It Happens in the Hamptons(24)
Then, she convinced herself clothes didn’t matter, so it was silly to focus on them, either her own or George’s. She was fine. All was in order. The glorious sun warming her back slayed the nighttime worry fairies.
She liked how George walked, not like he owned the world, but in a sexy alpha way, like he’d be able to take charge of situations. The guy in the T-shirt could barely talk to her in the store. George was more substantial. He had walked right up to her in the Hilton by the breakfast spread like he was a sexy caveman ready to drag her by her ponytail into his lair. Let’s leave. Now. Huck came out of the house, and George placed him again in his arms to get more birdseed out of a box in his trunk.
Katie had never been one to consider “breeding” as a plus, but this George did have some intangible hint of class that she now understood as she watched him in his element. His frayed pants and polo shirt held historic substance of some kind, worn for decades on golf courses and stubbornly unchanged, like the fabric on the couches or the steps peeling with paint beneath her. It all reeked of an elite, laissez-faire, don’t-show-too-much-effort-in-life style.
Middle-class people in Portland didn’t like old clothes and furniture; they liked their houses neat, clean, presentable. Ikea had worked for her because she was drawn to the uncomplicated nature of white and spare, an environment where, unlike this cottage, Windex could do its job.
George was so old-world he couldn’t help it, she decided. Katie didn’t think he had a ton of money, for he flew coach on airplanes and his company only put him up in mediocre hotels. But he did have some kind of lineage, some roots to bankers and investments that settled him squarely in the upper class. Two family homes in the Hamptons signified a certain level of wealth, even if the cottages were old and small and falling apart. Although she hadn’t seen his mother’s home, he’d told her it was a cottage just a tad bigger than this one, and that both were nestled into cul-de-sacs and not near the estate section of town nor the ocean.
After a good five more minutes with her son and the bird feeder, George returned, and put Huck down. “Let me at least properly say hi to your mom before you go to camp.” While Huck ran into the house, he grabbed Katie’s hips and yanked them into his, whispering into her ear, “I know I said I’d give you space, but I don’t know if I can wait.”
She felt an instant longing for this man she’d fallen for fast. Their familiar feel together helped her body stop shaking. As he’d embraced her, she knew that his “take it slow” plan wouldn’t work; she’d felt the hardness in his pants from the brief, but erotic embrace. Her mind flew to the first moment she lay beneath him in Portland when, shimmying her jeans down her knees, he’d whispered, “tell me what you want, I need to know, I want to know exactly . . .” She’d been too shy to answer in words, barely knowing him; it wasn’t easy to explain anyway. Turned out he knew just fine without a bit of instruction or guidance.
“Can I take you to dinner?” George asked, “I have a sitter we know, the girl a house down. There’s a place on the bay in East Hampton. It’s a drive but at sunset it’s perfect.” His azure-colored eyes stared into hers with a safe hint of romance.
Dinner would be nice. He’d tell her everything she needed to hear: the tutor hours would pile up higher than the summer cornstalks, that job in the Bridgehampton school would be hers for the asking, and her research would get noticed at child-study centers in Manhattan once she’d had time for more follow-up calls. He’d look into her eyes the way he had in Portland, determined to make her his.
Tonight, she’d have one of those Kirs he’d ordered for her in that little bistro in Hood River, a rose-colored drink she’d never tried before, crème de cassis liqueur and white wine, something he always had in Paris. Then she thought about the possibility of Paris—she’d never been—of sex in Paris, of a little inn in Paris with couches covered in tattered fabric, of white wine Kir in Paris . . . yes . . . okay this wasn’t a faulty plan. Katie allowed herself to smile. Her finances were fine, the jobs would come, and this relationship might even work for real. Those anxieties would be fleeting.
Huck shook his head vigorously at the dinner date suggestion, slamming Katie back into reality. She didn’t even hesitate, knowing her son wasn’t a champ with new sitters. “Sorry, let’s have drinks here. I can cook. I’ve never even cooked for you and it’s the least . . .”
“You’re not cooking. That’s too much work. I want to spoil you with the amazing food of the Hamptons. There’s my spot on the bay, it’s . . .”