Big Summer(49)

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I left Drue’s bedroom via the deck, thinking that I could use the fresh air. The bonfires and the party lights were vivid against the dark sky and the dark sea. I could smell seaweed and woodsmoke, and could hear the waves and the opening bars of a Beyoncé song, signaling the DJ’s arrival.

I was halfway across the deck when a voice came from the dark corner.

“Is she all right?”

I gave a little scream and jumped, whirling around, trying to make out the face and the body that belonged to the voice. “Who’s there?”

“I’m sorry.” A figure detached itself from the shadows and moved toward me, into the light. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

I bit my lip as I looked the stranger over. If Nick and the groom’s friends had displayed the gloss and the ease of old money, at home in their own skin, convinced of their own worth, of their own place in the world, this guy was neither shiny nor comfortable. His hair was thick and dark, cut so that it covered his forehead. He had dark skin, thick brows, a narrow face, and big brown eyes behind heavy, plastic-framed glasses.

From the neck down, things only got worse. His chest was narrow, his belly was soft, his hips were wide, and his legs were as skinny as twigs. He wore the same kind of shorts that Nick had been wearing, but while Nick’s were faded to a pinkish-maroon and looked soft and worn and comfortable, this guy’s shorts were fire-engine red, the waist pulled up high and tight around his midsection, the leg holes so loose that they made his thin legs look scrawny. He was beltless, which was wrong, and his white polo shirt was tucked in, which was also wrong. A plume of chest hair protruded from the V-neck. Instead of bare feet or flip-flops or deck shoes, he was wearing—I blinked to confirm it—sandals. Tevas. With white athletic socks pulled halfway up his hairy shins.

“Is Drue all right?” he asked again, a little more urgently.

“She’s fine,” I said. “Are—are you a friend?” It seemed highly unlikely that he was Drue’s friend; unlikely, too, that he was one of Stuart’s buddies.

“A friend,” he repeated. “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “I work with Mr. Cavanaugh.”

“Ah.” That, at least, made a species of sense. I imagined he was some kind of tech wizard, socially awkward but brilliant.

“I saw what happened—” He gestured down toward the beach. “I was worried. About the bride.”

“Do you know Drue?”

He opened his mouth and then closed it, and shook his head. “Not well,” he said. “But still.” He touched his chest. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Is her fiancé with her?”

“He wasn’t when I left.”

The stranger sighed, looking troubled. “I was going to bring her this.” He reached behind him and showed me a glass of ice water. “But I saw that you thought of it first. You’re her friend from high school, right?”

“Right,” I said, and wondered why a business associate of Mr. Cavanaugh’s knew so much about the boss’s daughter. Then again, he hadn’t mentioned anything that couldn’t be learned from a quick peek at Drue’s Instagram. “Well. I guess I’ll see you at the wedding tomorrow!”

He nodded. “Yes. See you there.”

Weird, I thought. I crossed the deck and opened the door on Drue’s side of the hot tub. Maybe he’d seen Drue at work and become infatuated with her. Maybe he was some lovestruck Romeo, come to torture himself as the girl he loved married another man. Or maybe, I told myself as I opened the door out to my own deck, he’s just a normal, decent person who was trying to do something kind.

When I stepped out onto my deck, my heart leapt. There was Nick Andros, sitting on the edge of the round, cushioned daybed with two shot glasses in his hand.

“I thought you could use a drink,” he said, handing me a glass.

“You have no idea.” I sat down beside him on the daybed, clinked my glass against his, and swallowed it down. The whiskey made my eyes water, and lit up my throat and my chest with a welcome glow.

“This place is insane,” he said, tilting his head to look up at the house. “I bet I could move into one of the guest rooms and no one would know I was here.”

“You and a family of four,” I said.

“So what’s going on?” he asked, his face full of concern. “Are you okay? Is she okay?”

I nodded. “I’m fine. Drue, not so much.”

He shook his head. “Weddings bring out the worst in people. Two of my cousins got in a fight because Ellie wanted an adults-only wedding and Anne showed up with her baby. In a tiny little baby tuxedo that she’d obviously bought for the occasion.”

“Oof,” I murmured. I decided not to bring up the fact that Drue hadn’t remembered him. She was upset, and maybe she’d been drinking, and then there’d been that fight. Surely the combination of emotion, alcohol, and a four-hundred-person guest list could explain the confusion.

“Do you think there’s going to be a wedding in the morning?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m sure the Lathrop Cavanaughs can find a way to sweep it all under the carpet. WASPs, you know,” I said, hoping, belatedly, he wasn’t one. He must have guessed what I was thinking, because he smiled and shook his head.