Cruise peels off his shirt, followed by his shoes and shorts, and gestures for me to join him in the water.
“Isn’t this someone’s house, someone’s property?” I protest, but he’s already in the water, and washing away the accumulated sweat and sand sounds like a dream, so I shed my clothes, and dive in with him.
This part of the beach is secluded, and the waves are gentle, but even as I follow Cruise, who seems to be part Merman, he turns back to make sure I’m okay.
“I’m a decent swimmer,” I pant to him. “Especially when the waves aren’t trying to drown me.”
“You seem to be pretty good at everything you put your mind to,” he says.
I look away, unable to meet his eyes. Despite the amazingness of what passed between us, he knew I wasn’t experienced. It makes me feel ashamed.
He touches my shoulder. “Please,” he says. “Look at me.” I do. He’s beautiful, with his hair slicked back and just a few wet tendrils stuck to his face.
“You don’t really know me,” he begins. “I want you to. But if you know the truth, if you know who I really --”
“I do know you,” I insist. “You’re the guy who took me to the Clam Shack. You’re the guy who helped me and a bunch of kids build a kick ass sand castle.” He’s the guy who made me feel things I’ve never felt before, but I won’t say that part, not out loud.
I keep glancing up at the house. Being alone on someone’s private beach makes me feel uncomfortable.
“The house is empty,” he reassures me. “It’s my dad’s.”
Richard Bancroft’s house. His father.
“I have a key” he says, and I shiver. “Come on,” Cruise says, mistaking my shiver at still getting used to the fact that he’s Richard Bancroft’s son for me being cold. “Let’s go in and get a couple of towels.”
“Yeah,” I say, because more than anything I want to dry my face, before pulling my wet hair back. In fact, a shower would be nice…
“Come with me,” Cruise says, pulling me along by my hand. I grab my clothes and follow him.
Up close, the house is a wonder, filled with airy windows and industrial concrete. Cruise leads me through a side door. The furniture is ghostly in white dust covers, but someone has placed a series of framed pictures across the coffee table. I look at them while Cruise goes for towels.
A series of family portraits shows a smiling family with two blond sons. In photo after photo the mother has her arm around the younger son, whose blue eyes blaze right out of the photograph.
Cruise returns, carrying a stack of white fluffy towels. Hotel owners obviously don’t scrimp on basics in their own house.
“This is you,” I say, pointing to the smiling boy in the picture.
“Yeah,” he says. “I am. I used to be. None of that really fits me now. Black sheep. Disappointment. Criminal. That’s how my dad describes me now.”
“I doubt that.” Richard Bancroft seems like a decent man.
“He’s decent. Most of the time. You can’t really blame him for washing his hands of me. I need to tell you everything,” he says, “so you can judge.”
“I’m not going to judge.”
“You know what I mean. You need to know.”
“Okay,” I agree, because I am curious and because he obviously needs to get this off his chest. “Hit me.”
“My name is Cruise Bancroft. My mother was Eleanor Cruise. I was named for her family.”
He pauses to let this sink in.
I take a moment to process this. Of course, it all makes sense, Kate the woman at the Clam shack was friends with Cruise’s mom, two nice ladies at neighboring businesses. The way some of the employees treat him—I thought the deference from the female employees was because of his good looks, but it’s because he’s a Bancroft.
“And the hotel is your home.”
“It used to be. Before we moved into the family apartments at the hotel, this was our home.”
The tension has returned, turning his shoulders to stone. I want to go to him, to comfort him, but my own inhibitions hold me back. He slumps into a covered chair, holding the towel in front of him, like it will shield him from reality.
This is my chance. Either I go to him, or I ignore his pain, and lose whatever growing friendship is between us. Pushing aside my own fear of rejection, I cross the distance between us and wrap my arms around him.
In response, he pulls me into his arms and holds me, hiding his face against me for a long moment before I feel his intentions shift from anguish, to something more primal.
We begin to kiss, slowly at first, as if we have all the time in the world. I don’t have my walkie-talkie so no one can call me away from him. It’s just the two of us, together in this house that’s been forgotten by time.
“It was a work of art,” Cruise tells me when we finally stop kissing. “Every inch of this house was dedicated to beauty. Dad had everything covered after she died, but he couldn’t bear to let any of it go.”