All they need is someone to nudge them together. To give them permission to shed the past and fall.
Luckily for them, I’m known for being a kind of force in the lives of the people I love.
Because when you’re living your dream life, all that’s left to want is for other people to live theirs, too.
Nora’s widowhood makes them both skittish, though. For all of the progress Nora has made—setting up her own place, spending hours in her home studio painting, managing to wash her hair on a semiregular basis—I can still see it. The faint shadows reminding me she’s been through hell. She’s a little more willowy, a little bit jumpy. And Marcus keeps acting like she’s made of porcelain.
I know she loved Will Somerset—and a part of her always will—but Nora deserves a second chance. We all do.
God knows I’ve had plenty of chances to reinvent myself.
She and Marcus have the kind of chemistry romantic comedies are built on. Sparks don’t just fly, they pull, like gravity or fate. But Nora fights it as if she’s standing over the yawning mouth of a volcano. Like falling will spell certain doom.
And if I can get her to relax around Marcus for more than ten consecutive minutes tonight, I’ll consider it a win. Maybe even a turning point.
I’m mid-daydream as Beau rounds the corner, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“Almost ready?” he asks, stepping across the threshold of the closet. “Is that grass?”
I look past the closet island, harboring my abandoned phone, and follow his gaze to the spot where slivers of green blades litter our bathroom floor like confetti. A smile blooms at the memory of grass hissing beneath my feet last night. Stray bladessticking to my ankles, gummed by the humidity and itching where they clung.
“I took Polly out for some light mischief,” I say, moving toward my vanity, brushing a kiss on his shoulder as I pass. “Baby’s first misdemeanor.”
Another scheme. I like to keep a few in rotation.
Beau likes it, too, even as he raises an eyebrow like he doesn’t.
A few years ago, he sold his company for a sum of money that still doesn’t look real on paper. And everything changed.
Not us, of course. Not his adoration of me or the way he can still make my pulse race.
But how we live and what we worry about? Totally rebranded into something luxurious and easy.
Easy is fun. A privilege. But I find that a touch of friction keeps me sharp.
Which I suppose is how I’ve found space in my life for neighborhood pranks with twelve-year-old Polly McGinnis.
The sight of the grass slivers sends Polly’s giggles reverberating in my mind as I recall the way we crept down Isle of Sicily like amateur spies.
“Anyway,” I say breezily. I give a little flourish, showcasing my dress. “Behold, I’m fully dressed, entirely presentable.”
Beau doesn’t miss a beat, though, shaking his head with that crooked smile—the one that won me over years ago. Now, it saysYou’re incorrigiblewith a hint ofI love that about you.
“You took our neighbor’s daughter out last night to commit a crime?” he asks, but the weight of the words is undone by his playful tone.
“Don’t look so surprised. You knew what I was when you married me.” I wink.
He’s right. I’m incorrigible, but only in the name of loyalty. When it comes to someone I care about, I don’t know how tonotshow up for them. This is and always has been my greatest strength and deepest weakness: I fall hard for people, and then, I’m all in.
Sometimes long after the smart money would be on getting out.
“Este, she’stwelve.”
“Well, she wassad.Ergo, crime,” I insist as if low-level crime is a well-known remedy for malaise.
Beau knows Polly’s had a tough year. The ESPN-viewing half of the country knows it, too. She’s the daughter of pro golfer Ford McGinnis. Once a wunderkind, Ford is in the final stretch of his prime, and to add insult to injury, he spent last year in a messy tabloid breakup with Polly’s mom, Heidi Nordene, an actress turned influencer. After Heidi posted a vodka-infused Instagram Live tell-all of the details, Ford was awarded sole custody of Polly. He promptly sold their home in Jupiter, Florida, and relocated here, or more specifically, next door in Nora’s old house. Now, Ford is always on the road, licking his wounds and trying to sap the last few drops of his competing years. Which leaves Polly in the care of a first-class killjoy of a nanny named Ms. Dowling.
“Polly’s the new girl at school, so she got left out of a slumber party,” I explain. “She started crying, saying she missed Jupiter and her dad. I tried to cheer her up by telling her that not getting an invite to a party is one of my favorite pastimes, and how all she was missing out on were the dumb pranks kids play on the first girl to fall asleep. But that only made things worse. She started to worry she’d never get to play a prank, so…”