Happy Place(14)

“Either,” he says. “Both.”

I grab the folder and flip through it, pretending to read while I wait for my synapses to stop screaming.

“Itinerary.”

At my evident confusion, Wyn juts his chin toward the document I’ve been “reading.” “We’ve got personalized itineraries.”

“But . . . we do the same thing every year,” I say.

“I think that’s the point,” he says. “It’s a keepsake. Plus, Sabrina planned some individual surprises for us for Saturday, so she and Parth can have a little alone time before the wedding.”

“Oh my god.” I study the page in earnest. “She’s got bathroom breaks on here, Wyn.”

When I look up, he’s caught off guard.

A memory flares bright, swelling from the back of my mind until it overtakes the present: Wyn and I hopscotching across the wet rocks at the bottom of the cliffs behind the house. Yelping and leaping aside as the tide’s icy fingers raced toward us. From down the beach, the sound of our friends’ laughter spiraled up into the night sky, carried by the smoke of our bonfire.

I’d volunteered to run up to the house for another six-pack, and Wyn, who never sat still if he could help it, came along. We raced each other up the rickety stairs to the cottage’s back patio, choking over laughter.

You’re a six-foot-tall block of muscle, Wyn. How am I beating you?

His hand caught mine as we reached the patio, the flagstone aglow with the strange green light of the heated saltwater pool. It was the first time he’d touched my fingers. We’d known each other only a few days then, on our first group trip here, and my whole body hummed from the simple contact. He murmured, You hardly ever say my name.

I must’ve shivered, because his brow pinched, and he peeled his sweatshirt, the Mattingly one with the tear in the neck, over his shoulders.

I told him I was fine, through chattering teeth. He stepped in closer, slowly, and pulled his sweatshirt down over my head, pinning my arms to my sides and making my hair wild with static.

Better? he asked. It terrified and thrilled me how, with that one quiet word, he could make my insides shimmer, shake me up like a snow globe.

When we were with the others, I could still barely look at him.

But because Wyn and I had been the last to arrive, or maybe because the others had decided our friendship should begin with a trial by fire, we’d been sharing the kids’ room all week, and every night, when we turned off the lights, we’d trade whispers back and forth from our beds on opposite sides of the room. Talk for hours.

I rarely said his name, though. It felt too much like an incantation. As if it would light me up from the inside, and he’d see how much I wanted him, how all day long my mind caught on him like a scar in a record. How, without even trying, I knew exactly where he was at all times, could likely cover my eyes, get spun around, and still point to him on the first try.

And I couldn’t want him. Because my best friend did. Because he’d become an important part of Sabrina’s and Cleo’s lives, and I wouldn’t mess that up.

Besides, I told myself, my reaction to him didn’t mean anything. Just a biological imperative to procreate, setting off little fireworks through my nervous system. Not the kind of thing you could build any kind of lasting relationship on. I told myself I was too smart to think I was falling in love with him. Because I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

If only I’d been right.

Now Wyn pulls the itinerary out of my hands, his gaze traveling across the open page.

“I genuinely love how organized Sabrina is,” I say. “But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. And when you’re mentioning bowel movements on your group vacation schedule, I think you’ve hit it.”

Wyn returns the folder to the end table. “You think this is bad, but it’s nothing compared to the packing list Parth sent me. He told me how many pairs of underwear to bring. So either my ‘personalized surprise’ on Saturday is going to end badly, or he thinks I’m incapable of counting my own underwear.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” I say. “I’m sure it’s a little of both.”

As he laughs, his dimples flash, little dark pricks in his scruffy jaw. For a second, it’s like we’ve come unglued from the timeline, tumbled back a year.

Then he steps back from me. “The next fifteen minutes are scheduled for relaxing before lunch,” he says, “so I’ll leave you to it.”

I nod.

He nods.

He moves toward the door, hesitates there for a second.

And then he’s gone, and I’m still frozen where he left me. I do not relax.





6





REAL LIFE

Monday


THE “BIG BEDROOM” is a disaster. A beautiful, amazing, nightmarish disaster. The kids’ room is at the front of the hallway and thus is part of the original house. This is at the back, in the behemoth extension. There are no wonky doors that get stuck, or windows you have to prop open with books, or floorboards that snap and groan when no one’s even touching them.

This room is pure luxury. The king-sized bed has four-zillion-thread-count sheets. A set of double doors opens onto a balcony that overlooks both the saltwater pool and the bluffs beyond it, and there’s both a massive stone tub and a two-person shower made of dark slate and glass.