Page 67 of Love Again

Laurel watches the whole exchange with her mouth slightly open. This is a big step, making connections like this. When I stand, Cory holds my hand.

“I didn’t shake his hand,” says Cory, pointing to Luke. “But I don’t want to.”

Luke smiles. “I think your hand is already busy. You’re holding your aunt’s hand. I understand.”

Cory smiles. “Good. I can shake your hand when we say goodbye,” he says and starts swinging my arm. “Let’s see my fire.”

Luke hangs back a little. I introduce him to Nic, who stands next to the fire. He has a frosty bottle of beer in his hand and is wearing a navy blue, no doubt pinstripe, suit that looks almost black in the dark, and a cheerful, light-blue pocket square tucked into his suit jacket.

The only clue that he’s on a beach are his bare feet and the suit pants rolled to mid-calf.

The two of them start up a conversation, and then Jackson wanders over and tries to hand off a seashell to Cory, but he’ll have none of it.

Jackson is too exuberant, excitable, and his laughs are explosive. Cory can’t process all of Jackson at once, so he steers shy of him. This wide berth leaves Jackson bereft and scurrying for more ways to connect with Cory. It’s definitely a Catch-22 situation.

Laurel comes over and gives me a hug and whispers in my ear, “So nice to see you arrive with such a hunk,” and then I feel her waving to someone up by The Inn.

I manage a half-turn when she pulls away, and there’s Geo and Travis moving down the little hillock of sand and stiff beachgrass toward the clutch of people on the shore.

“Tide’s going to start coming in. This’ll all be gone in two hours.”

“What do you Bostonians know about tide schedules?” calls Finn, fishing two more beers out of a cooler.

“That’s rich coming from a flatlander.” Geo’s grin in the dark is a flash of white teeth.

Travis comes up from behind and picks me up in his arms.

“Put me down! What are you doing?” I instantly feel like I’m five years old.

He plops me back on my feet, and I straighten my sweatshirt with mock annoyance.

“I can’t help myself. Being able to pick up your older sister is awesome.” He drops a kiss on the top of my head and then goes and hugs Claire, Chloe, and Laurel. Both he and Geo are visiting for the weekend. Geo rubs my shoulder and then goes and greets his other daughters.

Cory pouts with his head down, still a little undone by Jackson’s failed seashell exchange and fact that he and Travis didn’t play their game.

Travis doesn’t miss a beat. He and Cory have a meeting ritual and the moment has vanished. But Travis has a plan to recoup. “Hey, man, should I go back? Want to start over?”

Cory grabs my hand and nods. Travis knows better than to try to touch him at this point. Instead of turning around, Travis starts walking in slow motion backward in the sand, as if rewinding himself.

Cory’s laughter is bright and sunny. Sparks lift high as the fire crackles behind me. My back is warm.

Travis calls out “Andre!” from the top of the hillock, and then he starts lunging down with wide steps, but not so fast that Cory can’t get to him first.

They each have their arms outstretched, and Cory yells, “Toni, Toni!” Under a full moon, we can see them rolling in the sand together like long-lost friends.

They’ve played this ever since Cory became verbal. He loved a movie about the real-life Andre the Seal and a fictional little girl named Toni. So, Travis is the girl and Cory is Andre. It never gets old—apparently, for either of them.

Nic explains all this to Luke, who starts laughing. The firelight plays off his face, the shadows in his chest catching in the unzipped jacket, and when he turns, his ass looks hard and tight. I cross my legs, standing in the sand.

I suddenly see Claire glance at me.

Shit.

But instead of moseying over to tell me something I can’t hear right now, some truth as she sees it, she merely nods and takes a sip of beer.

But Chloe also caught my firelit appraisal of Luke’s body, and she has no filters. Claire raised us the second half of our lives and knows—as a parent should know—when to butt out. Chloe, the oldest, left during that time and overcompensates sometimes by pointing out the obvious. And I’m afraid I was very obvious.

Worse, as of late, she and Laurel have teamed up in regard to my apparent lack of a sex life.