Page 11 of Wicked Games

The boards creak and the fishing boats that came with our house rentals bump against the wood as he walks toward me, and I shade my eyes with the flat of my hand to look up at him.

He offers me a bottle of the lemon Perrier I packed with his sandwich, and I take it, the green glass cool against my skin. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Are you working? Do you want to be alone?”

“Yes, but no. Have a seat.”

“Thanks.” He sits next to me wearing black cotton shorts and a grey t-shirt. He’s barefoot like I am. It’s warm but not hot, and there’s a breeze coming off the water. He sets a tablet behind him on the planks.

“Reading anything good?” I ask, assuming that’s why he brought it out here.

He shrugs. “Not really. I can’t seem to get into much right now.”

“A comfort read is usually best in situations like that. Got a favorite?”

“Hemingway, maybe,” he says, sounding surprised he would think of it or admit it.

“One of his short stories, then. It won’t need so much concentration.”

“Good idea,” he says, but he makes no move to pick his tablet up.

I stare across the water, and there are a few boats far in the distance. I wouldn’t mind going out on the boat that came with my house, but not alone. I’d probably drift off and get lost, and that’s not a metaphor I want to live out. That I feel it inside my head is enough.

“Are you writing?”

“Trying,” I say, tilting my notebook and letting him see the heart and blank page.

“Good start.”

“That’s what I thought.”

I look down into the water, past my reflection. There are fish swimming near the bottom, black in contrast to the murky brown. Lots of weeds too, but that’s all.

“What do you usually write about?” he asks, opening his bottle of water with a hiss.

I pause and consider. What do I write about? Nothing that seems important now. “Being a woman, how odd it feels to have all these expectations put on you. Not ever really knowing if you’re doing enough, or doing it well enough. I don’t know. There are days I wonder why I get paid to say anything. It all sounds so insignificant.”

“I wouldn’t say that. I think we all struggle to find our place, not even in the world. That’s too big, and maybe, hopeless. I mean, smaller than that. In the lives of the people you love. In the space around you. Can you make a difference? Do you? And if you don’t, do you want to?”

“I don’t have many people in my life right now.” I never thought of it until I said it, and a lump sticks in my throat. My parents went back to California after Hattie’s funeral. Bill’s fine, but I wouldn’t consider him someone I can pour my heart out to, and even if Julianne is a friend, she’s half a country away in New York. Darren’s gone, and maybe he’d pick up the phone if I called, but what would be the point? And if he didn’t, it would only hurt more.

“I am.” He tucks a piece of hair behind my ear. “And I like it here.”

There’s that feeling again, the thumping my heart’s doing that’s not a good idea.

Squinting, I smile at him. “Because I feed you.”

“I’ll return the favor anytime you want.”

“I’d like that.” I draw another heart in my notebook. “How did Brooke tell you she was leaving you?”

He sighs. “I was trying to function, get dressed and eat. You know? The shit you’re supposed to do. I was in the kitchen, looking for something that wouldn’t make me throw up, and she came in and said she was leaving. I was stupid, and I didn’t get it. I said, ‘Where? Do you want me to go with you?’”

“Did you know she was seeing someone?”

“Not then. Only after when I thought back to the past few months and realized she wasn’t around. I worked, a lot. Too much, if you asked her. Theo was with his nanny. Brooke said she was doing some community center thing, and I was okay with it. I wanted her to have her own interests, something that got her out of bed. I didn’t know she was getting out of our bed and crawling into his. I thought we were happy.”

He doesn’t say whose bed, assuming I’ve heard the gossip and already know.