It was six in the afternoon, and I was still in New York. My secretary had screwed up and had scheduled me a meeting with two pompous assholes who’d done nothing but waste my time.
It had taken two hours to answer all their stupid questions, and when it was finally over, I closed and locked the door to my office. Looking at my watch, I realized I’d be arriving later than I’d intended. Taking off for the Hamptons just after rush hour was crazy, but I couldn’t put it off anymore.
Steve was waiting for me outside once I was ready to go.
“Nicholas,” he said, bowing slightly and grabbing the briefcase I handed him.
“How’s traffic, Steve?” I asked him as my phone started vibrating.
I ignored it and got into the passenger seat of my car. I needed to close my eyes and still the whirlwind of thoughts passing through my mind.
“Same as always,” he said, sitting behind the wheel and heading east. If it thinned out, we could make it in two and a half hours. Maybe.
Steve was now my right-hand man, my driver, my bodyguard, my fixer. He’d been working for the family since I was seven, so he knew me better than almost anyone. More importantly, he knew when to talk and when to keep silent. He knew perfectly what I had to face in the coming days, and I was grateful when he put on some relaxing music, neither too fast nor too slow. It was the ideal rhythm to help me try to convince myself I wouldn’t lose it at the wedding. I’d need to control myself, my mood, keep an eye out for anything that could break the fort I’d built around myself, high up and far away from anyone…anyone and everyone, especially her.
We stopped an hour and a half later at a roadside gas station. I’d let myself doze off a little, and now I was feeling edgy, so I told Steve to step aside and let me take the wheel. He didn’t care. I suddenly wanted to chat and take my mind off things.
Going just over the speed limit, we talked about the Knicks and Lakers game so excitedly, we barely knew it before we were in the Hamptons.
Mixed emotions overtook me as we entered that part of the state that brought back so many memories. My father and mother used to have a house close to the beach; it had been a wedding present for them. It was a small place, nothing like the stereotypical mansions there, and I could still remember a little of the summers we’d spent there.
We didn’t get the chance to go too many times, unfortunately, but unless memory deceives me, I do think that was one of the few places where we’d been a real family. My father had taught me to surf on the beaches of Montauk, and I tried hard to improve so he’d be proud of me.
I thought about that, and a few bitterer things, as I turned onto the road that led to Jenna’s parents’ house. When my mother had left, my father started bringing me to the Hamptons for a week every summer to stay with the Tavishes. I had my first kiss during one of those visits… Christ, I’d been so nervous, and Jenna had been so calm. For her, it was just an experiment. Me…I almost took off running.
We did it under one of the big trees in the backyard. We were playing hide-and-go-seek, and when I found her, she grabbed my shirt and pulled me back there with her.
“You’ve got to do it now, Nick. Otherwise, it’ll be too late.”
I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about just then, but years later I’d learn that under the same tree, shaded by the leaves, Jenna’s father had asked her mother to marry him. Jenna had just found out, and the dreamy, romantic girl she kept hidden inside her had decided to emerge. She said our kiss was gross…but for me, it’d been a new beginning, and I never looked back.
Those thoughts made me stomp on the accelerator. I was so out of it that it took me a few seconds to hit the brakes when I saw what looked like a couple walking along the road. They were dressed in workout clothes, and when I flew by them and saw their blurry image, my stomach suddenly ached. Then I looked in the rearview mirror, and that ache turned into a cold sweat.
