This Summer Will Be Different(71)

He rises, catlike, and sits beside me, pulling my feet onto his thighs, kneading the sole of my left foot with his thumbs.

“How do you want it to work?”

“I don’t know. Your sister will ask. I thought it would be smart to have an answer.”

“Well, for starters,” Felix says. “I know how close you and Bridget are, but you don’t owe her an answer if you don’t have one.”

I take this in.

“But you want to have an answer,” Felix says, studying me.

I nod. “A loose one?”

“Okay.”

“I want to know if you’re going to keep seeing other people.”

“Are you going to see other people?”

I chew on my cheek.

“What are you thinking, Lucy?”

“I’m trying to decide how honest I should be.”

“Completely,” he says. “I can handle it.”

I watch his fingers working the arch of my foot. “There hasn’t been anyone in a long time.”

Felix’s gaze is scorching. “Define long.”

“For the past year there hasn’t been anybody else. But I’m not you,” I rush on.

“Lucy, for the record, I dated two women over the past year. I was trying to move on.” He gives me a meaningful look. “No one comes close to you.”

“But let’s say you do meet someone you’re interested in.”

“How about we don’t say that? I’m not interested in other people.”

I smile. “Me neither.”

“All right,” he says, squeezing my foot. “Our rules are very out of date. So this can be our first one. It’s just you and me.”

“And what do we tell our friends and family?”

“We say we’re together and request they back off while we figure it out.”

It feels radical. “You are great,” I tell him, poking the cleft in his chin. “I wish I was like you.”

“We’ve already got one of me. We need you to be exactly like you.”

I stare at him. “Are you real?”

He looks down at himself. “I think so, yes.” He pats his chest. “I feel real.”

“Well, you don’t look or sound real, Felix Clark.”

“I can show you how real I am.”

“Right here?”

His eyes flare. “Right now.”

“You,” I say, “are indecent.”

“Very.”

“But you’re also the most thoughtful, steadfast, unreasonably attractive man I’ve ever met.”

His lips twitch. “?‘Unreasonably attractive’?”

“Yes,” I say, nudging him with my toes. “It’s rude. I thought so our first night together.”

Felix’s mouth sneaks up at its corner. “I can show you rude.”

“Let’s see it, then.”

Felix stands, taking me with him. He undresses me carefully, like a beautifully wrapped gift. He sets my braid behind my shoulder, then unties the ribbon at my neck, eyes on mine. That look. I feel it between my legs. He opens every one of the buttons lining the bodice and slips it off. The nightgown falls to the wood. I’m naked, dressed only in sunlight. There are houses in the distance, perched atop the cliffs, but unless they have binoculars, we have privacy.

I reach for his shirt, and Felix gives his head a shake. “Lie down, Lucy.”



* * *



? ? ?

We wander down to the shore midmorning. Felix brings an old quilt, the one the Clarks use as a beach blanket, and we rest our sex-slack bodies on the sand.

I don’t want to go back to work. I’ve never felt it as sharply as I do right now. I want to arrange flowers. But the rest of it—the Cena meeting, the never-ending emails, the positions I’ll have to fill—right now, I could leave all of it behind. I hadn’t realized it until now, but I’ve burned myself out.

Felix and I are lying facing each other, and he’s skating his fingers along my arm.

“Tell me your flaws,” I say. “You must have some.”

“I have plenty.”

“Such as . . .”

“I’m not always great at handling my emotions. Sometimes I get overwhelmed, and it seems easier to shut them out, pretend like what I’m feeling isn’t there.” He pauses. “And I’m not a big fan of risks.”

“What kind of risks?”

“Any. All. I’ve been burned in the past, which you know. I rebuilt my life once. I can’t rebuild it again. I make sure I get things right the first time. Going slow is good for me, too.”

“That can be our second rule,” I say. “We’ll take it slow.”

He kisses me once, softly. “I have an idea.”

“Uh-oh.”

“For how this could work. We got sidetracked earlier. It’s straightforward. Do you want to hear it?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll come to Toronto for the wedding. We’ll have four nights together. You’ve spent a lot of time in my world; I want to spend more in yours.”

“You do? You hate the city.”