The Pairing(55)

I watch the cream sploosh out of the strawberry mille-feuille under my fork and think it looks like me, like how there’s barely room left for me in my body. I’m a splat on the plate of life. If I’m nothing, I could be anything. I could be the car crash I’m always trying not to be. I could be one more renegade nepo baby in Monaco.

When Kit glances across the table at me, I smile, all teeth. I finish my champagne in one go and let the buzz take over.

After lunch, Kit magics up a paper bag of fried pastries and follows me down to the harbor. He’s wearing a miniscule pair of tight mustard swim trunks and an insane spindrift-blue silk shirt with a trim of yellow and blue waves and a nude woman riding a dolphin over the pockets. His hair is loose, caught up in the breeze off the water, and I’d like to either put my legs around him or push him off a pier.

“Nice shirt,” I say. “You look like you suck dick at Caesars Palace.”

“Thank you,” he says, adjusting his sunglasses. “I’ve been saving it for Monaco.”

My own shirt is an afterthought, all-purpose oversized linen open over a black two-piece swimsuit. Part laziness, part need for Kit to look at my body.

Falling back in love doesn’t mean I forgive him, and not forgiving him doesn’t mean I stopped wanting him to want me. It might even be more delicious if he wanted me now. I feel equally likely to reject him or fuck him to destroy myself, and today, unpredictability tastes good. A bright tang of possibility.

I hop up on a pier railing and bite into one of the half-moon pastries. Inside its flaky crust, it’s stuffed with swiss chard and ricotta.

“They’re the local thing,” Kit says. “Barbagiuan.”

“I guess every culture really does have their own dumpling.”

Kit chews and swallows, watching me teeter on the railing.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“I’m great.” I stretch my arms wide like Kit did in the lavender fields, as if my fingertips could graze the Alps if I reach far enough. “Monaco is fucking beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is,” he says, not looking at the mountains. “Listen, about what you saw yesterday—”

“Oh, right, we need to update our numbers. With Santiago and Apolline, you’re at five now, right?”

“Well—”

“And then I’ve got Caterina and my guy from last night.”

The paper bag crunches in Kit’s hands. “Last night?”

“Didn’t catch his name. That’s six to five.”

“Six to four.”

“Six to . . .” I drop my arms, counting again. “No, it’s five.”

Kit sighs and tosses the last bite of his barbagiuan into the water. Fish bubble up to finish it.

“Nothing happened with Apolline. She got—I don’t know, caught up in the moment, and she kissed me, but that was all. After you left, I helped her close up and got dinner on my own. What you saw didn’t mean anything.”

The look on his face isn’t unlike the one he gave me in that cave in San Sebastián, but I don’t know why he’d care so much about being believed now. He certainly hasn’t minded any of the other times I’ve seen him with someone else.

Unless I was right about what kind of friends they were.

“So, that was the first time you kissed?”

His beat of hesitation confirms it before he does. I have to laugh.

“There was— Yes, we did hook up years ago, but it was only once, and I wasn’t—”

I hop down. “Kit, I don’t care.”

“You don’t?”

“Of course not. Except for, you know, prior history would have disqualified her from the competition anyway, for the record. But, no, why would I care? Does it seem like I care?”

“. . . No?”

“Exactly. Anyway, what do you want to do today? Can’t really go to Monte Carlo in that slutty little swimsuit.”

He looks down at himself, at the trunks that end just below the crease of his thigh. “It’s not slutty. It’s European.”

“For you, that’s the same thing.”

I can’t see the look in his eyes when his chin tips up, but faint color gathers in his cheeks. Do you like that? I wonder.

“Okay, then, what do you want to do with me in my slutty little swimsuit?”

Oh, he likes it.

“I want . . .” I say, savoring those two syllables. I could be anything. I could be a tease. I could be a Flowerday who does Molly on boats with Formula 1 drivers. “I want to be on a yacht.”

“A yacht?” Kit repeats, bemused. “Okay. Should only be about a quarter million to charter one.”

“I don’t need to pay,” I say, gesturing at all the rich men milling about their fancy boats. “Look at these guys. It’s like a Tom Wambsgans casting call. I could convince any of them to let us on.”

I scan the harbor for what Este would notice. She wouldn’t waste time with any yacht small enough to fit in a slip. I narrow in on the 150-foot behemoth at the very end of the pier.

“That one,” I declare, hopping down from the rail.

“Theo, what are you doing?” Kit asks, eyebrows high over his sunglasses, but I’m already walking backward away from him.