Augie couldn’t help but laugh remembering how, when vacationing with Leah’s family in Aruba, Augie and Leah had made up fake names at the resort, teasing boys at the pool. Leah had been Lydia Clausewitz, Augie: Allie Von Braun, both from London. They’d talked in British accents the whole trip, often becoming so hysterical, they gave themselves away.
“Look, I even made a list.” Leah slid her phone to Augie. Augie leaned forward, smiling at the way Leah was using her own weapons against her. She had outlined clear pros and cons:Pros: hockey guys are hot; boat parties are fun; you need a palette cleanser (RANDOM hookup!); I want to go (and you love me). Cons: N/A.
Augie was touched, though she didn’t have the energy to explain that she no longer felt like her old, reasonable self—a person who followed logic and lists.
Still, after two mimosas and more pleading, Augie finally agreed. She’d go—but only as Allie Von Braun.
Augie meandered through the lower level of the Club, but she didn’t find anyone. The only other person she saw was herself, suddenly catching sight of her reflection in the darkened pro shop windows. She cringed.
Despite her tan, her eyes were sunken. Her cheeks narrowed. Her hair tight and flat in its low service industry bun. Her white tuxedo shirt and bowtie didn’t help.
It was a sharp contrast to how she’d looked when she left for New York that January—when, dare she say, she had looked better than ever. She had chopped her dark waves to her shoulders, gotten a new set of business casual clothes at Macy’s post-Christmas sale, and had even started curling her eyelashes to make her blue eyes pop. As a summa cum laude early graduate en route to a job at a major ad agency in New York City, she had never felt so confident—or so good at pretending to be confident. That false confidence, she realized later, was the reason Micah had been drawn to her in the first place. He had loved her combination of conviction and cluelessness.
Augie took a sharp breath and turned away from the windows.Just keep working, she told herself. She walked to check the lower patio one last time. Empty.
Augie was ready to give up when, as she took a step up the stairs and flicked off the lights, she heard a noise. She paused with one hand on the banister, picturing herself in a horror movie, the slow, doomed turn. She lunged for the switches and whipped around.
As the lights bounced back on and she looked across the foyer,Augie wondered if she had fainted. Fallen. Blacked out. Because there, out in front of her—it couldn’t be, could it? But it was, wasn’t it?—there he was.
Boat guy. Sex guy.
Augie stared, blank and blinking, waiting for the mirage to disappear. But he was squinting back at her, his expression shifting from confusion to recognition to, finally, delight.
“No way,” he said, a wide white smile breaking across his face. “Allie?”
Augie’s stomach dropped.
He looked different, yet the same. To be fair, she’d only seen him once, in a bathing suit, then naked. Still, he was unmistakable: tall, scruffy but handsome, strong but soft—the type of guy who didn’t have a six pack, but still looked perfect shirtless, with defined pecs and the sexy kind of chest hair. He had a head of thick dark hair and slightly too-long sideburns. The deepest golden tan. His eyes were a bright copper that reminded Augie of pennies. She’d told him this at the lake. Driven by cocktails and the honesty you only have with strangers, she had grabbed his face, looked back and forth between his pupils, and said she wanted to see if Abe Lincoln was hidden in his eyeballs. She felt a fresh sting of embarrassment.
It wasn’t until he started moving toward her that Augie noticed all he was carrying. Two teal backpacks, a swim bag, a teddy bear, a tennis racket. It weighed him down, the straps pulling on his broad shoulders. Augie stood in shock as she watched him approach, taking in his black Rainbow Kitten Surprise T-shirt and silver gym shorts. It wasn’t until he dropped the bags right in front of her and went in for a hug that she came to, the smell of him sending her back to the boat and making her feel weak.
“Sorry,” he said, registering the fact that she hadn’t hugged him back. “Hope that wasn’t weird.” His smile flattened but rose again as he held her gaze.
Augie didn’t know what to think. Was someone playing a joke on her? Was this all an elaborate plan? A reckoning? A punishment? All she could do was stare at him. He raised his eyebrows as the silence pulsed between them, and Augie suddenly realized: He didn’t seem as surprised to see her as she was to see him.
“No, it’s okay, I’m sorry, it’s just”—she felt her face flush—“what are you doing here? You aren’t from Aldon Lakes, are you?”
“Oh, no, definitely not. Are you? Didn’t you say you lived in New York?”
“I’m... only here for a bit,” Augie stammered, taking a step back up the stairs. “But really, what are you doing here? Were you looking for me?”
He laughed the laugh she remembered, like dice shaking in a tin. “Okay, so, this is a hard question, because the answer is both yes and no. I wasn’t stalking you, I promise—I had no idea you worked here—but I did see you at that happy hour Wednesday, so, yes, since then, I have been looking for you. Hoping to run into you. Maybe... lightly stalking.” He tugged the side of his hair, still smiling. “I tried to get your number from the guys at the party, but they didn’t have it, or wouldn’t give it to me. And I couldn’t find you online. So, I’m super excited to see you now, seriously. I really thought you said you lived in New York.” His voice was both confident and vulnerable in a way Augie found refreshing.
She pawed at her bowtie, chewing her lip. She couldn’t believe her lies were coming back to haunt her. It had felt so easy—so liberating—to be someone else that afternoon: Allie Von Braun from New York City. Of course she couldn’t get away with it.
“What do you mean you saw me Wednesday? At the Club? Why were you there—why are you here now?”
“Tonight, I’m the best man, can’t you tell?” He held out the sides of his T-shirt.
“Seriously.” Augie forced one unconvincing laugh. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“All right, my apologies.” He pressed his hand to his chest, faux offended, as he stepped forward. “But I work here, too. Kind of. Okay, I guess that’s a stretch. I don’t technically workherehere, but we’re at the pool all the time. I think it counts for something.”
Augie studied the bags, the pile of junk between them. “Who’s ‘we’?”
“Well, if you’d like the full job description”—he crossed his arms and pulsed his elbows in the air, his biceps pressing to his sides. That chest, those arms, Augie could feel them around her, the way his hands had climbed all over her—“I’m a manny. I’m here for the summer.”
Augie’s cheeks flushed deeper. Thesummer? He was supposed to be her one-night—day—stand. To mean nothing. Be no one. Number three. She was never supposed to see him again.
