The Idea of You: A Novel
The Idea of You: côte d’azur

I knew I would go. The way he’d dangled it in the air … like candy. This sweet, sweet lure. The way he’d phrased it. As if I did not have a choice. The way it fit into my schedule. Easy.

I had the gallery’s travel agent make the arrangements: a quick detour to Nice following Art Basel. I lied to Lulit and told her I was visiting family. I lied to my family and told them I was meeting clients. I tried to be honest with myself. It was just physical, this arrangement. Carnal. Nothing more, nothing less. And knowing that, I thought, would allow me to enjoy the ride.

I should have been able to pull it off: sex without guilt, sex without shame, sex without expectation. The French had been doing it for centuries. It was in my DNA. Surely, I could tap into that part of me that had yet to surface. Three days on the Riviera with a beautiful boy and no strings attached. I would not overthink it. I would go and have fun, and then return to my life. And no one would be the wiser. It had been three years. I deserved this.

*   *   *

The week before I left for Switzerland, Isabelle and I spent the weekend in Santa Barbara. Just the two of us, at the Bacara Resort, catching up on some mother-daughter time as I’d promised. She was heading off to Maine for summer camp at the end of the month and would be gone until mid-August. As it did every year, the pending separation weighed on me. The idea that she would return to me forever changed, in some small way or another. Time eluding us both.

Late in the afternoon on Saturday, we laid out a blanket on a promontory overlooking the ocean, and set out to capture the view in watercolors. It had become something of a ritual for us, painting side by side. I dreaded the day she would outgrow it.

I watched her as she painted in broad, sure strokes, confident in her artistry. Her nose screwed up in concentration, her French pout. Her long hair knotted at the base of her neck, secured with a pencil, like I used to wear mine in school. For all her independence, she was still my mini-me. We had marveled at that when she was small. Those first few weeks home from the hospital when everything was new and full of wonder. Daniel and I would lie in bed cocooning her and gazing at her features, her every little movement. Discovering what was mine and what was his and what was decidedly Isabelle’s. Falling in love with her, and each other, anew.

“Do you think you’ll ever get married again, Mom?”

It came out of nowhere. The big questions always did.

“I don’t know, peanut. Maybe…”

She was quiet for a moment, filling in her sky.

“Why? What made you ask?”

Isabelle shrugged. “I just wonder sometimes. I don’t want you to be lonely.”

“Lonely? Do you think I’m lonely?” I laughed, uneasy. “I’ve got you.”

“I know, but…” She stopped to look at me. “I just want you to be happy.”

I was not sure where all this was coming from. In the beginning, I’d spent a great deal of time letting her know that I was all right. That the divorce was best for all of us. That Daniel and I would be happier people apart, and how that, in turn, would make us better parents. It took much consoling and eighteen months of therapy, but lately the topic hadn’t reared its head.

“I am happy, honey,” I said, returning to my makeshift easel. “I have everything I need.”

It sounded truthful.

She watched me for a while. Scrutinizing my horizon, the meeting of violet and cerulean. And then: “I think Daddy’s going to marry Eva.”

It was a kick to the gut. “Why do you say that?”

She shrugged, noncommittal.

“Did he say something to you?”

“I think he’s feeling me out,” she said.

I sensed it: the familiar tightness in my chest. It had been years, but there it was, that thick, heavy feeling of something lost. “Why? What did he say to you?”

She shrugged again, looking away. I could see her struggling to make this easier for me.

“Isabelle?”

“He said that you would always be my mother. No matter what happened. That nothing would ever change that.”

She’d said it flatly, with little emotion. But it was all there.

“Oh.”

We sat for a moment, neither of us speaking, lost in our thoughts. The sound of the waves. The sun flaring white on the water.

“I just thought it sounded like he was trying to prepare me for something. I thought you should be prepared, too.”

*   *   *

It stayed with me, Isabelle’s concerns. I did not bring it up with Daniel because it wasn’t my place. But it felt a bit like waiting for the other shoe to drop. And so I left for Europe with a little bit of a hollow in my heart. The one that I thought had mended. And I tried my best to forget it was there.

*   *   *

Hayes and his bandmates were staying at a fabulous villa on the Cap d’Antibes. They were there for only a week before heading up to record at some state-of-the-art studio in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. This was a luxury, he’d conveyed, as more often than not they found themselves recording in hotel rooms in between shows. Hayes and Oliver and occasionally Rory doing the bulk of the songwriting with their producers at odd hours of the night; the boys laying vocal tracks in their makeshift studio, mattresses propped against the walls for acoustics. No rest for the weary.

In the time since I’d last seen him, they’d wrapped up the North American leg of the Petty Desires tour, spent two weeks decompressing at home, and were gearing up for their next album. It was a machine, he’d explained. They were milking them, twelve months a year, to feed a growing fandom that seemed to not be able to get enough of these five boys.

“There’s like a clock ticking. An expiration date,” he’d said, late one night on the phone from London. “I think they’re afraid we’re going to grow hair on our chests and our fans are going to just up and disappear. So they’re trying to get as much money out of us as they can now. But really we could use a break. Take That are working on yet another album, and the New Kids are still doing cruises and they’re in their forties. They still have die-hard fans. But they both took breaks.”

“Do you want to still be doing this in your forties?” The idea seemed absurd.

“I don’t know. I think I just want to do it until it’s not fun anymore. Sometimes I think that could be sooner rather than later. But then, look at the Rolling Stones. They’re still having a heck of a good time.”

August Moon was not the Rolling Stones. But I did not want to be the one to tell him that.

*   *   *

The Monday morning after the closing of Basel, I flew directly to Nice and barely had time to unpack and shower at my hotel in Cannes before Hayes sent a car and driver to retrieve me. I’d rejected his offer to stay at their villa, not liking the impression it gave, but I’d agreed to join him for the afternoon.

The estate of Domaine La Dilecta was breathtaking. Iron gates rolling back to reveal a rambling drive, acres of lush lawn, a sizable guesthouse, a majestic villa perched atop the hill—stark white against an azure sky. I could get used to this, rock star living.

He was standing there beneath the portico. Tall and slim-hipped, in head-to-toe black and Wayfarers. His jeans, skinnier than mine.

“So…” I said, stepping out of the car. “This is you?”

He smiled, leaning into me. Oh, the smell of him. “This is us.”

“It’s not a bad pad you’ve got.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Thirty million records will do that for you. Welcome. No bags?”

“I told you: I’m not staying.” Sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ FindNøvᴇl.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“Right.” He smiled his half smile, dimples beckoning. “No pressure.”

He took my hand then, leading me into the house, through the foyer, and up the stairs to the main floor, past room after oversized room. The architecture was Art Deco, the décor ornate. Not particularly my style, but impressive nonetheless.

“So all is well in Basel?”

“All is well in Basel.”

“Did you sell a plethora of art?” He smiled. His skin was bronzed, kissed by the Riviera sun.

“A plethora of art.” My laugh echoed over the marble floors.

It had been a week of wining and dining and posturing in a variety of languages: English and French and Italian, a smattering of German and Japanese. Lulit had bemoaned the fact that, despite the three Ivy League degrees between us, it still came down to the length of our skirts, but we’d stuck to our mantra—Go. Sell. Art. To rich white men—and sold out our entire booth at the fair.

“This place is massive.”

Hayes and I had happened into a drawing room. There was a baby grand piano in the center, and he ran his fingers over the keys as we walked through. The motion was simple, and yet the melody he’d produced was so pure, it stayed with me.

“You have to see the rest of the grounds,” he said as he continued across the space. “The record company’s treat. A little ‘Well done, lads! Have a spot of fun and then back to work, all right? But if you’re inclined to do some writing in the interim, we won’t stop you.’”

He threw open a set of doors, opening onto a grand terrace, revealing the yard in all its vast verdant glory. A bit of a ways down there was a sizable pool, a handsome pool house, and way, way beyond the rolling hills and the horizon of trees, there was the Mediterranean.

The two of us stood for a minute, soaking it in. I could barely make out a few bodies prostrate on the lounges poolside. But other than that, it felt like we had the place to ourselves.

“So,” Hayes continued, “we’re here for a few more days, and then we head into the studio to work on Wise or Naked.”

“Wise or Naked?”

“The new album.”

“Oh. So which one are you?”

He laughed. “Which one would you like me to be?”

“Ideally, both.”

“Ha! That’s a flirt, not a spar.”

“You’re getting good at this.”

“I have an exceptional teacher. Come meet our friends.”

I followed him down to the lawn and across the wide expanse of grass. “Where is everyone?”

“Liam and Simon took the boat out to go jet-skiing with Nick and Desmond, a couple of our security guys. Oliver is playing tennis down at the courts with Raj. Trevor and Fergus, also security, are in the gym. And Rory … I think Rory is taking a well-deserved nap.” He laughed at that.

And then I understood.

Lying out by the pool were three young, sublimely formed females in various stages of naked. If I hadn’t had a heart-to-heart with myself about being comfortable with the fact that I would likely be twenty years older than all the other eye candy offered on this trip, I might have reacted differently. I might have run back to my hotel. Back to L.A. But I’d rationalized it shopping for swimsuits at Barneys. And on the flight to Switzerland. And again, just now, in the drive over from Cannes. I was here because Hayes wanted me to be. And being near forty and having birthed and nursed a child did not change any of that.

Hayes proceeded to introduce me to their guests. In one corner, Oliver’s girlfriend, Charlotte: a porcelain-skinned, bikinied brunette who’d separated herself from the others with the aid of an oversized sun hat and an iPad. She smiled up at me from her place in the sun, sipping Vittel and cracking pistachios with the finesse of a duchess.

And in the other corner, the French girls, Émilie and Carine. I’d mistaken them for twins, but Hayes disabused me of that notion. They were locals, friends of Rory, delightfully pretty and ridiculously young, in matching black bikini bottoms. And sunglasses.

“Ça va?” I nodded toward them. I’d grown up summering with girls like this. I had only stopped being intimidated once I’d realized that the particularly aggressive mixture of competitive tanning, cigarettes, and Bordeaux caught up with them at around age thirty-two. But I could appreciate them for all their nubile beauty now. I assumed Hayes could as well.

“Avez-vous du feu?” the one with the slightly more perfect breasts asked.

“Non, desolée. Je fume pas.”

“Tant pis, alors.” She tossed her blonde head.

Hayes called to me from the far side of the pool. Someone had set up a lovely spread: crudités, fresh fruit, a selection of chilled drinks. “Rosé?”

“What? No Scotch?” I made my way over to him.

“When in France…”

“So your friend Émilie—”

“Rory’s friend,” he corrected me, pouring the wine.

“Rory’s friend. She just vous-ed me.”

“So?”

“So I’m guessing she thinks I’m your mother. Or that I work here.”

“Really?” he said, handing me a full glass. And then, before I could take a sip, he grabbed my head in both his hands and kissed me firmly on the mouth. “Well … she doesn’t think that now.”

Somehow I’d managed to forget how wonderful his mouth was. Soft, enticing. “You should probably do that again. Just to be sure.”

“Just to be sure,” he repeated. And then he obliged me.

When he eventually pulled away, I could feel the girls’ eyes on us. Even Charlotte, who was still cracking pistachios.

“Not that that wasn’t fun,” he said, soft, “but you probably shouldn’t care what she thinks.

“Come.” He grabbed his glass. “Let’s go for a walk.”

“The French girls, what are they? Twelve?” I asked once out of earshot.

He laughed. “Eighteen.”

“You know that for a fact?”

“Desmond checked their IDs.”

I paused for a moment, making sense of it. “Is that what Desmond does? Does Desmond check IDs?”

Hayes smiled. “No one on the premises under eighteen. That’s the rule.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “No one asked for my ID.”

“I vouched for you. Come here.” He took my chin in his free hand and kissed me. “Twelve…” He laughed.

“They look twelve to me.”

“Isabelle is twelve. Isabelle is not that. Yet.”

I gave him one of my best withering looks.

“I’m kidding. Isabelle will never be that. She’s going to go from twelve straight to sixty. No stopping in between.”

I looked back toward the pool then. One of the girls was oiling the other’s back. Was this real life? “Aahhh, France…”

Hayes smiled, wide. “It’s like a gift.”

“I imagine it is. I imagine being in a boy band is like a gift as well.”

“Sometimes.” He sipped from his glass.

“Only sometimes? When is it not a gift?”

“When the woman you’re trying to impress reminds you that you’re in a boy band.”

“Touché,” I said. We were making the trek across the lawn down toward the south corner of the property. “Are you trying to impress me?”

“Was that not apparent?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“But you didn’t bring any bags.”

“I’ve got this.” I smiled, proffering my purse: the Céline hobo bag in chamois, perfect for everything but holding a change of clothes.

“Does it have a toothbrush in it?”

“You’re bad—”

“If not, I’m not interested.”

“You would fuck me even if I didn’t bring a toothbrush.”

Hayes stopped in his tracks, pushing his sunglasses up on his head. “You just used the f-word.”

“Imagine that…”

“I have been. For two months now,” he admitted. “You realize this changes everything, right? I was trying to be a gentleman, but why bother?”

I smiled, swilling the wine. “I like that you’re a gentleman.”

“You, Solène Marchand, are very complex. Which I find incredibly appealing.”

“Like unfolding a flower?”

It took a moment, and then he remembered, smiling. “Like unfolding a flower.”

A sudden glare of light ahead caught our attention, and Hayes and I looked up to see a golf cart careening toward us from the direction of what I assumed were the tennis courts. Rory was at the wheel, Oliver beside him, long legs outstretched on the dash, and Raj was seated on the bench in the rear. They made for quite a sight. Bronzed youthful skin, chiseled features. Like they’d rolled out of the pages of a catalog …

“’Ello, chaps!” Rory called, bringing the cart to an abrupt halt alongside us. “Where are you two off to? Hi, I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Rory.”

“Solène.”

“Enchanté,” he said in a thick Yorkshire accent. He had a lopsided grin and random tattoos on his arms, and still I could see the appeal. The dark hooded eyes, the leather necklaces, the scruff on his otherwise youthful face.

“You have actually,” Hayes intervened. “In Las Vegas.”

“This year?”

“How was Switzerland?” Oliver asked, which threw me. We hadn’t spoken since that evening at the Mandalay Bay and here he knew my itinerary. It made me wonder how much these boys shared. My mind flashed back to the Crosby Street Hotel. What, if anything, had Hayes told him?

“Switzerland was lovely, thank you.”

He smiled, nodding slowly. I could not discern what was going on behind his gold-rimmed aviators.

“Good to see you, Solène.” Raj waved. In a polo and madras shorts, he seemed decidedly less business wunderkind and more sixth boy band member.

“Are you guys coming from the pool? Are the twins still there?” Rory raised an eyebrow.

“They’re not twins, you know, mate. They’re not even sisters,” Hayes laughed.

“Let me have the fantasy, man.”

“Simon, Liam, and the others are on their way back,” Raj said. “The match is at six. Benoît is grilling lobster. We can eat at eight. And Croatia and Mexico won’t start until ten.”

I felt like they were speaking in code. “What match?”

“Netherlands and Chile,” Hayes said. And when my expression indicated that I’d registered nothing, he added, “The World Cup.”

“Oh. Right.”

“It’s going to be a hell of a match,” Oliver said. “I hope you’ll stay.”

“We haven’t decided what we’re doing yet,” Hayes said, wrapping his arm around my waist in a manner that struck me as possessive. “We’ll let you know.”

“All right, we’re off!” Rory announced.

“Nice watch,” Raj called back as they peeled out.

Hayes laughed. “She’s keeping it warm for me. I can only wear one at a time!

“We don’t have to stay,” he said once we were alone again. “It’s going to be loud and crazy, and if you’d rather not, I certainly understand. We can go out for dinner. Or we can go back to your hotel, or … whatever makes you most comfortable.”

There was something about Hayes when he was being polite that was such a turn-on. The idea that no matter how famous he was he had this breeding that would endure.

“You know what? Why don’t we go to your room?” Even as I said it, I could feel my face flushing. It was not like me. But none of this had been. I was redefining. This was me trying to enjoy myself. This was me trying not to care.

His eyes widened. “Now?”

“Yes. Now. Why? Is it not tidy?” I smiled up at him.

“Oh … it’s tidy.”

“Well, good then.”

“I just thought you wouldn’t want to … see it … so early in the day.”

“Well, we’re just looking at it, right?” I said, polishing off the rosé.

“Yep.” He nodded, all dimples. “We’re just looking at it.”

*   *   *

It didn’t take long to trek back to the house and up to Hayes’s suite. It was, like everything else at Domaine La Dilecta, lavishly decorated: an eclectic mixture of furniture, various objets d’art, trompe l’oeil on the walls.

“So this is where the magic happens,” I said, tossing my bag on an armchair in the corner. There was a sunken alcove off the main room, bright with magnificent wraparound views.

Hayes laughed, setting down his wine. “Magic? No pressure or anything.”

“None at all. Goodness, it’s like Versailles in here.”

“I think they were going for a thing.”

“A thing?” I approached him.

“A thing,” he repeated, reaching out for my waist and pulling me into him. “You are so fucking beautiful.”

“You said the f-word.”

“You started.”

“Maybe.” I flinched. His fingers had found their way beneath the hem of my blouse and were surprisingly cool against my skin.

“Are my hands cold? Sorry,” he said, but he did not remove them.

I stood there, breathing him in. Wondering at how effortlessly he managed to span my waist, making me feel fragile, breakable almost. His thumbs tracing over my bottom ribs, and alternately fondling the material of my shirt.

“I like this top,” he said.

The blouse was white, sleeveless, sheer in some places, ruffled in others, and altogether very feminine. I felt like a girl in it, which is admittedly why I’d bought it for this trip. So that I would not look like someone’s mother.

“Are you just going to stand there counting my ribs, or are you going to kiss me?”

He smiled at that, his eyes decidedly green. “You like me kissing you.”

“Well, I did come all this way…”

“I thought you came to return my watch.”

“You want it back?”

He shook his head. “I just want to look at you for a moment.”

“You’ve been looking at me for over an hour.”

“Yeah, but before I was trying not to be obvious about it. Come here.” He led me over to the daybed against the far wall and pulled me onto his lap.

I could feel him through his pants. Oh, the wonders of twenty.

“You want to be kissed, Solène?” His hands were in my hair, pushing it off my face, cradling my neck.

“Yes.” I nodded. “You think you can handle that?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

*   *   *

We had not been at it for five minutes when I was distracted by a series of calls coming in to my phone. I could hear it vibrating in my purse. Across the room, in the chair, while Hayes’s mouth was on my neck, his hands up the back of my blouse. I attempted to ignore it.

The calls then switched to the text signal, one after another. I pulled away from him for a moment, trying to do the math. What time was it in Los Angeles? Boston?

“Do you want to get that?” His hands were on my breasts, over my bra, his thumbs rubbing my nipples through the sheer material. Black, silk, ridiculously overpriced, purchased expressly for this trip. Getting that was the last thing I wanted to do.

Eight twenty-five a.m., I registered. Eleven twenty-five Eastern. “No.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay.” He smiled and slowly lifted off my blouse. “Hiiii.” That face.

“Hi, yourself.”

His finger hooked beneath the shoulder strap of my bra, before running down over my breastbone and dipping inside the demi cup. Teasing. He looked up, as if to check in with me, before pushing the material to the side and lowering his head. My breath caught, his tongue on my nipple. Fuck fuck fuck. What was it about being with him that made me feel as if everything were happening for the first time?

My fingers entwined in his hair as he unhooked the clasp and cupped my breasts in his hands.

“God, everything about you is perfect,” he said. It was precisely what an almost forty-year-old woman wanted to hear about her breasts.

I was reveling in the smell of his hair and the feel of his mouth when I heard it again, my phone. Dammit.

I waited for two more text alerts before I attempted to stop him. “Hayes … Hayes.”

He lifted his head, slow.

“I should probably make sure that’s not an emergency.”

He nodded, his eyes holding mine as he completed removing the bra and placed it beside him on the bed. “Go,” he said, coy. “But come back to me.”

*   *   *

There were three missed calls and voicemails from Isabelle. Followed by five texts:

Where are you?

Please call me!!

It’s urgent!!!

Mom!!!!!!!

Mommy!!!!!

Shit.

“I’m sorry. I have to take this. It’s Isabelle.”

He was reclining on the daybed, arms clasped behind his lovely head, long legs hanging off the edge. “Do what you have to do. I’ll wait.”

She answered in a tizzy. Frenetic, which was not typical of her behavior.

“Heeey. What’s happening?”

“Why aren’t you here?”

“Because, honey, I had to come for Basel. You know that. Is everything okay? What’s going on?” I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that it had happened, that Daniel had proposed. And that I was going to have to be strong for her, six thousand miles away and topless. And that I was going to have to lie and tell her that it wasn’t going to change anything, even though deep down I knew it would. And that Hayes was going to be witness to it all.

I folded my arm across my “everything about you is perfect” breasts and prepared for the worst.

“You should be here.” She’d begun to cry. “I need you.”

“Izz … what happened?”

“I got my period.”

I sank into the armchair then, relieved. “Izz, that’s great. That’s wonderful. Congratulations!”

“It’s not wonderful. You’re not here.”

“I know, honey, I’m sorry. But we thought there was a good chance it was going to happen this summer when you were in Maine anyway.” This was me trying to deflect the fact that I was an absentee mother out gallivanting in the South of France with rock stars while my daughter was experiencing her first true coming-of-age milestone. I sucked.

She was quiet for a moment. I was staring out at the lawn, the long drive winding down the hill, so much green.

“It got on the sheets,” she whispered.

“It’s okay, you can wash them. Use cold water. But do it now, okay. Don’t wait.”

“And I don’t have any, like, stuff here.”

“We’ll take care of that. Where’s Daddy?”

“He’s out running.”

“All right. He can swing by the drugstore before work.”

“I’m not telling him.”

I could feel her getting worked up again over the phone. “Isabelle, he’s your father.”

“He’s a guy.”

I smiled at that, looking over into the alcove. A guitar case was propped up against the far wall. Hayes was in the same position on the daybed, eyes closed. I wasn’t sure if he was sleeping or just lying very still, listening. “Honey, he’s your dad. He’s not just a guy. I promise.”

“No, I’m not telling him.” She paused. “You tell him.”

“Okay, I’ll tell him—”

“No, don’t tell him.”

I laughed. “Where’s Eva?”

“In the shower, I think.”

I hated going this route. I hated knowing that she would be the one to hug her first, to share knowing looks and nudges and traipse with her through the aisles of CVS in search of Always with Wings. Like some chummy big sister or cool aunt and not the intellectual property tramp who was fucking her father. But it was not to be avoided.

“Do you feel comfortable talking to Eva?” I asked.

She was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know. I guess…”

“She’s not a guy.”

“She’s not my mom.”

That hurt and felt good at the same time. “I’m sorry I’m not there, Izz. Truly. I’m sorry. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Hurry up and come home, okay?”

Just then a black Range Rover came pulling up the drive followed by two smaller cars. Simon and Liam were back. The thought arose that maybe they could see into this window.

“I’ll see you Thursday, in Boston. And we’ll celebrate. Promise.”

“Okay,” she sighed. “Have fun. Don’t work too hard.”

The last bit was like twisting the knife.

“Bisous,” she said.

“Bisous.”

“Everything okay?” Hayes asked when I sat beside him on the bed.

“Yeah.”

“Girl stuff?”

I smiled, nodding. “She would die if she knew you knew.”

“I won’t tell her then.” He reached up to stroke my hair, his movements slow, lethargic.

“Your friends are back.”

“Yeah. The match is starting soon.”

“I don’t think this is going to happen right now,” I laughed, awkward, my arms still across my breasts. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” He smiled. “It couldn’t be avoided. I’m sorry for Isabelle that you weren’t there.”

I felt my chest tighten then, and for a second I thought I might cry. “I’m sorry, too.”

“Come here.” He pulled me onto him. “Come lie down with me for five minutes. Before the madness…”

“The madness?”

He nodded. “There’s always madness.”

*   *   *

Hayes was right. There was a certain level of madness. Simon and Liam were loud, crazy. They’d returned from their jet-ski outing with two girls. Apiece. I wasn’t certain whether they’d just met them or they were prior acquaintances. I did not want to ask. But I had this moment of “What the fuck am I doing here?” followed by “Where are these girls’ mothers?” And I felt an intense need to chaperone them all.

Much later, when I had the gumption to ask Hayes if it was typical of his bandmates to entertain two women at a time, he laughed, amused. “No. Usually they’re interested in one and the other is a friend or sister who tags along for moral support. A wing woman, if you will. Except for in extreme cases … like Rory. Or … Ibiza.”

For those who cared, the Netherlands v. Chile game was a nail-biter. For me, it was an opportunity to down rosé and oysters on the terrace while the others hooted and hollered and yelled indecipherable Britishisms in the salon.

When the match was over and Netherlands had triumphed, the gang descended on the lobster spread and then, after, engaged in an impromptu soccer game and frolicking on the lawn.

“Do you have everything you need? Are you all right?” Hayes insisted on checking in every ten minutes or so. He’d swept his hair back with a headband and changed into a jersey and shorts to play, and there was something so boyish about him that it almost felt wrong. Almost.

“I’m fine. Watching you and your friends have fun.”

“All right.” He kissed me, the sweet smell of sweat on his skin. “Let me know when you stop being fine, all right?”

At some point in the evening, Rory headed up to the terrace with the French sister wives and a guitar and began serenading them. By the time he launched into a startlingly good rendition of “Hotel California,” the lot of us had joined him, Simon and Liam chiming in with some impressive harmonies. I felt like I was in college all over again. Except these guys actually got paid to do this. I drank in the moment: Cap d’Antibes on a balmy June night. Close to ten and the sky a pale orchid, the immense stretch of green, the smell of the sea, the wine, and “a lot of pretty, pretty boys…”

I chose not to stay for the second match. Hayes insisted on driving me back to my hotel but did not press to come upstairs when I pled exhaustion.

“Come with me to Saint-Tropez tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll have lunch.” We were sitting in his Bentley Continental cabriolet, a rental, in a parking space on the Croisette, a few doors down from the Hôtel Martinez. Stalling. “It’s just going to be a handful of us on the boat. Much less madness.”

“I don’t mind the madness.”

He smiled, reaching out to finger my hair. “I do. You were stellar. We’re a lot to take on, I know. I promise tomorrow will be different.”

“Did I say I didn’t have a good time? If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be here.”

“I didn’t really give you a choice,” he laughed.

“I always have a choice, Hayes.”

He let that sit there for a moment. “God … It’s really too bad you’re so knackered. It would be nice to finish what we started…”

“If you were to come upstairs now, you’d miss all of the Croatia-Mexico game.”

“Somehow I think it would be worth it.”

I took his hand from my hair then and held it to my mouth, inhaling new car leather. “I will … see you … tomorrow,” I said, and kissed his palm. Twice.

He grinned, his head reclining on the headrest. “Now you’re just teasing me.”

“Tomorrow,” I repeated.

“So you’ll come to Saint-Tropez?”

“I’ll come to Saint-Tropez.”

*   *   *

Not that I couldn’t have enjoyed a day alone decompressing from Art Basel at the hotel’s beach club, downing Campari and orange juice and luxuriating in all that was good about Cannes in its off-season. But that was not the purpose of this trip.

And I was reminded of that again, sailing through the sapphire waters of the Mediterranean under a cloudless sky. The jagged coastline bathed in Riviera light stretched out alongside us, offering up lush pines and terra-cotta rooftops. The extravagance of endless Moët & Chandon Rosé Impérial aboard a sixty-three-foot crewed yacht. The indulgence, the beauty—made all the more so with him.

It was just us, Oliver, Charlotte, Desmond, and Fergus. The others had opted to drive the Grande Corniche to Monaco and take their chances in the casinos for the day. And so, as Hayes had promised, it was tranquil. We took our time getting there, drinking in the sun and the views. And when we passed Saint-Raphaël, the town where I’d spent every summer from one to twenty-one, I felt not just a little nostalgic.

Hayes and I separated from the others in Saint-Tropez, sharing a quiet lunch on the Place des Lices and strolling the narrow cobblestoned streets. It was almost like having him to myself. And the dozen or so times he was stopped to pose for a picture, he was so gracious and his fans so adoring, I could not begrudge them the moment.

It became apparent that this, whatever it was we were doing, would never truly be just the two of us. So long as he was in August Moon, Hayes was someone I would share with the world. And I understood then why it was so important to him that I separate Hayes from Hayes Campbell.

“How do you do it?” I asked. “How do you always say yes?” We were leaving Barbarac, a gelateria, where we had been stopped by a Belgian family with two teenage girls. Hayes had obliged them with photos and autographs while I attempted to be inconspicuous, selecting gelato flavors until they were done.

He shrugged then, licking his cone. “I figure that a gesture that might take two minutes out of your life could be a much more significant moment for someone else. So you kind of don’t want to ruin it for them.”

I peered over at him: backwards baseball cap, sunglasses, dimples. That he was this sensitive, conscientious soul only sweetened the deal.

“What are you thinking?” He smiled. “You want a lick of my ice cream, right?”

“Yes,” I laughed. “I want a lick of your ice cream.”

*   *   *

The plan was to meet up with the others on the boat at four. England was playing Costa Rica at six o’clock, and the guys did not want to miss it. We had just exited Rondini, the handmade leather sandal boutique, where I’d purchased matching pairs for Isabelle and myself, and were heading down Rue Georges Clemenceau when Hayes stopped short at the corner in front of Ladurée.

“Fuck.”

“What? Did you forget something?”

“Fuck,” he repeated.

And then I saw it. The dock where we’d moored was swamped with photographers: ten to fifteen paparazzi with massive cameras and two dozen cell-phone-laden tourists.

“Where the bloody hell did they come from?” He grabbed my hand and turned me back up the narrow pedestrian street and into Rondini again.

“I’m sorry, Solène. So much for a holiday…”

I watched him whip out his iPhone and text Desmond, while the salt-and-pepper gentleman who’d assisted me before asked in French if everything was okay.

“Oui, pas de problème, merci. On attend quelqu’un.”

Hayes’s tall frame filled the space in the tiny boutique, and after a minute or so, he took a seat on one of the few chairs and pulled me onto his lap. The intimacy of the act rattled me. There were only a handful of others in the store, but the light was bright and we were in front of the shop window and it just felt public.

I tensed.

He sensed it immediately, burying his face in my hair. “I love it when I can feel you getting nervous,” he whispered.

I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out.

“Don’t worry, Solène. No one knows you here.”

He had a way of getting inside my head. Of knowing what I was thinking at the same time I was thinking it. It was possible he was that way with everyone. But I liked thinking it was just with me.

Desmond and Fergus showed up at the door shortly with a plan. They swooped in like MI6. Fergus grabbing me and our many shopping bags, Desmond taking Hayes. The strategy was to escort us separately. Hayes would arrive at the dock first and stop to take photos with civilians, luring them away from the stern of the boat. And when his presence was causing a large enough commotion, Fergus and I would board together. It wasn’t clear if we were supposed to be a couple or part of the general entourage. I suppose in the end, it didn’t matter. So long as I did not show up on TMZ.

The plan worked. And poor Hayes got stuck doing the celebrity thing for fifteen minutes, while Oliver, Charlotte, and I popped another bottle of Moët belowdecks.

“He must really like you,” Oliver said, completely straight-faced as he poured my glass. “I mean to sacrifice himself like that.”

I was not certain how to respond.

“Sometimes this business sucks,” he said. “And sometimes it’s really grand. To Hayes”—he lifted his glass—“for taking one for the team. Cheers!”

On the ride back to Antibes, we stopped for an impromptu swim near the Massif de l’Estérel. The water was a magnificent hue, and that half hour the six of us spent splashing about with the red volcanic mountains looming overhead was superlative.

Hayes and I lay on the sun pads at the fore of the boat for the remainder of the trip. His skin—bronzed, smooth, warm to the touch—was perfect. I told him so.

“Let’s go back to your hotel,” he said softly, his fingers tracing across my back.

“I thought you wanted to watch the match.”

“I do want to watch the match. But I want to go back to your hotel room more.”

I laughed, pushing myself up on my elbows. “What do you think is going to happen when we get there?”

He shrugged, his fingers playing over the ties of my bikini top, teasing. “You tell me.”

“We could cuddle.” I leaned in to kiss him. His lips tasted of salt, of sun. He offered up his tongue and I took it.

“Cuddling sounds good,” he said when we’d parted. “Naked.”

*   *   *

Desmond dropped us off at the Hôtel Martinez and we made our way through the sleek lobby as quickly as possible. My heart was already racing. Up in the elevator, down the hall, fighting with the key card. He grabbed it from my hand, stopping me.

“Full disclosure,” he said. “You should probably know…”

I braced for the worst. HIV, herpes …

“… I brought my toothbrush.” He smiled, coy. “But I’d let you fuck me even if I hadn’t.”

*   *   *

Inside, the late-afternoon sun was streaming through the French doors, bathing the large room in Provençal light. Artists’ light. Cézanne, Picasso, Renoir. A light worth capturing. It felt decidedly appropriate.

“That’s not a bad view,” Hayes said. Mediterranean blue as far as the eye could see, the hills of the Massif de l’Estérel in the west.

I agreed, setting down my bags, slipping off my sandals, easing into the soft of the carpet.

“You know what else I brought?” He smiled, reaching into a canvas bag he’d lugged over from the boat and withdrawing not one but two bottles of Moët. “I assume we’re going to be here for a while.”

Hayes opened the champagne while I fetched glasses from the minibar.

We toasted, and drank. He poured more. I made a point of turning off my phone, and then made my way over to the windows to draw the sheer curtain, diffusing the light. He came up behind me, like before, in the hotel room in Soho. And with his finger he traced the faintest of lines over the curl of my ear, down the back of my neck, across my shoulder, and along the length of my arm. I could feel myself stiffening, anticipating his mouth, his kiss, his breath at the side of my face. But they did not come. Instead, his hands worked their way down the sides of my lace sundress to the hem just above my knee. His fingertips flirted with the skirt before stealing underneath. I could hear myself breathing, could hear him breathing behind me, the room otherwise quiet. His hands ascended to my hips, and then, without hesitation, peeled off the bottom of my swimsuit.

“Um … This doesn’t feel anything like cuddling.”

He turned me to face him then, taking my glass and setting it to the side. “And it’s not going to either.”

“You lied to me, Hayes Ca—” I caught myself.

He smiled. “Maybe.” And then, with seemingly little effort, he lifted me and carried me over to the bed. “You’re not going to freak out, right?”

“It depends how good you are.”

“I’m going to be very good,” he said, sliding me back on the duvet.

In that moment, when he hiked up my dress and descended between my legs, the realization that this was indeed happening struck me as absurd. There had probably been many before me, and there would be many after, but in that moment, it was just me. And for whatever reason I was plucked from the sea of nameless, faceless women who would have willingly shared Hayes Campbell’s bed, and brought to this place, to this precise instant, to engage in this act.

His mouth was moving up along the inside of my thigh, his tongue tracing lazy circles. His movements slow, maddening. And at the moment when I thought he would land, he aborted his mission and moved to the other thigh. Like a cunnilingus flyby. I must have pulled on his hair because he laughed, raising his head.

“For someone who only wanted to cuddle, you’re awfully impatient.”

“I just wanted to make sure you knew where you were going.”

“You want to draw me a map?” He smiled. Those fucking dimples.

“Do you need one?”

“I don’t know…” He lowered his head and ran his tongue slowly, explicitly over my clitoris before looking up at me. “Do I?”

My heart all but flipped out of my chest. “No. No, you’re good.”

“Yeah. Can I do this my way now?”

I nodded, my fingers still wrapped in his hair.

He took his time. His mouth moving at the inside of my thigh again, higher, closer. His tongue teasing. And then he stopped and waited, hovering, letting me feel his breath. I didn’t dare move. And at the point where I thought I could no longer bear it, he dove in. His tongue dipping down so low it was essentially at my ass, and then ascending in one fluid motion over the opening of my vagina and up to my clit. He did it again. And again. And again. And each time was so unbelievably wonderful and thorough, I felt like I had no secrets left. Hayes, unfolding me with his mouth.

At some point he paused again, waiting, breathing, knowing what it was doing to me. That he could be so in control at his age boggled the mind. I felt myself rising off the bed to meet him when he stopped me with the palm of his hand.

“I’m not going anywhere, Solène,” he said. His voice low, raspy; his fingers playing over my lips, slipping inside.

I watched him. The light creating a soft halo around his beautiful head. He returned his mouth to me and I heard myself moan. The deftness of his tongue. But even if he hadn’t known what he was doing, the sight of Hayes Campbell with his head between my legs was an image worth holding on to.

It didn’t take very long. His mouth, his fingers, sublime. This was not his first time. And the way he held me down when I came, wrapping his arms around my legs and refusing to pull away even during the “StopStopStopStopStop,” was such a fucking turn-on that I thought I would implode.

“Are you happy?” he asked before I was even capable of speech. Climbing up beside me, wearing me on his face.

I nodded, wiping his cheeks, kissing him, tasting myself.

“Well, I guess my work here is done then.” He smiled, rolling onto his back.

“If you leave now, you might be able to catch the second half of the match.”

“You’re making jokes, I see. I suppose that’s better than freaking out.”

“I’m still freaking out. Just on the inside,” I said, positioning myself on top of him.

“What are you saying to yourself?” His hand moved up to my head, his fingers playing in my hair.

“I’m saying, ‘Wow, that alone was worth the flight to Europe.’”

“Really?” He smiled. “Are you thinking it was worth a first-class ticket or just economy?”

“That … that was worth flying private.” I reached down to pull up his T-shirt, exposing his abs, allowing my hands to run over his taut skin, his defined muscles, the crease that ran diagonally from his hip to his groin.

“Wow. That’s like a hundred-thousand-dollar orgasm.”

“At least.”

“I’m flattered. Maybe I can auction those off? eBay?”

“Do it for charity,” I said, forcing his shirt up farther, admiring the breadth of his chest, the russet color of his nipples. “Look, you have a Saint-Tropez tan.”

“A what?”

“There’s this old suntan oil, Bain de Soleil. They had these great commercials in the eighties and…” I laughed suddenly. “And you were not yet born.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Pity.” I managed to remove the rest of his shirt. His skin: so flawless, soft, like a baby’s. “You are so ridiculously beautiful,” I said, and almost immediately regretted it. I didn’t want him to know that I was falling. If indeed that’s what this was. I could indulge him with sexy, witty banter, but hesitated to go beyond that. It was like prep school all over again. He who guards his feelings wins.

“I feel the same about you,” he said. “I like everything about you.”

I was quiet then, tracing my fingers over his face: his chin, his jaw, his mouth. Saying more, I thought, could affect the order of things. The arrangement.

I kissed him, letting my hand traverse his firm stomach and land somewhere just north of his swim trunks. My fingers slipped in between the elastic waist and his skin, and he flinched. And in that instant I was reminded that he was twenty.

There is this moment that every woman knows, when she reaches into her date’s pants for the first time and is not sure what’s going to come out. And she says a little prayer to the penis gods and hopes that she will be pleasantly surprised. And for me, it hadn’t happened in a long time. But I was amazed to see the same anxiety was there. As in grad school, as in college, as in one memorable summer in Saint-Raphaël. That second of holding my breath and extending my hand … and the way that Hayes filled up my palm was a very good thing.

“Hiiii,” he said, and I laughed.

“Hi, yourself.” I took my time, freeing it from his trunks, admiring the way it lined up straight, thick, landing just above his belly button. “Mr. Campbell. This is a really nice dick.”

“You’re making me blush,” he laughed, tipping his head back. His jawline from this angle was well-defined, exquisite, like art. His beauty, like a gift that kept revealing itself.

“Sorry,” I said. “I just thought you should know.”

He was quiet when I took him in my mouth. His hands playing in my hair, gentle. His body tense beneath me. I could still smell the sunscreen on his torso, taste the salt on his skin. This sweet boy.

It did not seem so long ago that the girls and I had flown to Las Vegas. When I could not pick him out of a meet-and-greet lineup. When he was just a pogo stick on a stage amidst a sea of girls losing their minds. And now here we were.

“I don’t know your middle name,” I said, pausing.

“Sorry?” His breathing was fast.

“I just realized I don’t know your middle name.”

Hayes screwed up his face, puzzled. “Is that a requirement of yours or something?”

“If you’re going to come in my mouth, yes.”

“Really?” he laughed. “Seriously? Philip.”

“Philip,” I repeated. It was so charmingly English. “Of course it is.”

“So is that it? Do I pass?”

“With flying colors.”

It happened relatively quickly, which I suppose was a good thing. To wield that kind of power. His breath coming in short, shallow spurts, his hands gripping my skull, his moans deep and sporadic; to realize that I’d done that. Especially having not done it in so long. And to someone whose idiosyncrasies I did not yet know. Like riding a bike.

He shuddered beneath me, his warmth filling the back of my throat. Familiar.

After, when his breathing had returned to normal and I was curled up beside him, my head buried in his neck, he said: “Tell me something, if I’d told you my middle name in Las Vegas, would this have happened then?”

I laughed at that. “What do you think?”

“Because you could have found it on the Internet. It would have saved me a lot of wooing.”

“I like the wooing.”

He was quiet for a moment, his fingers running over my ribs. “I like wooing you.”

The thought crossed my mind that this could be dangerous. Not the ill-advised sex with the just-out-of-his-teens pop star, but the cuddling. The lying there, drinking in his scent, watching his chest rise and fall, allowing myself to bask in my own happiness. I could fall in love this way.

“May I ask you a question?” he asked. It was not his usual starter. “Is Daniel the last person you slept with?”

His query threw me. “Are you lying here thinking of Daniel?”

“I’m lying here thinking of you.”

The sun was shifting, casting the room in a pale pink hue. Like being inside a shell, a watercolor. I wanted to hold on to the moment, paint it.

“Yes … Does that change things for you?”

He shook his head, his fingers moving over the material of my dress. “No. So long as you’re all right with this.”

I probably should have asked him to define “this” exactly. It might have saved us a lot of confusion and heartache.

“I’m all right with this,” I said instead.

“You sure?”

I nodded.

“Let me know if that changes,” he said.

He took his time peeling off my dress, untying my bikini top, kissing and caressing every inch of me. My shoulder blades, my breasts, the dip at the base of my back, my hip bones, my knees, the insides of my wrists. He was so tender, so complete in his lovemaking. Someone had taught him well.

“Is there anything you have that I should know about?” I asked. He had fetched a condom from the canvas bag and was opening the wrapper.

“Other than a few thousand psychotic fans?” He smiled. “No.”

“Only a few thousand?”

“Who are genuinely psychotic? Yes,” he laughed. “Anything you have that I should know about?”

“A twelve-year-old daughter who will disown me when she finds out what I’m about to do,” I said, watching him roll on the condom. Condoms. Right. God, it had been a long time.

“I won’t tell her if you don’t.”

“Good. I won’t tell your fans.”

In that final minute, with Hayes above me, and my mind clear, I recalled an earlier conversation. “So this is just lunch. Right?”

He hesitated, and then smiled. “It might be more than lunch.”

That first moment of entry was everything. And after three years of nothing and ten years of Daniel—who was lovely, but definitely not Hayes—it was transcendent.

He was slow and gentle, and I knew immediately why he’d asked about my ex. Because he’d managed to make me feel like a virgin in his hands, in a way that I had not expected. I wanted to tell him that he need not be so delicate, but I was kind of enjoying it. I was kind of enjoying everything. The weight of him, the size of him, the smoothness of his back, the firmness of his ass … all of it. I didn’t even care that it hurt. Part of me wondered why I had waited so long. Perhaps what I had waited for was him.

*   *   *

We lay there, after, bathed in fractals of light, watching dust particles dance in the air, spent, happy.

“It’s a pity I don’t smoke,” I said eventually, “because I could really use a cigarette right now.”

“I have gum.”

“Gum?”

“Yes.” He rolled over, to fish through his trusty tote bag. What didn’t he have in there? “Solène, may I offer you a stick of postcoital gum?”

I laughed at that. “Why, yes, Hayes, I would love a stick of postcoital gum.”

“We should hashtag that. #stickofpostcoitalgum. Now trending.”

“Yes, your twenty-two million followers would love that.”

He stopped. “You know how many followers I have?”

I felt as if I’d been caught knowing something I was not supposed to know. Information that might have been valid for mass consumption by his fans, but not general knowledge to those who knew him personally. It was tricky, this celebrity thing.

“Do you follow me?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I follow about two hundred people. And they’re all in my industry.”

“Huh,” he said, watching me and doling out his postcoital gum. Hollywood, a French brand. So apropos.

“Would it be weird if I followed you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

He lay back then, interlacing his fingers with mine, holding our hands up toward the light. “Then again, I pursued you rather earnestly, so maybe not.”

“Rather,” I repeated. “My very posh Hayes.”

“Yes, well … It worked.” He looked over to me and smiled, one of his huge disarming smiles. “Because if you had told me that night in Las Vegas that I’d be lying here with you, naked, in a hotel room, in the South of France, in two months’ time … I would have told you, ‘No, it will probably take three.’”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“I can’t even fuck with you properly,” he laughed, rolling into me. “You’ve totally thrown me off my game.”

“I know you too well.”

“Already, right? That happened surprisingly fast.”

“Don’t go falling in love with me. Hayes Campbell.”

“I’m not gonna fall in love with you. I’m a rock star. We don’t do that.”

“You’re a boy band member.” I smiled, fingering his hair.

His eyes widened and his mouth formed this perfect O. I assumed he was going to scold me, but then he stopped himself, his face settling into a wry smile. “Well,” he said, “I guess all bets are off then.”

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