Hayes was in New York that week doing the press junket forAugust Moon: Naked. But he was slipping out on Thursday to spend the weekend in South Beach.
“I know you’re totally into each other, and I know you don’t see him that often, but I need your help,” Lulit continued. “I need you. I didn’t get into this to do it by myself. We’re a team. We work well as a team. We havefunas a team.”
“Okay,” I repeated. “I get it.”
She was right. We had fun. Miami was one nonstop party: cocktails and dinner and ridiculously late nights. Having Matt on hand made juggling the workload that much easier. We wined and dined and schmoozed and sold art. And it was good.
I booked an ocean view suite at the Setai while the rest of the team set up camp in a rental. I knew Hayes would appreciate the relative calm and privacy. He showed up in Miami on Thursday evening, a little weary from the onslaught of press. Interviews, photo shoots, answering the same questions over and over. If you weren’t doing this, what would you be doing? Would you ever date a fan? Have you ever been in love? What’s your favorite word for boobs? Soft-shell tacos or hard?
“It’s such mindless drivel,” he said, watching me dress for dinner. “Kind of makes me envy my mates at uni.”
“Who I’m sure envy you…”
“Because I’m in South Beach with the world’s hottest gallerist?” He smiled.
“Yes,” I laughed. “Because of that.”
He paused then, taking a deep breath. “So I have something of interest to tell you… My parents are coming to the premiere.”
I spun to look at him. He was reclining on the bed, long legs crossed, hands folded behind his head, completely at ease. A pose incongruous, I thought, with the subject matter at hand.
“Fuck.” It was barely a whisper.
“It’s okay, I’ve already prepared them.”
“You told them how old I was? You told them about Isabelle?”
He nodded slowly.
“Did they freak out?”
“Define ‘freak out’ exactly… No, I’m playing with you. They did not freak out. They were surprisingly… okay.”
“‘Okay’?”
“Okay,” he repeated, a small smile on his lips. “It’s going to be okay.”
But I doubted that. Highly.
We decided to skip the flurry of industry parties that night and went to a late dinner at Casa Tua on James. We’d only just arrived at the restaurant and were snaking our way through the candlelit tables in the courtyard garden when someone called Hayes’s name. I turned to find him stopped alongside a table of what looked to be three young models. Accompanying them was a middle-aged gentleman. Perhaps an agent, a father, a predatory paramour. It gave me pause. Was this what I had become? Middle-aged?
The girl closest to Hayes was fine-boned, blonde, beautiful. Her thin hand was wrapped around his wrist. “Amanda,” she was saying. “We met at the Chateau a couple of weeks ago.”
I watched him register, smile. “Amanda. Yes. Hi. How are you?”
“Wonderful,” she said. Of course she was. She had flawless skin and a smattering of freckles over her delicate nose. And she was young enough that she could get away with going out at night in South Beach with not a lick of makeup.
“We were just talking about you,” she cooed. “I believe you know my friend Yasmin.” She gestured to the girl seated across from her.
A brunette, slightly older, vaguely ethnic, large wide-spaced eyes and a pornographic mouth.
Hayes took a moment, placing her, and then he nodded, slow. “I do.”
“Hi.” Yasmin smiled, flicking her hair.
“Hi.” He grinned. He’d fucked her. That much was apparent.
It was in the shift in his body language, and the way she refused to hold his gaze. And it struck me, that I was able to tell so quickly, that I knew him that well. My boyfriend.
