Tighter (Page 28)

“Big Rocco’s the man,” Sebastian mentioned as we parked, then walked to the wharf. He had a loose but directed stride that was easy for me to fall in step with. “There, that’s him.” As a stout guy came barreling out of the restaurant, a wagon-wheel-sized tray balanced over his shoulder.

“Big Rocco.” I grinned. Rocco couldn’t have been more than five feet. The place was the definition of a local secret, a corrugated tin shed right on the harbor, with lunches arriving in red-checked paper boats.

Milo hadn’t mentioned any turnoff to Stonyfield, and Sebastian didn’t even bother to ask him. Which only confirmed my suspicion that his golf date had been a complete ruse. Milo was sticking with us, tagging along and waiting for me to act gauche or say something Jersey Girl. The kid brother I never wanted. Well, he could bring it on. I was too wrapped up in Sebastian, and my second chance with him, to care.

The view was pretty, a colorful homecoming of tied sailboats and schooners with a couple of yachts bobbing farther out in the harbor. I inhaled ocean air, brine and browned butter. The noonday sun and the pitcher of lemon ice water that arrived when we sat drenched the moment in summertime bliss that made it seem immediately nostalgic.

Sebastian turned up his face to the sky and closed his eyes. “I’m going for my standard—a batter-fried clam sandwich.”

“I think I’ll have that, too,” I said.

Milo made a barf noise, then slumped in his seat. “She orders what he orders. Way to show your hand. I’ve lost my appetite to you lovebirds. Looks like you’ve fallen pretty hard, Jamie. So now I know that even Jersey Girls with gold plastic sandals get soul mates. Who’da thought?”

I reddened, glad for Sebastian’s gentlemanly disregard of what turned out to be Milo’s last dig. He lapsed into near-total silence, letting Sebastian lead the talk in easy hops from bands he liked to plays he’d seen to the ideal summer job.

“How’s yours?” I asked.

“It’s intense. Running a laundry can be an obstacle course,” Sebastian explained. “Lifting, sorting, folding, ironing. See these scars?” He rubbed his finger along the marks. “My war wounds. Years of run-ins with the steam iron.”

“Ouch.” I winced. While inwardly, I guess I sank a little. Not self-inflicted, after all. Was I disappointed? Had Sebastian’s scars made him more accessible? I hated to think it, but they probably did.

On the drive home, Sebastian directed me to a gas station. It was off Bush, along a one-way road, cupped with potholes and crumbled to gravel on its edges, and was lined with modest cottages, their land tracts divided by fences or chicken wire.

“Most of what you’ve seen on Bly is theater. This is backstage,” said Sebastian. “Laurel Lane is also known as Local’s Lane, Yokel Lane … it’s almost one hundred percent year-rounders. My folks and I live a mile down. But right there, that’s Augie Quint’s place.”

The house next to the gas station was hardly more than a paint-chipped shed, though the twin pots of geraniums on the stoop added a painstaking measure of dignity. The thought preoccupied me as we got gas and drove home, the wind clean on my skin, my body warmed just right between the car’s expensive leather and the canopy of sun and trees. Wondering what it had been like for Peter to grow up with that brooding parent, in that humble house, with all this wealth, this summertime paradise all around him.

Back at Skylark, Milo finally got bored with playing the third wheel and vanished around back. Sebastian and I were left alone on the porch. “I should shove off soon—there was a post-regatta bash over at the club last night. Heard it turned pretty wild toward the early hours. So today’ll be nothing but red-wine stains and gossip about who had a few too many and who made a pass at whose wife.” Sebastian rolled his eyes but made no attempt to shove off; instead, he sank into the swing chair, rocking himself back and forth with the ball of one foot.

“I’m not sure I really get Little Bly,” I said.

“What’s to get? A town this small isn’t exactly complicated.”

“No, but there’s an intimacy to it. How everyone’s got information on everyone else. How you literally know their dirty laundry. Look, I’m not knocking it—this island is beautiful. But it’s not a place I’d want to live for keeps, with people whispering about where I was last night and who I might have been hitting on and how I stained my shirt. No offence.”

“No problem.” Sebastian leaned over and jabbed a finger lightly between my ribs. “None taken.”

I poked him back. He yelped and twisted away. “Aha!” I crowed, moving in to get him harder. “And now I know that you are ticklish.”

“Oh, game on, babe.” But not really; or, rather, a game that quickly turned into something entirely different as Sebastian pulled me down on his lap, and the poking and pinching ceased as his mouth found mine. “See, this is the sweet part about being in the family business,” he said softly. “ ’Cause the family understands when you tell ’em you need to leave work on account of a cute girl.”

“Is there an un-sweet part?”

“Yep.” That flash of smile.

“Which is?”

“Ducking the thousand questions that my family’ll interrogate me with after.”

“So you think I’m cute?”

Sebastian made a show of considering this question. “Submitted physical evidence indicates that, oui, mademoiselle. You are cute. No debate.”

It was a moment when he might have worked in another kiss, though he didn’t take it. Skylark didn’t feel like the most private atmosphere anyway, what with Connie’s presence like a creeping mold, dampening from the sidelines.

Minutes later, walking back to his bike, Sebastian opened the seat, where he flipped me a tattered paperback. “When does Isa roll home?”

I checked the cover—Romeo and Juliet. I glanced at my watch. “She’s not due back for another hour. But if that’s for her, she’ll be psyched. Romeo and Juliet’s her favorite movie, she told me.”

“Her favorite movie was Pete’s favorite play,” Sebastian explained. “Our high school put it on this past spring to honor his memory. I was Romeo, and I used Pete’s own script with his notes from junior-year English lit. It was a strange kind of access, being inside his mind. Intense. Anyway.” He shook off the chill of the thought.