wait for his wary nod before I proceed. “Ella said something the other day…about how one thing would go wrong and you’d shut me out. What happened? Between you two, I mean?”
He stares off at the ocean, looking so tired and sad I wish I hadn’t asked.
“I had a patient, Dylan. He was thirteen. He had a congenital abnormality that made his lower jaw severely asymmetrical,” he begins.
He reaches for the wine and refills my glass and then his. “He’d spent his entire life being bullied and ridiculed, and this oral surgeon and I thought we were going to sweep in and fix everything.” He flashes me his trademark smirk, only this time, I just see pain in it, and self-hatred.
“I guess…it didn’t work out?” I pick up my glass and take a sip, simply to give him the space to answer. My heart is in my throat as I wait.
He swallows. “No,” he says. “He died. Not on the table, but later that night after I was gone. His airway collapsed.”
