He hasn’t parented long enough to understand that basing your happiness on that of your kids is a recipe for disaster—even the most fun day has a fifty percent chance of ending in tears or tantrums.
And trying a new, difficult sport doesn’t sound all that fun in the first place. As we climb in the car and begin our journey, Caleb’s the only one of the four of us who’s even vaguely enthusiastic. It’s only when we get to the beach and turn onto Harrison’s street that his serenity takes a hit. “It’s so weird to be back here.”
This isn’t simply the last visit. It’s also the first visit since their friend Danny jumped off a nearby cliff eight years prior, the event Audrey described to me at the bar…one that sent all of their lives in a downward spin for varying reasons. Beck suggested today’s outing, jokingly, as an attempt to ‘break the curse,’ but I think a small piece of them actually hopes it will work.
I squeeze his hand. “It’s okay to be sad, you know. You’re saying goodbye to a part of your childhood.”
He shakes his head. “It’s the beginning of something life-changing for the kids, which is even better.”
“We’ll be lucky if one of them is willing to try it,” I warn. “It’s definitely not going to be ‘the beginning of something life-changing.’”
“You’ll see,” he replies.
He pulls into a driveway behind Harrison’s Range Rover, and as I climb from the car, I get why he referred to that place we stayed over the Fourth of July as a ‘cottage.’
“This is where you vacationed as a kid? I was expecting a surf shack. It’s a mansion.”
Caleb pops the trunk and reaches for the wetsuits he insisted on buying the twins, wetsuits they’ll never be willing to wear. “It set the bar pretty high.”
“It must be hard for you now, vacationing now without a butler to serve you caviar,” I reply, taking the wetsuits. “No wonder you were so worried about my snacks.”
He walks under the carport and hoists two surfboards overhead as if they’re light as air. “It’s not that fancy.”
We follow him onto the wooden walkway. “Just because there’s not currently a butler here doesn’t make it any less fancy. I bet it had a staff.”
He laughs. “Okay, yeah, there was a staff.”
“And did they bring you snacks on the beach?”
He grins over his shoulder. “Not caviar.”
“Finally,” Harrison says as we walk up, tugging Sophie’s ponytail before he gives me a hug. “The fun has arrived.”
In the weeks since Caleb dropped plans for the merger, we’ve seen a lot more of Harrison, but nothing of Audrey. It’s pretty clear he’s ready to be a dad. It’s also pretty clear there’s some tension with his wife over it.
Caleb looks around. “Where’s Beck? This was his idea.”
“Something came up,” Liam replies, not quite meeting Caleb’s eye before he glances at the twins. “You guys ready for this?”
Henry doesn’t answer. “We want to build sandcastles,” Sophie says, and Henry nods. They reach into my bag for buckets and walk to the shore.
“Why don’t you guys surf a bit?” I ask Caleb. “Let the twins see how fun it is.”
He hesitates before giving me a reluctant nod. Harrison and Liam head to the water, while Caleb tugs his t-shirt overhead. I’ve seen him naked more times than I can count, but I don’t see him undressing in public that much. I have a renewed appreciation for the long, lean lines of him, for the broad shoulders tapering to narrow hips, for that tattoo on his shoulder, which I recently learned is some surf thing and not an homage to Kate.
He grins, tiny smile lines forming around his eyes. “Keep looking at me like that, Lucie, and I won’t make it into the water at all.”
My gaze drifts from the kids down near the water’s edge and back to Harrison’s dad’s house. “I’d be okay with that. I bet he’s got Frette linens on every bed.”
He swoops down and throws me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “Let’s go see.”
I laugh. “Sure. Should I put Henry in charge of Sophie, or vice versa?”
He allows me to slide back to the sand, continuing to hold me close, pressing a kiss to the tip of my nose. “Henry would blow it off and giving Sophie that much power would be dangerous. I guess it’ll have to wait.”
He finishes pulling on his wetsuit and dives into the water while I venture down to help the twins make a castle, which we garnish with shells and plants. My attention, however, is only partly on the job, because Caleb surfing is a particularly distracting sight—he carves into a wave with as much ease as he complains about work expenditures. It’s even hotter than I suspected it might be. And I already expected it would be really, really hot.