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Oh yeah. My wedding day.
Okay, there was that one time. So what? This is not that. There is no pattern here. I left Jimmy at the altar because we would have been miserable together. I left Beau on the beach because… why?
We are two adults who can share a drunken kiss, and it doesn’t have to mean anything. Why would it? Two horny drunks on a beach by a bonfire. It happens all the time. To other people.
I am not other people.
I rush into the bathroom and strip down for a shower. Have to wash all this stress off me. But as soon as I’m under the water, I hear the waves on the beach. His voice, those compliments. That tone in his voice. The one that says this isn’t an ordinary moment for me, either.
I shake away the thought. Of course, that was a normal moment for Beau. He’s probably had dozens—no—hundreds of moments like that. Hell, the beach is at his childhood home, for God’s sake. How many girls has he kissed on that beach?
All of them, I’m sure of it. Every girl in Somerset Harbor. That’s why he had to hire me. He needed to outsource for variety.
I laugh at myself and roll my eyes. So, what if he’s a big ho? That’s his life. He can do whatever he wants. Except me. I will not be another notch on his bedpost. That is not why I’m here. Intimacy just muddles things, and I’m not good at it. Which means kissing is off the table.
He was totally out of line to move in for a kiss like that. In fact, it’s annoying that he even tried. How dare he? I’m out here to work. Not to kiss. No matter how much his mouth looks like it was made to fit mine.
Stop it.
Stepping out of the shower, I grab a towel and dry off. I don’t feel less stressed, which is a disappointment. Showers usually clear my head, at least a bit. I dry my hair, which takes forever. It’s the other thing that generally clears my head. Long curly hair hates to dry, but going to bed with it wet isn’t an option, unless I want the frizz to be out of control. Braiding isn’t a bad plan, but it’s fifty-fifty on if I wake up with poodle frizz or beach waves, and—
Beach waves. Dammit. I’m back on Beau again. No. Scratch that. I will never be on Beau.
I groan at myself for being so wrapped up in this. It’ll be fine. I can say I was drunk and confused and blow it off. This is not a disaster. Itfeelslike a disaster, but it doesn’t need to be one. I have Sunday to come up with a game plan before Monday rolls around, and that is plenty of time to think of something.
In fact…
Wrapping my half-damp hair in a towel, I race to my tablet. Maybe it’s the hormones or the beer or the long day, but I’m inspired. I forget about the towel on my head and concentrate on what I’m doing. A smaller water feature in the lobby, a bigger tennis court. A crown jewel of a steakhouse. He doesn’t want a firepit in the middle? Fine. Let’s see what he thinks of private booths like the sixties, but the modern acoustics pillars to reflect sound back into the booths. He’s not going to know what hit him.
Looking forward to seeing his reaction, my phone rings. Who the hell calls someone at ten on a Saturday night? Did I have plans with anyone? But when I check my phone, I drop it on the bed in shock.
Why the hell is Jimmy Wayne calling me?
Cold sweat shivers up my back. This doesn’t make any sense. I don’t—
The call drops, and I can breathe again. Just seeing his number come up made it feel like he was in the room with me. Giving me those puppy dog eyes. Making me feel like the worst person in the world. I know I made the right decision with him, but somehow, that does not rid me of the guilt that still sits on my chest when I think of him.
Probably just an accident. Braudel is pretty high in the alphabet. I’m sure he just grabbed the wrong contact. Of course, why he still has my number on his phone is a mystery. I laugh at myself for knocking him on that, when I have his number on my phone.
You nut. Our families still know each other. If something happened to anyone in our families, it’s smart to have our numbers—wait. Is that why he called? Can’t be. My aunts would ring my phone off the hook if something was wrong with the family.
I blow it off as an accident and get back to work. I’m on fire and if I stop now—
A text comes through. Jimmy Wayne, “Please call me.”
Shit. What the hell is going on? Why now? When I am on the verge of a huge thing at work, and when a guy has actually shown some interest in me? Does he know Beau almost kissed me? Is it some kind of psychic guy thing, where they sense another man around a woman they once had? What is it with men?
Not that I haven’t had offers before. I have. I’ve gone on a few random dates over the years, but they bored me. Highly. Most guys who show any interest in me get very put off by the fact my career is important to me and my family is not. Or they get all weird when they find out that I’m more successful than they are.
Or maybe it’s just that I don’t know how to talk to people without being abrasive. I never mastered that soft skill. In West Virginia, I had little in common with anyone around me. Talking about books and design mostly got a lot of silent stares until they could figure out how to turn the conversation into something they liked. The only person who let me ramble on at length about my interests was Jimmy Wayne.
Even though we had nothing in common after I graduated, he seemed to like hearing me go on and on about Kazuyo Sejima and Jeanne Gang, and how I hoped to one day be namedropped alongside them. How the flowing structures of Theo Jansen inspired me. We’d hook up in the bed of his pickup, and then I’d talk for hours about all the things I wanted to do with my life, and he just smiled and kissed me and listened the whole time.
It took years before I realized that everyone in Sewmond did that. So many people there had dreams of leaving that shitty little town and almost none of them did it. They didn’t have the money or the drive or the will. They didn’t want to leave their family and friends behind. Or they didn’t want to change.
Change was all I had wanted. I got it when I moved to New York.
In Manhattan, people aren’t that chummy or nosy, and I don’t try. I could, but people, for the most part, are a distraction, and they don’t talk about interesting things. I mean, it’s not their fault they are boring, but it doesn’t mean I need to date them to make them interesting.
