“I’ll cancel the poetry center,” I reply, turning away from him to shimmy out of my clothes.
The twins jump in, and I follow. The water is freezing, but when my head reemerges to find them waiting for me, small limbs flailing as they propel themselves around, I can’t help but smile. Black storm clouds roll behind the mountain, but here on the lake, the sun beats on my face and my children are happy. No matter how many things I’ve messed up, I’ve created them and we’re all okay. Right now, it’s enough.
When I glance back at the boat, Caleb’s leaning against the rail, his gaze trained on the three of us as if he might have to jump in to save us in a second. I like it. I’d like to have someone watching over us all the time. Even when I was married, I felt like I was alone. I don’t want to be alone anymore.
We don’t stay out long. Within a few minutes, the twins’ lips are pinched and blue, and when I tell them it’s time to go, Sophie doesn’t even argue, which means she must be on the verge of hypothermia. They splash their way back to the boat and climb the ladder, with Caleb waiting to help them in before wrapping a towel around each of them in turn.
It's another of those moments that make me ache. The twins deserve to have more than just me in their lives. They deserve to have another parent who can care for them when I’m tired, when I’m busy, when I’m still climbing into the boat. If I’m going to find that person, I can’t keep waiting for some family-focused version of Caleb to appear. I need, as Molly said, to fuck a few frogs.
I grip the base of the ladder to follow them up, my foot slipping on the final rung. Caleb’s hands come under my arms, but when he hoists me in, I stumble, my whole body falling into his before I can right myself. He’s so firm, like a fucking statue. His smell—some combination of soap and salt—should be bottled.
And I’ve been noticing it all instead of pulling myself away like a normal person would. He’s staring at me wide-eyed, an animal in a trap. He steps away quickly, but not before I feel the hard press of his erection against my stomach.
A very sizable erection.
“We should get back,” he says, gruffly, heading for the front of the boat. “It’s about to storm.”
By the time we reach the dock, it’s all behind us. Sophie is telling Caleb about the intelligence of cephalopods—“And that’s why I won’t eat calamari,” she concludes, and he grins at me over her head.
But then he reaches out a hand to help me out of the boat and our gazes lock and....no, it’s not entirely behind us. There’s something here now, and maybe it was always here, but whatever it is, I think I’m ready to give into it, if he is.
He ties off the boat while the kids run ahead to the shore. “If this house is for your mom,” I ask, “then where will you live once she’s here?”
His tongue prods the inside of his cheek, as if he’s considering his answer carefully when the question didn’t seem all that complicated. “I think I’ll be moving to New York,” he says quietly.
I stare at him. “New York? Why?”
He swallows. “The board knows this but it’s not public knowledge yet—there’s a much larger company interested in merging with us and putting me in charge of both, as long as I can clean up TSG’s shit between now and then. You might have heard of the CEO—Brad Caldwell?” I nod and he continues. “He’s planning to retire. If it all works out, he’ll hand the reins to me at his place in Maui this summer, and we’d start the transition afterward. I’d be in New York by late fall.”
No. It’s bizarre how fast my brain puts up a fight for this man who was never really a possibility, but no, I don’t want him to leave. I don’t want to walk into TSG and report to anyone but him. I don’t want to see some other man out on this dock.
No.
I shove my hands into my pockets, staring at the wooden boards beneath my feet, not quite able to meet his eye. “And you...want that?”
“TSG can’t grow the way I’d like without an influx of capital, which this other company would provide. And I’m only thirty-one. It would be pretty huge to be a CEO of a company that size at my age.”
“Wouldn’t it just mean...more work?” More work when he has so little time to himself as it is.
He grins, giving me a flash of that dimple that has never not made my heart race, even if it shouldn’t. “You’ve got your fairy tale—I’ve got mine.”
I force a smile in response. I can’t escape the thought that what he believes is his fairy tale is actually the opposite. That nothing is less likely to bring him happiness than moving away from the town he loves and all his friends to go somewhere with greater demands.
And I also can’t stop thinking that somehow, his fairy tale and mine were meant to be one and the same.
But...he’s leaving, and he doesn’t want kids.
They definitely are not one and the same.
“I’M SETTING YOU UP,” Molly concludes when I tell her about the incident over our lunch break two days later. “The man spent a year waiting on a woman who clearly doesn’t want him, and now he’s moving to New York? Come on, Lucie. This guy is the ultimate dead end.”
I frown. “Okay, but it’s actually pretty admirable that he—”
She stabs her salad with unnecessary aggression. “Lucie, did he or did he not tell you point blank that he hates kids?”
“That’s not exactly what he said,” I mutter. She may have a point, though: there’s absolutely no benefit to persisting with a crush I wouldn’t act on even if I could. “But I don’t know if I want to be set up.”
There’s guilt in Molly’s laugh. “I misspoke earlier when I made it sound like something I was going to do. The guy’s name is Stuart and he’s at a lab in Germany this month, but he’s going to call you when he gets back to town.”
“Molly,” I groan. “No. I’m not ready. And also...his name is Stuart. Name one cool guy named Stuart.”
“Look, he’s a physicist. None of them have hot names. That’s why my son will be named Damien. No one named Damien grows up to be a geek.”
“I’m pretty sure if your name is Damien, you grow up focused on ruling hell,” I reply. “But anyway, I’m not sure about being set up and—”
“Luce, he’s cute. If I didn’t already have wedding preparations with Michael O’Connor underway, I’d be all over it.”
I choke on the water I’m swallowing. “Yes, you sound very close to a wedding, what with the way you still use his last name when you refer to him.”
“You need to get Caleb out of your head, and the way to do that is to put another man there in his place. Hopefully one who also rocks your world in bed.”
“Stuart the physicist sounds unlikely to rock my world in bed.”
She shrugs in agreement, carefully pressing a napkin to her lips—she’s the only person I know who can perfectly keep lipstick on throughout a meal. “This is true. But Damien O’Connor would, right?”
“Yes, Molly. Your unborn son, my future sexual partner, will be amazing.”
She sighs. “You always have to take it too far.”
21
LUCIE
Caleb’s been coming to the beach almost every night. Maybe my first weeks at TSG were unusually hectic for him, but he seems to leave the office a bit earlier each day. Sometimes, he’s got a little project for Henry. At others, he plays the code game with Sophie—guessing ridiculous words for the letters she’s offered him.
G, he suggests, must stand for garrulous. R for residuals or recividism. She argues that he’s being unfair, but the very next night she’s using those new, big words on him.
She’s just run back to Henry, after attempting to use the word “homogenous” and botching it, when I turn and gently remind him not to be a dick at the upcoming staff meeting.
“A dick?” he repeats. “You fucking millennials want a meeting and your free coffee and you’re getting it, on my dime. How could anyone possibly think I was a dick?”