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Are we destined for the brooding hostility that casts a pall over the Alencars’ every moment together? In thirty years will I find myself lamenting my mistakes with only a few tokens to harken back to happier memories?
But there’s another question too, one I wish I would have asked Bill. Was it all worth it?
Would I take a decade of happiness with a woman who seems to get me better than anyone I’ve ever met if it meant three spent in decline?
I can’t decide.
But I don’t have long to ponder; Liz senses a change in the air. She turns, the fading light glinting off her wet skin and turning her gray eyes into dazzling disks of silver.
“Everything okay?” she asks.
I force a smile that I hope seems genuine. “Never better.”
“Then change into your suit. I need to erase that dinner from my memory.”
I can’t help it. It only takes a moment together for my anxieties to ease, for my heart to unclench.
“Swim suit?” I say. “Something you need to know about me, Liz, is that I never wear one in private.”
Liz raises an eyebrow. “But then I might feel overdressed.”
“And we can’t have that, can we?”
The rest of the evening is magical. I hold her in the pool as the sun sinks into the sea and the rainbow of twilight fades into a canopy of stars. Then, when the need to be closer becomes all consuming, I carry her into the bedroom and sink into her, pumping steadily while staring into her eyes until we’re both overcome by our passions.
Still, though my worries are pushed to the back of my mind, I can’t quite escape the notion that all this is as beautiful and impermanent as the sunset. I can’t push the image of Bill standing sad and alone, staring at that ancient ticket, from my mind.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
LIZ
Thursday dawns uneasily.
Victory has never been so close and yet I can’t seem to recapture the excitement I’d felt in Chicago after stumbling on Marie smoking and reading her Kindle.
It had been the lucky break I’d needed, but I can’t help wondering where Rhett and I would be now if it hadn’t materialized.
I’d be back in New York, taking care of my client list and trying to survive another week at my relentless job. Rhett would be on the road in that godforsaken van, starting a new life.
Would either of us be thinking about the other? Would I cry myself to sleep? Would he turn around before he got too far?
Or perhaps the challenges of daily life would distract us, resolving our time in Chicago to little more than a pleasant memory. The way it was destined to be.
I wake up in his arms yet again, a place that’s becoming more and more comfortable as the mornings go on. As usual, I’m up at seven and ready to move. Unfortunately, there’s not much to do here.
I’m not the type to lounge in bed though, so I roll out from under Rhett’s arm, dress quickly, and sneak out of the room.
The house is empty and silent. Good. I couldn’t handle running into anyone from that freak show that was last night’s dinner. I’m starting to realize that I’m lucky enough to only have to deal with the type of rich people who care about managing their money. My clients are apparently just the tip of the one-percenter iceberg and beneath those icy waters there are a solid mass of rude, entitled assholes fully in love with themselves.
I can’t believe I thought Rhett was bad when I first met him. The Alencars’ friends make him look like an icon to altruism.
I leave the house and follow a sandy path that snakes toward the beach. The sun is rising and streaking pink and red through the gradually lightening sky. Another beautiful morning. It’s hard to believe that New York is buried under four feet of snow right now.
It’s hard to believe that all of this is only temporary.
Everything is going to change once we get back. I’m coming to accept this, even though the knowledge makes my heart ache.
I’m not the only one. Rhett knows too.
