“My brother Ryan is the ugly one,” he said, smirking.
“Really?” I asked, thrilled at the prospect of discovering the Décarie black sheep.
“No, not really,” he replied, embarrassed again.
“Adam, how come you two don’t have long-winded French names?” I asked, curiously.
He took no offence to my strange question. “Like you do, you mean?”
“Very funny,” I scowled, pretending to be cross. He was right. Charlotte was one of those tragic French names that should have been made obsolete centuries ago.
“Our mother is a stubborn Londoner,” he explained. “That might have played a part.”
“Your mum’s English?”
He nodded.
“You’re just a wealth of information tonight, aren’t you?” I teased, surprised by his candidness.
“That was my plan, Charlotte.”
The way we were both huddled in the tiny doorway of the tent, surrounded by a ton of blankets, made it impossible to think we could get any closer. He proved me wrong, edging close to murmur in my ear, “Do you want to see where I live?” And with a click of the remote we were inside his house.
Gabrielle had assured me there were no castles in New York. I wasn’t so sure. Our whole house would have fitted into the lounge of the Décarie home. Opulent was not a word I used often, but I could think of no other. Insecurity twisted in my stomach like splinters of glass.
No wonder he was calling on courage to share this with me. I’d never been more tempted to run away. He reached for my hand, holding it tightly. He probably thought I was about to bolt too.
He’d laid it all out for me, just as I’d begged him to do. How I handled this moment would determine whether I was strong enough to make the leap with him.
Harder than surrendering my heart and more intimate than sharing my body was facing up to my own truth. False bravado was my forte. If there was to be a moment of admission – a point where I told him I wasn’t able to go through with this – this was it.
He looked at me as if he expected me to do just that.
“Adam,” I began, my tone too grave for him to draw any positivity from it. “I just don’t know if I can be with someone who doesn’t like chocolate. I might need some more convincing.”
The remote bounced off the wall of the tent. Pinning my hands behind my head he straddled my body, leaning down close.
“I love you, Charli Blake.”
My soul gave me no choice but to believe him. I didn’t know if I could fit in to his world but I did know that Adam didn’t belong in a tent in the backyard – and yet here he was, for no other reason than he loved me.
Looking into his jewel-like eyes I could see every possibility, and none of them scared me.
Conversation became sparse over the next few hours as talking gave way to a quieter form of communication. Warm beneath the covers, secure in his hold, my skin tingled as he ran his fingers down the length of my arm. Lacing his fingers through mine, he brought my hand to his mouth and kissed it. My body felt too unhinged to move – not that I wanted to – so I concentrated on stringing a coherent sentence together.
“Do you have a garden?” I asked.
He seemed used to my questions now, just answering them instead of frowning and looking at me like I was odd. “A huge garden. It’s called Central Park.” I could tell he was smiling. “I’ll take you there every day if you want me to...under one condition.”
“What?”
He shifted beneath me, moving my head from his chest back onto the pillow.
“You haven’t told me about the flowers.”
I’d forgotten. I should have known he’d remember.
“Peter Pan – it’s my favourite book of all time. I must have read it a hundred times as a kid. Not the Disney story, the original version,” I explained. “J M Barrie wrote about fairies.”
“Go on,” he cajoled, grinning.
“He wrote that when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about and turned into fairies.” I recited the quote as best I could remember – a good effort considering his gaze was scrambling my brain.
“You buy into that theory?” He already knew the answer but I replied anyway.
“I had to. Fairies can’t live unless a child believes in them. And every time a child claims not to believe, another fairy falls down dead. I didn’t want that on my conscience.”
Despite my deliberately ominous tone, he laughed. “Of course not. So what does that have to do with flowers?”
“Well, being pro fairy comes with certain responsibilities,” I explained. “So I researched everything I could, determined to protect the endangered fairy population. I became very proactive. Poor Alex was forced to plant hundreds of tulip bulbs in our garden every winter because fairies use the flowers as beds for their babies.”
“So picking the flowers probably is a federal offence,” he said finally.
“Equivalent to child endangerment, I’d say.”
“And have you ever actually seen a fairy?” he asked.
“Fairies generally come out at night, so unfortunately not. We’ve always had scheduling conflicts. I’m more of a morning person. Alex used to tell me he saw them all the time, but there’s a chance he was lying.”
“Maybe we could work on that. Do you think many fairies hang out at Central Park?”
“I’m not too familiar with American fairies but I know the French are big believers.”
“Really?” he asked, amused.
“Sure. Take La Dormette de Poitou for instance.” I stumbled over the pronunciation. “She’s a sleep fairy. It’s her job to make sure children have sweet dreams.”
“I’m not surprised a French fairy would be your favourite,” he teased, tightening his grip around me.
“I never said she was my favourite. My favourite happens to be Italian. Basadone. He rides in the wind and steals kisses from unsuspecting women.”
“He sounds creepy if you ask me. The French fairy is obviously much classier.”
“Not all of them. I haven’t told you about Bugul Noz from Brittany. That poor creature is so ugly that humans and fairies reject him. Even the animals stay away from him because he’s so hideous. People have keeled over from the sheer shock of seeing him. I can’t even describe him to you because he’s so awful looking.”
“Poor guy,” he said, battling to keep a straight face.
“Don’t you fret.” I patted his chest condescendingly. “I’m fairly certain he’s not related to the Décarie’s of Marseille.”
Without warning, he rolled to the side, covering my body with his. The look he gave me was strange, like he was looking beyond my eyes, searching for something. Self-consciously, I looked away.
“Why won’t you look at me?” he whispered, pinching my chin between his finger and thumb, forcing me to meet his gaze.
I hoped it was too dark for him to see me blush. “Because it’s all a bit silly, isn’t it?” I mumbled.
“I wish you could see yourself through my eyes. You’d never have another moment of self-doubt as long as you live.”
“Everybody should believe in conte de fée,” I whispered.
Adam stared at me as if I’d just insulted him. Finally, he raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Charlotte, how can you maintain that you don’t speak French when you throw words like conte de fée into casual conversation?”
“Fairy tales,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.
“I know what it means. I’m just surprised that you do.”
“I know all the important French words.”
“And what are they?” he quizzed.
I ticked them off on my fingers. “Bonjour, conte de fée and croissant.”
His laugh echoed through the tent and I couldn’t help laughing with him.
As if on cue, the batteries in the torch began to fail. The light flickered. Adam fumbled for the switch and with
one click we were in the dark.
***
Adam lay beside me, breathing in a way that only comes with deep sleep. I listened for a long time, trying to take my mind off the racing thoughts of everything he’d shared with me that night. As usual, he’d learned more about me than I had about him, but not because he’d kept anything from me. Every question I put to him was answered. When he began to shift restlessly I wondered if his mind was swimming too.
The light filtering through the thin walls woke me the next morning. I felt achy and tired, far too wrecked to have woken of my own accord. Adam was finally still. Maybe he knew he was a restless sleeper and anticipated stealing the covers from me. There were enough blankets in the tent for us to survive an Antarctic storm – even after most of them ended up on his side.
I was hopeful of getting out of the tent without waking him until I saw my jeans wedged between him and the mattress. I tugged at them and Adam woke with a start, launching himself at me as if I’d tried to steal his wallet.
“Whoa!” I cried as he landed on me, his face inches from mine.
He looked confused for a second, as if he wasn’t sure where he was. His eyes closed and he groaned, holding me tightly as he rolled us over.
“Sorry,” he murmured.
“Too early for you?”
He rolled us back over, more carefully this time so I felt none of the weight of his body.
“Hardly,” he murmured, kissing my neck.
If I were a magician I would have made the rest of the world disappear at that moment. Life was more perfect than I ever expected it could be.
“Adam,” I whispered, moving his face with my hands so he was looking at me.
“Charli.”
“You sleep, and I’ll go to the beach for a while.”
He smiled lazily. “Charlotte Blake, you have a deal.”
He leaned in and kissed me in a way that made me consider renegotiating our deal – until I head the waves crashing below.
23. Sunday Surfers
Sunday was the one day of the week that my brother never surfed.
His problem with Sunday surfers is that they are just that – surfers on a Sunday – which meant it would take a lifetime for them to actually acquire any skill. Alex didn’t suffer fools easily, so forfeiting his beach for that one day a week while overconfident amateurs took over grated on him more than I did.
The only other person with such a low opinion of anyone who dedicated less than twenty hours a week to the sea was Mitchell Tate, so I was surprised to see him there.
“Hey.” He jumped at the sound of my voice. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I wasn’t expecting any crazy girls sneaking up on me from behind.”
I stood beside him, looking out to sea. Clearing the air the day before had worked wonders. The anxiety I’d felt had completely disappeared.
“Sundays never used to be your day, Mitch. I’m surprised you’re here.”
He stood, arms folded, glowering at the handful of Sunday surfers hanging on the break, like they’d stolen something from him.
“I had to get out of the house. Did you know my sisters are planning a birthday party?”
“I did know that. I never made the guest list though,” I said, trying to sound disappointed.
Mitchell glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “Half your luck.”
“Can’t you get your parents to rein them in?”
“You’d think so, considering they’re footing the bill.”
I laughed, harder this time and he turned to scold me with a sharp look. I stared back, a stare that lingered too long, leaving room for an awkward few seconds of silence to creep in. I didn’t want awkwardness. Fighting to keep things casual, I looked back to the ocean.
“Where’s Ethan today?”
He leaned across and whispered as if it was a secret. “With picky Nicky, at the café.”
Nicole had earned the unenviable title of picky Nicky for being exactly that – too picky. Ethan clearly adored her but Nicole stood firm. He was not the one for her – she just acted like he was, which confused everyone. Obviously time apart had changed nothing. Ethan was still in no-man’s-land, waiting for her to either surrender or find the real Prince Charming.
“Where’s Captain America this morning?” he asked in turn.
He seemed unfazed by the look of poison I shot at him. Maybe that was a good thing. Self-absorbed, mean-spirited Mitchell was bound to be easier to deal with than the sweet, kind-hearted Mitchell I should be keeping my distance from.
“That’s very unattractive behaviour, Mitchell.” I tried to sound harsh but it came out sounding like a trite lecture from a schoolteacher.
“I thought you’d appreciate my less attractive side.”
“Idiot.”
He unfolded his arms for the first time since I’d arrived, moving his hand to my hair. I quickly slapped it away.
“Wait,” he protested. “You have something in your hair.”
I wished the sand would open up and swallow me whole when he picked a piece of Styrofoam out of my hair. The wind caught it and it quickly blew away, taking none of the mortification I was feeling with it.
“So Alex is wrapping you in foam before you come out to play now?” he teased.
“Something like that.”
He didn’t ponder my answer too long, moving to the subject of the surf. “So, are we going out there?” He pointed out to sea as if I needed direction.
“Why? Do you need a buddy?”
“Maybe.” He was looking past me now and I turned to see what had caught his attention. “Maybe he could be my buddy,” he said. Adam was walking along the beach towards us.
Gripping his arm, I hissed, “You be nice.”
Mitchell’s smile gave me no comfort at all. Rather than waiting for Adam to reach us, I dropped my board and ran to him.
Adam stopped walking just as I started running, probably anticipating the ambush as I launched myself at him.
“What happened to sleeping?” I asked, throwing my arms around his neck.
“The tent wasn’t quite as comfortable without you in it,” he replied.
“I would have stayed.”
He lowered me to the ground and grinned. “No, you wouldn’t have.”
I took his hand, leading him towards Mitchell. “There’s someone I want you to meet,” I said, walking a little faster than usual.
Even without introduction, they knew exactly who the other was. I wasn’t worried about anything Adam might say. He was excruciatingly polite, all of the time. Mitchell, not so much.
I called out Mitchell’s name and he turned to face us. I could feel my face contorting as I silently begged him to be good.
“What’s wrong, Charli? Do you have something in your eye?” baited Mitchell.
I should have known better. Letting these two meet defied common sense.
“This is Adam,” I replied sourly.
“Nice to meet you,” said Adam extending his hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Mitchell shook his hand but his eyes stayed firmly fixed on me. “I doubt that. Charli tends to gloss over details.”
Adam barely hesitated. “Only the unimportant ones.”
I was beginning to feel ill. He probably thought Mitchell was a dick. I knew Mitchell was being a dick. My glare must have had some effect because Mitchell’s eyes drifted back to the ocean. Then he turned back to Adam. “Are you going out there?” he asked. “I have another board and wetsuit in my car if you’re interested in having a crack. I’m sure Charli could teach you the basics...probably enough to keep you alive at least.”
“Thanks, but no,” he said, squeezing my fingers again.
“Yeah,” said Mitchell, screwing up his face as if he’d tasted something horrid. “I’m going to give it a miss too.”
“Why aren’t you staying?” I asked, too curious to keep quiet.
“Sunday surfers, Charli.”
The kindest thing I could do for Adam was get him off the beach. The second kindest thing was not to inflict Mitchell on him ever again. Leaving seemed like a good idea.
“You could have stayed,” suggested Adam as we ambled towards the cottage.
“I don’t like Sunday surfers either,” I told him.
***
A lazy day together was the plan. Alex and Gabrielle weren’t due back until late afternoon and I knew once that happened; something huge was on its way. Adam knew it too, which probably explained why he’d avoided the subject all weekend. I’d asked what his argument with Gabrielle had been about, hoping it might give me a heads-up. Whatever Alex wanted to discuss was so important that he needed a few days away to rehearse it. I’d drawn my own conclusions from the very little information I was working with.
“I think Gabrielle is pregnant. Either that or they’re getting married,” I told Adam over breakfast.
He nearly choked on his toast. “Where did that come from?”
“Call it a hunch.”
“Your hunch is wrong, Coccinelle.” He shook his head.
I had to believe him. Adam knew exactly what was going on. I was the only fool being kept in the dark.
“What were you arguing with your cousin about?” I asked, for the umpteenth time.
A look of dread washed over him, an expression that happened every time I asked.
“I’ve already told you, we weren’t arguing. I simply asked her a question and she replied,” he said, shrugging his shoulders to suggest indifference.
I was getting nowhere. “You should tell me what you know. It’s the right thing to do.”
Adam’s confounded expression didn’t waver. “I can’t tell you this. If I told you what I know, you’d be left with a million more questions that I don’t know the answer to.”
“Fine,” I huffed, folding my arms and leaning back. “I’ll wait for Alex to tell me.”
“Awesome idea,” he breathed, visibly relieved.
The subject was closed – but it didn’t stop me thinking about it. I’d managed to push most thoughts of Alex out of my mind until that morning. Once I started counting down the time until he was due home, I became fidgety and preoccupied. He’d told me he’d be home by six. Before six, I was free and easy. After that, all bets were off.