Happy Place(37)

“Fine,” Wyn says, tossing the now drenched towel onto the counter. “Fine.”

The second fine sounds even less convincing than the first. Now we’re getting somewhere. I slide past the marble island to pull his water bottle from his hand, holding eye contact as I take a long sip.

“Thirsty?” he says dryly.

I shove the bottle back toward him. “Not anymore.”

“Cab’s here!” Sabrina announces, jumping up from her own stool. “Book down, Cleo. Finish that water, Kimberly. We’re out of here.”



* * *



? ? ?

AS I’M CLIMBING into the passenger van, I take zero care to keep my barely covered ass out of Wyn’s face. I feel a smidge less bold once I’m smooshed into the back seat between him and Sabrina, but at least I’m spared from small talk by the early 2000s Pump Up playlist that Parth blasts from the front passenger seat. Plus, Wyn’s on his phone the entire ride over anyway.

A handful of minutes later, we pull up in front of our old haunt, the Lobster Hut. It’s a ramshackle dive with no sign and no indicator of its moniker on either its cocktail napkins or its sticky laminated menus, though somehow everyone knows what to call it.

The first time I came here, I was nineteen years old, fresh off my first breakup. Sabrina knew they didn’t card, and that was back when Cleo could knock back six tequila shots and still be on her feet, fending off frat boy advances with diatribes about Modigliani paintings.

We sang, we danced, we downed the steady stream of Fireball that kept appearing at our high-top in the corner, and I finally stopped checking my phone compulsively for some word from Bryant. When we got home, and Sabrina and Cleo both flounced off to shower, the loneliness crept back in, and the booze had filed down all my defenses.

I beelined toward the powder room no one ever used, nudged on the faucet, sat atop the toilet, and cried.

Not about Bryant. From the loneliness, from the fear that I would never escape it. Because feelings were changeable, and people were unpredictable. You couldn’t hold on to them through the force of will.

Cleo and Sabrina found me there, and Sab insisted she’d break down the door if I didn’t let them in. Then I’ll have to, like, go to a polo match with my dad as an apology, she said, and I won’t let you forget that until one of us dies.

As soon as I unlocked the door, the tears dried up, but the knot in my throat made it hard to speak. I tried to apologize, to convince them I was fine, just embarrassed, as they wrapped their arms around me.

You don’t have to be fine, Cleo said.

Or embarrassed, Sabrina said.

I stood in that tiny bathroom, letting them hold me until the heavy feeling, the unbearable weight of loneliness, eased.

We’re here, they promised. And the loneliness never found such a foothold again. No matter what, I’d always have the two of them. At least I used to think that.

After this week, things will change between all of us. They’ll have to.

Don’t think about it, I tell myself. Don’t go there yet. Be here, on the sidewalk in front of your favorite dive ever. Sabrina, Parth, Cleo, and Kimmy are already at the front door.

I take one step to follow them, only for my heel to catch in a crack between two cobblestones. Wyn appears at my side, dutifully steadying me by the elbow before I can break my ankle. “Careful,” he says in a low murmur. “You’re not used to wearing shoes like that.”

Anger shoots through me like an emergency flare, the only thing bright and hot enough to be seen through the fog of nostalgia.

“At this point, Wyn,” I say, jerking my arm free, “you have no idea what I am or am not used to.”

I stalk off through the portholed front doors into the dark bar, a karaoke version of “Love Is a Battlefield” folding around me at full volume. The smell of fried haddock and paprika-dusted potato wedges hangs thick in the air, right alongside the tang of beer and vinegar, and the year-round Christmas lights strung back and forth over the ceiling dust the crowd in every color of glitter.

As I catch up with Cleo, she looks over, the lights accentuating the bits of gold in her eyes and the matching gold undertones in her deep brown skin. Leaning in, she says, “This place never changes, does it?”

“Everything changes eventually,” I say, and then, at her odd expression, force a smile and thread my arm through hers. “Remember when the lobster rolls here used to be like six dollars?”

She’s not falling for the false cheeriness. A divot forms between her winged brows. “You okay?”

“Hard to breathe in this dress without worrying about the seams splitting,” I say, “but otherwise good.”

She still looks unconvinced. Cleo’s always been able to see through me. When we lived together, I used to watch her paint for hours and think, How does she always see things so clearly? She knew what colors to start with and where, and none of it made sense to me until, suddenly, it all looked exactly right.

Wyn brushes past us, swims through the crowd toward the too-small table Sabrina’s already claimed at the back of the room. Cleo catches me watching him.

“We had a little argument,” I admit, surprised by the relief I feel at sharing this tiny sliver of truth with her.

“You want to talk about it?” she asks. “Let me rephrase that: maybe you should talk about it.”