He slings a towel around his shoulders, and crosses to the window, pushing up the screen.
“Cole, you’re crazy — we’re on the second floor —”
“It’s not too bad of a drop to the roof of the sunroom —”
He already has one leg out the window, but he turns back, grabbing me by the hand and kissing me once, hard. Then he pinches my bare ass and slings his other leg over the sill. He jumps down onto the sunroom roof, then edges across it. From there, it’s not too far to the ground. He lets himself down into the soft grass, waves back at me, and then books it across the back lawn, heading straight for the Sound. He sprints along the dock, dropping the towel as he goes, and when he reaches the end, he dives gracefully into the water.
“We could have just told them,” I whisper, and I close the screen.
When I walk into the kitchen five minutes later, dressed in clean pajama pants and an old shirt, Cole is just coming in the back door, dripping wet, the towel wrapped around his waist.
“We werewonderingwhat happened to you!” Bree trills, looking up from her plate.
Cole pushes his wet hair off his face. “Yeah, well — I woke up early, and the water looked so inviting that I just had to go for a swim, so here I am.”
Bree lifts an eyebrow. “That water is freezing cold.”
“Yeah, uh —” Cole looks down at his chest, and even I can see that he’s shivering. “I think I’m gonna run upstairs and take a quick shower. Be back in a minute.”
As he turns to leave, he winks at me, and I grin back. But honestly, I’m starting to wonder what the fuck we’re doing here.
***
“Come on, it’s Friday night!” Bree wheedles. “You never want to do anything fun anymore.”
“Please, babe, take pity on an old man.” Cole is lying on the couch, his arms folded over his face. “We’ve been running around all day, and I don’t think I have the energy to drag my ass all the way back to P-town.”
Bree huffs, sitting down and hugging a pillow to her chest. “We haven’t gone dancing together inages. There’s this new club —”
“Yeah, and we spent all afternoon out in the sun whale watching, and I almost hurled —”
“Ididhurl,” I interject, then push my way off the couch to walk into the kitchen for another beer. I’ve never done well on small boats.
“Yeah, sorry about that —” Seth calls after me with a grin.
“But we sawfourwhales, didn’t we?” Bree declares triumphantly. “Anda sunfish!”
Cole points to Seth. “Why don’t you take your fiance instead? I’ll hang out here with Ezra and we’ll play Monopoly.”
I wonder if he’ll let me pass GO and collect $200.
Back in the living room, Seth is settling in next to Bree. “I bet I’m not as good of a dancer as you are.”
“You’re fine, baby,” Bree coos, patting his thigh. “But we’re getting married, which means we have to live vicariously throughColey’sterrible choices. Come on, I’ll be your wingwoman.”
Cole grabs another cushion and pretends to hide beneath it.
“You know, I bet I know what his real problem is,” Bree says slyly, and Cole peeks at her from underneath the cushion.
“What’s my real problem?”
“You don’t want to go out and hook up because you’re in love with that closet case from New York,” she declares. “You haven’t wanted to doanythingfun since you started seeing him —”
Time is standing still, and there’s a rushing in my ears. The kitchen light is flickering slightly, the granite cold under my palms.
“Bree,no—” Cole turns to look at me, his blue eyes stricken.
But Bree and Seth don’t see what’s happening, don’t see the iceberg in front of them, so Seth chuckles. “There’s a boyfriend in the city? Nobody told me —”
