Page 39 of The Husband Hour
“I didn’t know it was you,” she said.
“Lauren?” He moved closer.
“Yeah.”
“What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? It’s my grandparents’ house.”
The sky was clear, bright with stars and a three-quarter moon. He was beautiful in the shadows but, unlike most people, no more so than he was in broad daylight. She felt the night start to shift.
“I mean here now—on prom weekend,” he said.
“Oh. That’s a good question. I don’t know, actually. Did you go? To prom, I mean?”
He nodded. “I went with my friend Heidi.”
“Heidi McClusky?” She was captain of the girls’ lacrosse team. She’d be playing for Duke next year.
“Yeah. She was going to skip it but I convinced her she should go, that we could have a good time.”
“Did you?”
“You know, it wasn’t bad. But we should have quit while we were ahead. Your house is getting trashed, you know.”
“Oh God. Yeah, I do know. I came up here to lock the bedroom door.”
“And barricade yourself in?”
She laughed. “It’s tempting.”
He looked up again. “It’s pretty nice up here, though. You can see every constellation. Want to take a walk on the beach?”
She looked out at the ocean. “Now? We can’t. The beach is closed until six a.m.”
He leaned over the ledge, following her gaze. “Some rules are worth breaking. What do you say?”
Across the street from her house, stairs led to the beach. But Rory didn’t bother with the stairs; he jumped over the low wooden balustrade dividing the end of the drive and the beach. He held out his hand and helped her down. It was only three feet high on the street side, but the sand had receded, so she misjudged her landing on the sand and he had to steady her.
The physical contact was more shocking than her near fall. But he released his hold as soon as her footing was solid. She’d barely had time to process the fact that he’d put his arm around her waist, never mind enjoy it.
It was darker than she’d anticipated. She felt like she was on completely foreign terrain, not the beach she’d walked on her entire life. Maybe it was because she knew they weren’t allowed to be out there. It felt risky, dangerous.
They took off their shoes, and she followed Rory close to the water. The sand was wet and cold. In the dark, the roar of the waves sounded so much louder than it did during the day. She sensed the power of the ocean and, under the bright stars, felt her own insignificance.
“Look that way—east.” Rory pointed out three particularly bright stars. “That’s Vega, Deneb, and Altair. The Summer Triangle. Do you see?”
“Yes, I do,” she said. “So, you’re really into constellations.”
“It’s not a constellation. It’s a star pattern called an asterism. But, yeah, I’m into astronomy. Do you ever go to the Franklin Institute?” he asked.
The Franklin Institute was a science museum in Center City, Philadelphia. The last time she had been there was for an elementary-school field trip, and she told him that. “You should check out the planetarium. It’s fun when you’re a kid but I think now you can really appreciate how incredible it is.”
“Oh, I remember that! Maybe I will.”
“Maybe I’ll go with you,” he said. She was still looking at the stars but felt his eyes on her. Heart pounding, she turned to him.
“I don’t know if I should hang out with you,” she said.
