I had not, for the most part, expended much energy worrying about the women of Hayes’s past. Because the past was the past. And since September, I had tried not to worry about the women of the present, because he promised me there were none. He’d asked me to stay off the Internet and not read tabloids and to trust him, and for the most part I did. But all I had was his word.
“Do we need to use a condom?” I had asked him earlier that evening. It had become something of a ritual.
He had cocked his head, wily. “I don’t know. Do we?”
“I’m askingyou.”
“Have you done something you’re not proud of?”
“No,” I’d said. “But I’m not the one in a band.”
“If I do something I’m not proud of, I’ll let you know,” he’d said, flipping me onto my stomach.
“I’mtrustingyou, Hayes.”
“I know you are.”
But there, in the garden of Casa Tua, beneath the stars and the sprawling trees and the Moroccan lanterns, the reality hit me. That there had been many, that there would always be, that they would be everywhere. Hayes’s conquests. Creeping, entangling him, like ivy.
“Are you here for Basel?” Amanda asked. She’d pronounced itbasil, which was irksome.
“Yes,” Hayes said.
“Cool.” Her skinny fingers were still encircling his wrist, serpentine. “Where are you staying?”
He paused for a moment, his eyes scanning the faces at the table and then landing on me. “With a friend… I’m sorry, I’m keeping her waiting.” His attempt to untangle. “Good to see you. Yasmin. Amanda. Enjoy your dinner.” He waved at the others and pulled away.
Later, over the burrata and a bold Cab, Hayes felt the need to explain himself. “So, Amanda… She’s Simon’s friend.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“I know you didn’t. But I didn’t want you wondering.”
“And Yasmin? Simon’s friend, too?”
He swished his wine in his glass. “No. Yasmin wasn’t Simon’s friend.”
“Yeah, that was evident.”
“Sorry… It was a long time ago.”
I nodded, swilling from my wine. “I thought you didn’t like models.”
He laughed. “I’m pretty sure I never said that. Who doesn’t like models?”
“Oliver.”
Hayes grew serious, fast. “Yes,Oliver. He knows his art and he’s too sophisticated for models.”
The way he’d said it surprised me.
He reached out then and grabbed my hand on the table. “I don’t have a problem with models. They are, for the most part, quite pretty. But given the choice, I’d rather be with someone who’s lived a little, has something interesting to say, and isn’t just eye candy.
“Do you know what girls like that talk about? Instagram and Coachella… That’s good for like a night. Which was what Yasmin was. A night.”
My eyes were on his hand holding mine. His long, thick fingers. His two rings: silver, patterned, one on his ring finger, one on the middle. He switched them up so often.
“I thought you loved Instagram,” I said.
