It Happens in the Hamptons(22)

Okay, maybe he was pretty good at going down on girls, like better than anyone actually. As he twirled his tongue around her like a master, she figured his prowess was due to his lifetime of experience. No one her age moved his mouth slowly and softly like that. Guys she grew up with never understood girls don’t jerk off like a jackhammer the way men do.

As she was almost there, he started to lick lower. “Not there, up higher it’s better,” she whispered down at him, so close to coming. He was nice; it was always all about her. She thought she heard something outside, but at this point, she didn’t care.

“Just lemme try something here . . .” He flipped her over.

“C’mon,” she pleaded. “That’s too much, I don’t think . . .”

And you know what? He was right. He slid himself into her, and it was strangely amazing. And then, wow, she came in successive waves like she never had in her young life, the explosions in her body feeling eternal and nuclear all at once.





Chapter Twelve

And Pop Goes George





Friday, June 2



The following Friday, Katie rushed to get Huck ready for his day at soccer camp. The magnificent summer sun streamed through her windows, and she hoped it would brighten Huck’s mood. He’d been decidedly lukewarm about the competitive camp atmosphere. Though the counselors had promised to watch out for him, she’d picked up a rather reticent child in the previous few days. She hoped the perfect weather would help his comfort there.

As she neatened her hair into a ponytail in front of the bathroom mirror, and put blush on her soft, cream-colored cheeks, she heard a noise out the window beside her. Tires of a car crunched as they slowly rolled over the cracked little asphalt potholes on the driveway. No deliveries had been ordered, and George had said he wasn’t coming until Sunday. She was supposed to have ten days to settle—that’s what they agreed on. Or more precisely, that’s what he told her the best plan would be. She pulled back the grandmotherly lace curtain from the small-paned window in the bathroom, but couldn’t see the car because of the overgrown hedge branches.

Katie walked briskly through the small living room of the cottage, smoothing the top of her ponytail. She’d had a fitful night; the worry fairies kept sprinkling their persuasive spell on her. She missed her mother’s wise counsel and wondered whether it might have been nicer to have George here her first week. She also felt unnerved about her flirtation with the adorable man in the surf shop earlier that week.

And then her finances agitated her: she’d done the same calculations all night to reassure herself. But every hour or so, she’d counted the numbers up: tutor hours per week, her take-home after the agency took their cut, the five-hundred-dollar monthly rent she insisted on paying, and costs she hadn’t anticipated, like bicycles. How many more would there be? She was determined not to touch the fifteen-thousand-dollar inheritance her mother had left her.

The morning sunlight exposed the yellowing patches on the white-painted floor that had been covered by rugs or chairs over the years. On the red Americana dresser in the front, the eyes of George and his mother and now-deceased father stared at her in photographs from years ago. She swore their eyes were following her gait.

Her premonitions proven right, Katie looked out the front door panes to watch George step out of his 2002 BMW 320i with a bag from Dunkin’ Donuts. She raced back to the bathroom to put on mascara.

“Huck!’ she yelled into the adjacent room, where he was constructing a new Lego she’d bought (another expense she hadn’t counted on). Indeed, the child had been right, and they had left parts of the heli-jet set back home. “We need to leave soon for camp, sweetie, five-minute warning with the Legos. And George is here a couple of days early!” She was a little upset he hadn’t called to say he was coming early. Or called enough this week, period.

Katie looked into the decades-old bathroom mirror, the sides flecked with black spots from years of corrosive, salty air. Her cheeks flushed. She knew she hadn’t felt this drawn to a man in several years. The vulnerability prickled more than she liked. Her mind hurtled from guilt to embarrassment, as if she were doing something wrong, standing in this bathroom that wasn’t hers, enveloped in this strange, decaying home.

She studied her round face in the mirror, and squinted her bright green eyes back at her reflection, hands on hips now. This anxiety wasn’t like her. But then again, she was due to feel a bit rattled; perhaps she’d been bottling it up to stay strong for her child and resilient her first week.

Katie strode back to the living room. She grabbed Huck’s entire body and whooshed him out of the house.