“We should probably get moving if we want to make it to the island before dark. Are you okay to leave for a while? Did you stop your mail? And take out the trash?” Rose asked Tom, trying to keep her tone gentle.
Tom’s smile dimmed. “I did take out the trash. I’m pretty sure.” He thought for a second, pulled out his own phone. “Let me just call a neighbor about the mail.”
He walked away down the block to have a second think about his readiness for departure, his phone pressed to his ear.
Sloane gave Rose another incredulous look as soon as he was out of earshot. Rose was abruptly exhausted by the effort of keeping her face clear of her emotions. She would have liked to slouch and rub her eyes and consider having a few feelings about hundreds of people on the Internet imagining Tom and Boyd doing it, but she was determined to be unbothered by any amount of news about her gorgeous ex’s gorgeous boyfriend.
“He seems really sweet,” Sloane said when Rose didn’t speak.
“Heissweet,” Rose confirmed.
“But he didn’t remember to take out the trash, huh?”
“Never did,” Rose agreed.
Sloane gave her a wide-eyed, imploring look. She fisted her hands and propped them together under her chin.
“I didn’t divorce him because he didn’t take out the trash,” Rose said, annoyed. “I knew this about him when we got married.”
If Boyd Kellagher was really the dark, dominating fuck prince he played in the movies—or if he could afford a housekeeper and a personal assistant—she was sure the two of them were enjoying substantial domestic bliss. It wasn’t like Tom didn’t think the trash needed to go out; he just needed someone to tell him to do it.
“Okay, so what’s the problem with seeing how things go, then?”
“Aside from his movie star boyfriend?” Rose suggested.
Sloane scoffed. “They’re probably not exclusive. Boyd’s got to be off filming most of the time. That’s not how guys like that operate.”
Rose checked her phone, cleared three missed calls from Adrian, and wrinkled her nose at his new texts.
Adrian: Caroline says she just read the article and it doesn’t have any pictures of Tom and Boyd together since last summer.
Adrian: Answer your phone you coward
Adrian: That last was Caroline but please don’t fire her.
Rose put her phone on silent without responding. If Adrian thought that she was still harboring tender feelings for Tom, he needed to prepare for disappointment—Tom’s theoretical open relationship, big stupid muscles, and willingness to do unpaid construction work at a moment’s notice didn’t matter at all.
“Okay, but even if they’re not exclusive,” Rose said, “the next problem would beourrelationship. Trust me, the kind of issues we had are not the kind that go away with not seeing each other for ten years.”
Sloane looked disappointed by this unequivocal statement. “I think you should give it a try. People can change a lot, especially after such a long time,” she announced.
Rose elaborately shrugged to cover her discomfort, eyes tracking Tom’s progress as he paced the block. He was apparently double-checking the trash situation.
Why would Tom change, when he had the exact life he’d always wanted? Rose was the one who’d obviously screwed up somewhere along the way.
5
When Sloane directed them to her boyfriend’s yacht slip, Rose discovered that despite a decade in wealth management, she was still capable of being impressed by ostentatious displays of consumption. The yacht that would take them to Martha’s Vineyard was a hundred-foot monstrosity, its three decks gleaming white and new in the sun, its wooden railings whispering that they hailed from endangered tropical rainforests, its custom leather banquette seats confiding that many nonbovine creatures had forgone their bumpy skins in their construction. It was a floating argument for higher marginal tax rates.
“Oh mygawwwd,” Tom drawled, sinking into a crouch on the concrete pier, palms clasped to his cheeks. He hummed under his breath, a tune Rose hoped Sloane wouldn’t recognize as the international communist anthem.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Rose said with purposeful nonchalance, resisting the urge to take out her phone and look up how muchthe yacht must have cost. Or to take a selfie in front of it. She never had anything good for the group chat.
She wasn’t pretending for Sloane’s sake, or for her boyfriend, who looked like the love child of Elon Musk and the last root vegetable at the bottom of the discount bin. But Rose was getting a little of her own back in Tom’s reaction now. If he happened to think Rose spent a lot of time lounging on mega yachts, that wouldn’t hurt anything. Sometimes her life took her interesting places.
Not that she and Tom were in competition. He was dating a movie star; he won.
A middle-aged man in an admiral’s hat slid a window open near the bow and waved at them. Sloane blew him a kiss and bounded across the metal gangway to greet her billionaire boyfriend.
