In truth, I was bored the entire evening. I had nothing in common with these people and they were all very much a part of the scene here in Newport Beach. And I was very much not. I was easily the youngest one there, aside from Ms. Victoria’s Secret. I’d guess that Adam was amongst the youngest as well. A few asked what I did and when I told them I was a hospital orderly and a hopeful med student, they made a little more small talk and then drifted away.
I really didn’t care about the brush-offs. It was a relief, actually. That way I didn’t feel obligated to them to try and entertain them. When we ate—around a beautifully appointed glass table on the covered porch overlooking the harbor—I was at the opposite end from Adam and his “old friend.” Lindsay had entered before most of the others and hastily switched dinner cards—I’d watched while she did it, shocked at her audacity—so that she’d be sitting next to Adam. She wasn’t old enough to be a cougar, but she was clearly quite a few years older than him. I began to suspect they had a history as I watched them over dinner.
The guy to my right was a financier and he spent the entire meal chatting up the lawyer across from me. I sat in silence and picked at my food, wondering where tonight would lead. Without the yacht, we wouldn’t be able to go out to the twelve-mile mark, where, in international waters, we would no longer be subject to the law of the land. We sure as hell wouldn’t be making that trip in the Duffy Boat, which was designed for tootling around the harbor.
So, then what? Were we halted again? In irritation, I glanced at Adam, whose head tilted toward Lindsay, listening to something she was saying but looking bored beyond words. He glanced down the table and our gazes met. I froze and he smiled and winked, before looking away.
The guests stayed only an hour after dinner—they were on their way to a concert at the Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. Lindsay and her husband were the last to go and again I got that cold once-over from her. It was beyond awkward. Her behavior was possessive. I wanted to tell her not to feel threatened. One fuck and it would be over with Adam. She had nothing to worry about. But curiously, I was having a harder time getting over the irritation I was feeling, both at her presumption with him and his open acceptance of it. Maybe they were friends like I was with Heath. But I just didn’t get that sense from them.
She touched him like she had done it a thousand times before. Like she knew him intimately. Like a lover.
And surprisingly that brought my claws out. It was beyond stupid of me to feel that way, but I was like a guard dog with hackles up every time I saw her mouth go near his ear to whisper something funny.
But to my relief, everyone was gone before eight o’clock. Adam asked me if I wanted something to drink and poured some mineral water for himself and a glass of chilled Pinot Grigio for me.
“Let’s go down to the beach,” he said with a smile.
And how could I resist? There were plush, padded lounge chairs and a cabinet with towels and blankets. He set the glasses on a low table between two lounges and grabbed fleece blankets. He had the complete setup, including a propane heater—the big industrial kind they put out on restaurant patios. It wasn’t quite chilly enough that evening to turn it on.
After the yard lights were dimmed, we sat on our lounges. I gazed out over the bay watching the golden lights dance on the water’s surface. It was just after sunset and the sky was an otherworldly shade of lavender reflected in the waters of the bay as dusk dropped quickly, like it always did close to the coast. Boats returned from the ocean, their running lights flickering across the water. The distant sounds of a party drifted from one of the neighboring houses on Bay Island.
I glanced over at Adam, who had his phone out, reading e-mail and occasionally replying. I sipped at my wine and burrowed under the blanket watching him. It wasn’t freezing but, like every spring night in Southern California, though the days were temperate, the nights got chilly once the sun went down, especially on the beach.
Without looking up from his work he asked, “Warm enough? You want the heater on?”
“No,” I said, getting up from the lounge. “I have a better idea to keep warm.”
I picked up my blanket walked over to his lounge, and plunked down beside him. With surprise he gazed up at me, then scooted, putting his legs down, one on either side of the lounge and indicated that I should sit between them, which I did, laying back against him.
At first I got that same feeling of weird stiffness—like he didn’t know what to do. Clearly Adam wasn’t a natural cuddler. But I was. I’d grown up in an affectionate family. And I had no idea why I needed to connect to him. Hell, I cuddled with Heath sometimes, when he tolerated it. It was just who I was. But the sense I got from Adam was more hesitant than reluctant, as if he didn’t know how to handle it rather than being repulsed by it.