Page 60 of The Rebound
“Look at you,” she says. “Punching above your weight. Do you like the beach, Abby? I hate the beach and yet this is where my husband takes me on my precious time off.”
“I like tropical beaches.”
“You’ll both love it,” Rory dismisses. “Chilly wind, warm beer.”
“Stop,” Sinead says. “This is so much better than the romantic B&B I wanted to book. It’s our anniversary,” she tells me, twisting around again.
“It is not,” Rory says.
“It’s one of our anniversaries.”
“Which one?” I ask, liking her more by the minute.
“The first time he saw me naked.”
I grin. “You have an anniversary for the first time you had sex?”
“No one said anything about sex,” Rory mutters. “And we’re not telling the story.”
“He was sleeping with my roommate,” she explains as he groans. “That’s all he was to me for months. The man who was always in my kitchen when I wanted to cook. And then one morning my roommate’s gone to work, I’m getting out of the shower and he walks in without even knocking.”
“I didn’t know you were in there and your shitty student apartment didn’t have a lock.”
“He sees me.Freaksout. Slips on the floor and whacks his head off the toilet. I spent six hours waiting with him in the emergency room. Turns out I would have spent six days with him if I had to. I thought he was the funniest, most interesting person I’d ever met.”
“Some couples spot each other across a crowded dance floor,” Rory says. “We have that.”
“What happened to the roommate?” I ask.
“She’s doing okay,” Sinead says. “She has a three-legged dog with sixty thousand followers on Instagram.”
“She’s also has her own dental practice,” Rory says. “As well as the dog thing. Remember we talked about putting normal achievements first?”
“And to think,” Sinead sighs. “If I was someone who showered in the evenings, none of this would ever have happened.”
“Please stop trying to make it romantic.”
I smile to myself as we turn out of the village. “Is Beth not coming?” Rory had texted earlier to say that she was.
“The fridge at the café broke, so she’s getting someone out to fix it,” he says. “She’ll catch a ride with Sean later. You remember my cousin?”
I nod. A year or two younger, he used to live up the road from Rory.
“I think his partner, Harry, is joining. Sounds like we’ll have ourselves a little gang.” He grins at me in the rearview mirror. “Hope you enjoy in-jokes you don’t understand.”
It takes an hour to get to the beach. Despite the sun shining overhead, there’s a chill on the breeze and I’m relieved I brought an old school sweatshirt of Louise’s. I also borrowed one of her swimsuits. And a T-shirt. She’d handed over all three items with pursed lips before suggesting we take a trip to the local superstore a few towns over to stock me up on theessentials.
Now I take a deep breath, tasting the tang of the ocean. The horizon seems impossibly far, a misty white line that looks like I can pinch it with my fingers and pull toward me. Several thousand miles straight ahead is the edge of Canada with plenty of storms and sea monsters and “I’m flying, Jack” icebergs in the way. But right here are green cliffs and yellow sand and three ice cream trucks competing for customers. It’s a place I’ve been to dozens of times before, but I’m surprised by the sudden pull I feel for it and look longingly at the people in the water, all of them with big goofy grins on their faces.
“Luke’s not done yet.”
“What?” I glance sharply at Rory as he joins me.
“Luke.” Rory nods to the water where I can just make him out teaching a bunch of children how to stand on a surfboard.
“You didn’t tell me he was joining.”
He gives me a long look. “Is that a problem?”
