“Hey,” I say as I approach, and she jumps in response to my voice before glancing up from her phone. “I haven’t seen you around this week.”
“I’ve mostly been working from home,” she says. “The only reason I’m here today is that my AC is broken and the repairman can’t come until Monday, which does me no good because these temperatures are going to continue into the weekend.”
We’re having a record-breaking heatwave right now, the warmest weather Boston’s ever seen in October.
“I have air-conditioning,” I tell her with a wink.
She shakes her head at me like I’m being ridiculous. “I’m not staying with you.”
“You sure? I’m headed down to the beach for the next couple days. That seems like a much better place to ride out this heatwave than a fifth-floor walk-up with no AC.”
“My dad has AC and a pool,” she tells me, “so I was thinking I’d just stay there. But then I found out he’s doing his annual guys' weekend where all his college friends come into town andthey go golfing and stay at his house. He started it when I left for college, and I’ve been banned from ever attending.”
I cough out a laugh. “I’ll bet. Men are pigs.”
“Ew,” she says, scrunching up her nose. “Those are my dad’s friends. I’ve known them my whole life. They’re like uncles to me.”
“Morgan, you’re a grown-ass woman. You go parading around in front of them in a bathing suit, and they’re going to be looking at you just like you’re any other hot woman in a bikini.” Does she really not see thatthisis the reason her dad hasn’t allowed her to be around on this weekend every year?
“So instead you want me to come to the beach with you and parade around in my bikini there?” Her tone is teasing, but I have a feeling it’s a genuine question.
I lift an eyebrow. “Obviously.”
She leans against the wall behind her, folding her arms across her chest. “A weekend away together seems like it’s veering into relationship territory. Doesn’t sound very casual to me.”
“If you think one weekend away together is a relationship, then I have my work cut out for me,” I say, shaking my head.
“Seriously?” She tilts her head and narrows her eyes, like she can’t quite determine if what I’m saying is true.
It’s not. I’m speaking utter bullshit right now. I’ve literallynevertaken a woman away for a weekend because I don’t want to give the wrong impression. But Morgan doesn’t need to know that.
“I have so much to teach you.” I shake my head at her like she’s missing the whole point, when really I’m the one twisting things so I can spend more time with her. “That’s it, there’s no other choice, you’re coming with me.”
“Ican’t believe how pretty this place is,” Morgan says as we sit on Old Pilgrim Beach watching the pink, orange, and purple shades of the fall sunset behind us play out on the waves in front of us. Everything else around us is a deep blue as the darkening sky bleeds into the ocean where they meet on the horizon. “I had no idea this was even here.”
“This beach is the best-kept secret on the South Shore, and we like to keep it that way. That part over there,” I say, pointing south along the beach where the houses are built right up to the shore, “is Pilgrim Beach. It gets super crowded because of all the cottages packed in there. This part, Old Pilgrim, used to be a private beach, but when I was a teenager, there was a big lawsuit between the town and the residents of the houses behind the dunes.” I point over my shoulder and she turns to look, even though you can’t see the houses through the tall grass lining the sandy hills. “So now it’s public, but it never really gets crowded down here.”
“This feels like being on Cape Cod without having to sit in three hours of stop-and-go traffic to get there,” she says with a sigh.
“Exactly, which is why the first rule of Ember Cove is: you do not talk about Ember Cove.”
She huffs out a laugh. “Like Fight Club?”
“Exactly. And now that I’ve shared it with you, you’re sworn to secrecy. We don’t want it to be like the Cape.”
She laughs and pulls the hem of my hoodie over her knees so she’s balled up inside of it. Now that the sun is almost set, it’s gotten cool on the water. It’s a welcome reprieve from the heat wave we’ve been having.
“I see why you came back here last year,” she says, gazing out at the waves.
“Just wait until morning. There’s nothing like a run on the beach followed by a cup of coffee while watching the waves.”
“Sounds great... if you’re a morning person, which I’m not.”
“Mornings on the beach are the best,” I tell her, swinging an arm over her shoulder and pulling her against my side.
“I don’t know,” she says, doubt ringing out in her tone. “I thinkthisis the best time.”
“Sunset?”
