“Take the right turn, and airport it is. The unknown to the left,” she says. What will it be?
I look at her, biting my bottom lip, before I turn left.
She grins.
I turn left too quickly, causing us to drift around the corner.
I giggle. I wouldn’t describe myself as a great driver, but the Porsche is doing the rest.
“Follow,” she says.
Three hours later, we drive past a sign spelling Sagaponack, and I grin like a child at Christmas. That car is the most epic thing I have ever done, and I have done some crazy shit with my father.
“Hamptons,” I say.
“Uh-huh.”
I just roll with it.
“Here,” she says, “Pull into that driveway.”
The gate opens for us, and we drive down a gravel path to a house so big it would fit six normal houses.
I am speechless.
We drive by a tennis field and a golf course, and my mouth drops open when I see a stable come into view.
“Horses?”
“You like them?”
“Love them, took riding lessons as a kid.” Horses have been my safe places over the years. They didn’t ask who I am or was.
She smiles and unlocks the phone in her hand to make a call.
“Yeah, it’s me. Get us Liberty and Onyx ready, we’re here.”
“You are kidding, right?” I ask because I can’t believe my ears.
“No,” she says. “Free will. We’re using our free will.”
I smile so broadly it should be forbidden.
When we park the gurgling Porsche and get out, I breathe in the fresh air. The countryside is so different from Manhattan. My lungs fill with the air, and I gaze into the green nature I am in. Goosebumps spread on my arms. I love Manhattan, but this here is like an island of peace.
El opens the door to the house. I enter into an entrance hall that must be 30 feet high. I have never seen anything that big. Growing up in London, pretending to be a normal, mediocre family, we had a small townhouse, and this here makes my mouth drop open.
“Follow me,” says El, and walks me to a bedroom with an en-suite bathroom and a walk-in closet that is as big as my entire studio.
She gets some clothes from the closet and I glance around. The room is as clean as it can get, except for a spot on the desk where a green turtle sits.
“Here, that should fit you,” she says and throws riding pants and a pullover towards me, I catch it last minute.
The pullover’s material in my hand is so soft, probably wool, and I never want to let go of it.
“Those should fit you, too,” she says, then hands me a pair of riding boots with diamond applications.
I just gape at her as she undresses in front of me and puts on riding pants and boots, too.
