Surfside Sisters(69)

* * *



—

    They didn’t come out until the next morning.

When she opened her eyes, she saw Sebastian lying next to her.

“Oh my goodness,” she said. “I can’t believe it.”

“Believe it,” Sebastian told her. “Check out the covers.”

The top sheet and light quilt had been twisted into a mountain of fabric.

“It’s a work of art,” Keely said.

“You’re a work of art,” Sebastian told her, and drew her close to him, so that her head was on his shoulder and his arm around her back.

“What time is it?”

His chin dug slightly into her head as he leaned over to check the clock. “Nine-thirty.”

“I don’t think I’m going to get much writing done today,” she said.

“Maybe not, but I’m going to give you some good material.” He lifted her hair and kissed the back of her neck, and turned her to face him, and kissed her throat, and then her collarbone.

I have morning breath, Keely thought in a panic. Then she forgot about everything except Sebastian’s mouth.

Later, they sat on his sofa, drinking coffee. Keely was sitting propped with her legs stretched out and her feet in Sebastian’s lap. They’d heard sounds from his shop—his employee entering and opening the doors, voices, a phone ringing. Sebastian was in no hurry to get to work.

“So,” Sebastian said, “want to see that movie tonight?”

Keely smiled. “I’ll see any movie you want to show me.”

Sebastian ran his fingers over Keely’s ankles. “Are you ready to take this public?”

“This?”

“You and me. As a couple. Together.”

“Are we going from zero to sixty too fast?” Keely asked. Her heart was jumping rope and it wasn’t from the caffeine.

    “Are we? I don’t think so. We’re adults now. We’ve had some fun and we’ve been in and out of love. We’ve traveled. We can trust what our hearts tell us.”

Keely dipped her head at his romantic words. They delighted her, and frightened her a little, too. “What about your Swedish stewardess—”

“She’s not a stewardess and never has been. Ebba is an artist. And the Swedes were doing scrimshaw before we were. I learned a lot over there.”

“Do you want to go back?”

“Do you want to go back to Tommy?”

Keely laughed. “No, Sebastian. First of all, he’s married to Isabelle. They have a child. They’re happy.”

“But you were angry with Isabelle when she married Tommy.”

“True. It happened so fast, sort of like the moment my back was turned. Isabelle didn’t tell me what she was going to do. I felt—spurned. Scorned. By Tommy, yes, but also by Isabelle. Like she was playing a trick on me. But I’m over all that now.”

“Okay, then, do you want to live in New York?”

Keely thought a moment. “Not anymore. I want to live here, on this island. But I want to go there often. You know my editor and agent are there, and I love the museums and plays and shops…”

“And the guy in New York? Gray?”

Keely stared down into her coffee mug, as if she could find the answer there.

Finally she said, “I admire Gray. I’m fond of him. He’s a pediatric surgeon, and he’s intense. I want to love him”—she glanced up at Sebastian with a smile—“but I can’t…I don’t know how to say it. I can’t get comfortable with him.”

“Can you get comfortable with me?” Sebastian asked.

Keely smiled at him. “More than comfortable, I’d say.”

“But out of bed. Out in the world. Daily life.”

She took a deep breath, marshaling her thoughts. Somehow she’d arrived at a crossroads, a place she never dreamed she would be. “I don’t know, Sebastian,” she answered honestly. “The thing is…well, your family.” She held up her hand. “No, let me finish. It’s not just about Isabelle. It’s that all my life I envied your family so terribly it was like an open wound in my heart. Your mother is so lovely, and so perfect. She always took good care of you kids, and never missed a game or a meet. And your father is an important man in this town.” She hesitated, wondering whether to mention Al Maxwell’s coldness the day he read her father’s will. Let it go, she decided. “And that wonderful house…and my mother is totally a good person, she’s a nurse, she’s helped so many people, but she is…quieter…than your mother. My father liked to do things with me—he taught me how to surf cast out at the Madaket Beach. Stuff like that. But often he was working, and too tired to do much else. I loved him. I miss him. But…it’s terrible, and I feel guilty, but I just always wished I had your family.”

    “But if you’d had my family, you couldn’t be with me. That would be incest. Our children would be cross-eyed.”

Keely nearly fell off the sofa. Our children? Sebastian was thinking: our children?

“We did have a happy family,” Sebastian admitted in a more serious tone. “We’re fortunate. But God knows we’re not perfect. My father’s a lawyer, sure, but as the years have passed, his profession is wearing on him. He’s getting short-tempered. Argumentative. Nothing lives up to his standards. Certainly not my work, which he sees as unworthy of a Maxwell. He wanted me to be a lawyer, too. He thinks scrimshaw is outdated and foolish. We argue about it a lot, which is one reason I don’t go over for Sunday lunch anymore.”