Page 61

It reminds me of the TV shows I grew up watching, the ones that provided an escape from the reality of my life, the ones that allowed me to dream of something more than the cramped apartment in a sixth-floor walk-up full of anger and blame.

Now I get why Sebastian started to relax the moment he arrived. I could learn to do the same.

The smell of the fryer turns my stomach for a second, which is strange, because I love fried clams. Then again, my period is a week late, my sleep is a disaster, and I’ve spent the last month living on espresso and adrenaline. Stress does that. This month, I’ve earned it.

“I figured you’d have a standing reservation at some place where they serve deconstructed lobster rolls and judgment,” I say to tease him.

Sebastian shuts his door, looking oddly at home as the breeze ruffles his shirt. “The lobster is always mediocre at those places,” he replies without missing a beat.

We join the line, which moves with an unhurried, lazy summer rhythm. Families with sand-caked kids and teenagers dressed in board shorts with sunburns surround us. Sebastian stands behind me, his hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts, baseball cap pulled low over his sunglasses. The shorts, the ball cap, and the T-shirt are all a sharp contrast to the man who usually wears thousand-dollar tailored suits and never has a hair out of place.

I like it.

And even though I've seen him in bed, watched him come undone, been the reason he's come undone, he feels real, and I feel grounded beside him, his presence solid and calm.

We get our food—baskets of fried clams, thick-cut fries, and two ice-cold bottles of soda—and find a corner table with a view of the marina and a little bit of shade. Sebastian picks up a clam and inspects it.

“My father used to stay in town for the summers,” he says suddenly, his voice quiet. “My mother would be at the house with the staff and the social calendar, but he’d stay in the city, supposedly for work. But on Saturdays, he would come out here. He’d pick me up, and we’d come to this exact stand.”

I pause, a fry halfway to my mouth. This is the first time Sebastian has mentioned his father in any kind of positive context.

“He wasn't always the man everyone sees today,” Sebastian continues, staring out at the water. A small powerboat motors past, leaving a triangle of white wake in the water behind it. “Not here, anyway. Not then. He'd actually take off his tie and refuse to answer calls. We'd sit here for hours. It’s the only time I remember him actually laughing. No talk of legacy. No listing all the ways I'd messed up or done something wrong. Just fried clams and the ocean.”

He looks at me, his eyes dark and unexpectedly vulnerable. “It didn't last, of course. At some point, he stopped coming out here altogether, which became a blessing, as he sank so deep into his role that I still can't figure out where the company ends and he begins. Out here is the only version of family I have that doesn't feel like a transaction.”

My chest tightens. I think of the glass and steel we left back in New York, what sometimes seems like more of a prison than a corporate headquarters. I think of the way Sebastian carries the weight of his name like a suit of armor that grows heavier every day he wears it, the way he becomes the corporate version of himself that might someday follow in his father's footsteps to become something indistinguishable from the company.

I hope that never happens. The idea that Sebastian could become the man his father is today fills me with a type of dread that is surprising in its ferocity. To think of him as a little boy sitting at the same weather-beaten table, watching his father be human for a few hours, hurts more deeply than I expect.

“I don't have many beach memories that don't involve a subway ride,” I say softly.

Sebastian tilts his head. “Tell me.”

“Coney Island,” I say. I can almost taste the Nathan's hot dogs and the grit of the city sand. “I don't know why, but every once in a while, Mom would suddenly decide to take us. She’d pack us up, and we’d take the Q train all the way to the end of the line. It was hot and crowded, and the beach had more cigarette butts than seashells, but it was special to us.”

I smile at the memory, though it's tinged by the way her good mood would entirely disappear the next day, those few hours of peace and family forgotten, replaced by her renewed anger at the world.

“We’d get our hot dogs and share an order of fries, then spend the whole day in the water until we were pruney and sunburned. We’d usually fall asleep on the train back, exhausted, sand in our hair and our swimsuits. But it was one of the few times I actually felt like a kid. When I got a little older, I would try to take Nina and Paloma when I could scrape enough money together from my part-time jobs, usually when Mom was staying with whatever new flavor of the week she was obsessing over.”

Sebastian is silent for a long time; his gaze fixed on me. He isn't looking at me with pity, but with focused recognition.

“Coney Island,” he says. He reaches across the table, his fingers briefly brushing my hand. It’s a small gesture, but it feels like a tectonic shift. “I think we’re going to have to fix that.”

“Fix what?” I ask, confused.

The word fix rattles around in my chest. Usually, when people like Sebastian talk about fixing things about me, they mean my accent, my curves, or my tendency to be too blunt in boardrooms. I expect a lecture on the superiority of private beach clubs or the “correct way to summer in the Hamptons.”

Instead, he looks at me with an intensity that makes the clam shack around us fade into a blur of gray wood and blue umbrellas.

“The idea that you’ve never been to a proper beach just to relax for no reason at all. You should understand what it’s like when the water is just where you go to breathe.”

A lump forms in my throat, hard and unexpected. Sebastian isn't trying to polish me or erase where I came from. He isn't looking at my memories of the Q train and crowded beach as something shameful.

For the first time, someone isn't asking me to be stronger, faster, or more professional. Sebastian is asking me just to exist, to breathe. It’s an odd thing to hear from a man who usually demands nothing less than perfection.

“Go change,” he says, his movement decisive as he stands. “Get into your swimsuit. I’ll meet you by the car.”

“Wait, what?” I stand up abruptly. “What about getting home to work?”