The Idea of You: A Novel
The Idea of You: the hamptons

Visiting Day at Isabelle’s camp was the last weekend of July. In the early years, Daniel and I would go together, a forced show of solidarity. But eventually that ended. And now I handled drop-off and Parents’ Weekend, and he did the pickup. The arrangement seemed to work best for all parties.

My parents made the trip with me in Daniel’s absence. We’d drive up together from Cambridge and stay in a quaint B&B not more than an hour from the camp, each time exploring some hitherto unchartered territory. Strolling in Ogunquit, scouting small galleries in Portland. It was the one time I felt most like a daughter, when all the other labels and the weight of them seemed to fade. I welcomed it.

On that Saturday, we spent a leisurely afternoon in Boothbay Harbor. Following a fish-and-chips lunch, we popped into a very local gallery and just as quickly popped out.

“Beh,” my father grunted in that very French way of his. “Blown glass and lighthouses.”

After thirty-six years in Harvard’s art history department, my dad was almost as much of an institution as the department itself. He had opinions on such things. He’d met my mother when they were both students at the École du Louvre in Paris, the two sharing an intense love of art. He: European modern and contemporary. She: American. In the late sixties they’d arrived in New York, where he earned his Ph.D. at Columbia before they eventually settled in Cambridge. There was much they embraced about the U.S., but they were never going to not be French.

“We’re in a tiny little seaside town, Dad. What were you hoping to find?” I asked. “Koons?”

“What I am always hoping to find,” he said, stroking his once-roguish beard. “Someone who goes against the grain. Who doesn’t seem to care what everyone else thinks.”

“Ha!” I said. This from the man who did not speak to me for a week when I chose Brown over Harvard. Who cried actual tears when I moved to the West Coast. And who, in the three years since the end of my marriage, had to repeatedly stop himself from saying “I told you so.”

“He thinks you are beautiful and he thinks you are smart,” he’d surmised about Daniel, that first weekend I’d brought him to Boston, when we had been dating for seven months. “But he has no real appreciation for what you are passionate about, who you are on the inside.”

It had angered me when he said it, but much of it turned out to be true.

“Your father is full of contradictions in his dotage,” my mom contributed, clutching his arm. “C’est vrai, Jérôme?”

“I always said this, ‘not to care.’ But I also said, ‘Be respectful.’ Yes?” He angled his head in toward my mom, and she stood on her toes to kiss his brow. All these years later, they were still in love.

“The best artists, they are like this. You don’t shock just to shock. You create beauty, you create art. You don’t do it for attention.”

I made note of that as we negotiated the narrow sidewalk. My father and his digestible morsels of art critique.

As we approached the intersection at the corner, a family of five made their way in our direction. The youngest, a girl of about nine, caught my eye immediately. There was no missing her August Moon shirt.

My heart was audible in my chest. I had made great efforts not to think about him constantly, and yet here he was coming toward me via some tween’s printed jersey. Hayes’s face plastered over where her left breast would one day be.

“Do you know that girl?” my mom asked when we’d passed them in the crosswalk.

“No.”

“Tu en fais, une tête!” she said. Rough translation: That’s an odd face you’re making.

“Sorry,” I said. “It happens.”

“Sometimes, you give away everything on your face.” She frowned. “It is when you are least French.”

This, from my mother, was not a compliment.

*   *   *

I had made the decision that I would tell Isabelle about Hayes that weekend. Not everything in its entirety, but—as the experts suggested when teaching one’s child about sex—just as much as she needed to know.

It was after lunch, and we were winding our way down toward the lake, surrounded by mature maples and pines, the smell of summer in New England. My parents had wandered up to the stables to see the horses, and for the first time that day it was just the two of us. Isabelle had been so excited to show us all that she’d mastered in her short time there (zip-lining, waterskiing, tennis), that I’d had to wait for her to settle a bit before bringing it up.

“So,” I said, as casually as I could muster, “wanna hear something really cool?”

“Did you meet someone?” she asked. We were approaching the boathouse, and only a handful of other campers and their parents were in sight.

“Did I meet someone?”

“Yeah, like a guy, a boyfriend. I was hoping that’s what you were going to say.”

I stopped. I could feel my face flushing. Oh, that she was so close. And that this was what she wanted for me. Although certainly not with him. “No. No boyfriend. Something you’ll think is much cooler. Guess who my new client is?”

Her eyes grew wide. “Taylor Swift? Zac Efron?”

“Cooler than that.”

“Cooler than Zac Efron?” She looked at me, doubtful, and then: “Oh my God, oh my God…”

I waited for it to register.

“Barack Obama?!”

“Yes,” I laughed. “He called and said he needed something special for the Oval Office. No, not Barack Obama. In what world would that happen?”

“Ours,” she said, “because we shouldn’t put limits on ourselves. Remember?”

I smiled at her then. It was something I had said often. I was pleased to see it had stuck.

“Hmm.” She was twirling her new ring around her middle finger. The gift from Eva was a thin Jennifer Meyer creation. Gold with emeralds in a circle pavé setting. Delicate, simple … easily five hundred dollars.

“Is it? Is it…?” Isabelle’s voice grew very tiny, as if saying it any louder would kill the possibility. “August Moon?”

I smiled, nodding. My gift to her. “Hayes Campbell.”

Isabelle’s entire body seemed to alight from within. She had Daniel’s blue eyes. But my hair, my nose, my mouth … “Oh my God! You saw him? He came to the gallery?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Did he remember you? Did he remember us? Did you remind him that we’d met?”

“Yes,” I laughed. “He remembered us. He remembered you. He sends his regards.”

“Oh my God—”

“Stop with the ‘Oh my Gods’—”

“Sorry. I love him. Did you tell him I love him? No, you wouldn’t do that. Did you?”

“No,” I said, uneasy. We’d begun walking again, the pine needles crunching beneath our feet. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Are you going to see him again? Do you think he’ll come back to the gallery?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. This was a lie. I’d already made tentative plans to see him the following weekend. I did not like lying to her. It was time to change the subject.

“So how’s the sailing going?”

“Good. Really good. I can take the Sunfish out by myself now.”

“That’s great, Izz.”

“Yeah. Even better, I can get it back in,” she laughed, referencing a mishap from the previous summer. It was a great big belly laugh: happy, unaffected, carefree. The laugh of a girl on the brink of all things good.

Dear God, what kind of animal was I?

*   *   *

They were spending the weekend in the Hamptons. The boys were in New York for two weeks, finishing up their album. They’d been in the studio round the clock. Hayes, longer than the rest. While the others typically laid their tracks and left, he tended to linger during the sessions. (“They’re singing my words,” he relayed. “I feel like I have a vested interest in making sure they don’t fuck it up.”) They were exhausted, but they had three days off and they wanted out of the city. Dominic D’Amato, one of the heads of the record company, had offered up his place in Bridgehampton, and Hayes insisted that I join them.

“I don’t want to infringe,” I’d said on the phone Monday night when I was back in Los Angeles from Maine.

“You’re not infringing, you’re coming as my guest.”

“I know. But I would feel uncomfortable with your record exec there—”

“He won’t be there. They’re in Ibiza for the week. Everyone is in Ibiza this week. I think Diddy’s throwing a party. Which means the Hamptons will be quiet.”

I paused, deliberating. I so wanted to see him, but I wanted it to be just us. I wanted to hole up in a hotel room with him somewhere and forget the rest of the world existed. “And the madness?” I asked.

“No madness. It’s just me and Ol and Charlotte. The others are heading down to Miami.”

I was quiet for a moment, and he jumped on it. “Good. It’s decided then. My assistant, Rana, is going to call you and arrange your ticket. She’ll get it all sorted. I’ll see you Friday.”

*   *   *

I took the red-eye, because I didn’t want to lose another full day of work. Like all galleries, we were closed on Mondays, but I was blowing off Friday and Saturday, and I did not feel wonderful about it, despite Lulit’s understanding.

“Go and have great sex and come back and tell me what it was like,” she had said.

“You have an amazing husband,” I reminded her.

She did. A doting husband, no kids. Exactly the way she wanted it.

“Which is great for like five years, and then it’s just the same guy,” she laughed. “I mean I love him to death. But it’s the same guy. Go. Have fun.”

*   *   *

Hayes was staying in one of the sky apartments at the London in midtown. A massive suite high above everything with stellar views of Central Park. He’d already departed for the studio by the time I arrived, and I made my way past the forty or so fans camped outside at nine a.m. and to reception, where I met up with Trevor, one of their security. Trevor was formidably tall and not easy to miss. He wasn’t as bulky as Desmond, Fergus, and Nick, but Hayes had said he was some sort of Krav Maga expert, and at six foot seven, he was certainly intimidating. He waited for me while I picked up the key card for “Scooby Doo’s” suite and accompanied me in the elevator to the fifty-fourth floor.

The doors rolled open, and standing in the corridor before us in full workout gear and with large headphones hanging from his neck was Simon. Even without an accompanying entourage or screaming fans, he was remarkable. Tan and blond and athletic with deep blue eyes and razor-sharp cheekbones. If Hayes was swagger, and Oliver was dandy, and Rory was the bad boy, then Simon Ludlow was definitely the David Beckham one.

“Hey.” He appeared to recognize me, extending a strapping arm to hold the doors as Trevor filed out with my bags. “You just getting in?”

“Yeah. Red-eye.”

“Ooo, brutal. Sorry.”

“Are you not in the studio today?” I asked.

“They don’t need me until eleven. I’m heading down to the gym.” This he directed at Trevor. “I’m meeting Joss there. It should be fine.”

Joss, Hayes had told me, was one of their trainers.

“Ring me if anything comes up,” Trevor said.

“Will do.”

Simon was only a couple of inches shorter than Hayes, but broader and clearly capable. It seemed bizarre to me that these guys would need bodyguards. As if a slew of thirteen-year-olds lying in wait could conceivably overwhelm them. But then I recalled that morning at the Four Seasons and the terror I’d felt; perhaps it was possible.

He stood in the frame of the elevator doors for a moment longer, as if he were trying to remember something. “How’s your daughter?” he said, finally.

“She’s fine. Thanks.”

“Good.” He smiled. “Good. Right. Have fun in the Hamptons.”

“Have fun in Miami.”

“Oh”—his smile widened—“we will.”

*   *   *

I wasted no time showering and climbing into Hayes’s unmade bed. Left on the pillow, on hotel stationery, was a handwritten note:

Sorry I’m not there to greet you. Feel free to keep my bed warm. Back after 1. —H.

His penmanship was surprisingly neat. All that posh schooling. Perhaps it had been spanked into him. I smiled at the thought and curled up in the linens, reveling in the smell of his sheets, his pillow, his life.

It was the feel of him that awoke me. The inexplicable sense that the atoms of the room had rearranged themselves somehow. For a moment I was not sure where I was or how long I’d been sleeping, but finding him there, seated at the foot of the bed, watching me, filled me with such an intense happiness I was immediately fearful of it.

“Hi.” He smiled. “Nice nap?” His hair was standing on end, his youthful skin poreless in the soft blue light of the room. And I was once again overcome by his beauty.

I nodded. “You have a very nice bed.”

“It’s much nicer with you in it.”

“That’s what all the boys say.”

“Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “And what about the girls?”

I laughed at that. “There haven’t been too many girls.”

“Pity. You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“I think it’s too early for this conversation.”

“Too early in the day or too early in our relationship?”

“Both.”

He glanced down at his watch, one of the preferred TAG Heuers. Masculine, mature. “All right, that’s fair.”

“Are you going to come here and kiss me, or are you going to spend my entire visit at the other end of the bed?”

“That depends … What are you wearing under there?”

“Tank top. Underwear.”

“Hmm. That’s going to be a problem.”

“Is it?”

“We’ve bumped up our departure time. We chartered a seaplane. It leaves in an hour. The car’s on its way. I’m going to kiss you, but I’m going to show incredible restraint and not get into that bed. Do you think you can handle that?”

“I don’t know. You’re awfully irresistible when you’re being obnoxious.”

“You,” he said, inching toward me.

“Me?”

“You.” He kissed me, slow. He tasted like mint. Stick of postcoital gum. “You. Are going to have to wait.”

“Fine,” I said, peeling back the Italian sheets and heading across the room to the bathroom. It was a sheer tank, La Perla panties. “So are you.”

*   *   *

There was an art to traveling with the band. A calculated series of staggered entrances, exits, timed departures. There was no walking out onto the street and flagging a cab, not with two hundred girls swarming the exterior of one’s hotel. Someone—there were more security guards than I could keep track of—took our bags down ahead of time. Hayes and I rode down to the lobby with Trevor, where we met up with Oliver and Charlotte, and were then escorted out. Charlotte and I first, one after the other. Trevor leading us, a handsome black guard pulling up the rear. There were girls lining barricades on both sides of the entrance and across Fifty-fourth Street. All manners of dress, all complexions, loud. They did not seem fazed by the fact that it was ninety degrees and unbearably humid, the joy of New York in the summer.

They identified Charlotte immediately, which surprised me. I had not realized she was such a fixture in Oliver’s life. She smiled and waved faintly beneath her wide-brimmed hat, ever the duchess in training. And they, in turn, were surprisingly respectful: “Hi, Charlotte!” “How are you, Charlotte?” “Charlotte, you look beautiful!” “I love your dress!”

They ignored me.

It was probably for the best.

When we were ushered into the waiting Navigator, I allowed myself to exhale. “You handled that quite well.”

“This isn’t bad. Paris … Paris is bad. Girls running in the streets and paparazzi on scooters. The roads are narrow and there’s nowhere to go and you fear for your life. They’re particularly aggressive there. Anytime you’re walking eight security deep and it’s not enough … it’s a problem.” She said it so casually it struck me as odd. But then I thought: one would have to be terribly nonchalant to be in a relationship with one of these guys and put up with this madness on a regular basis. Or, perhaps, insane. I was not sure I was either of those.

The volume outside of the SUV rose considerably, and I looked out to see two more security emerging from the hotel. Oliver was in tow. He had a slow gait and a sly smile, and the way he walked with his hands in his trouser pockets was so effortlessly elegant and entitled, I could feel my eighteen-year-old self swooning. He was prince-like in his demeanor. As if he were strolling the grounds of Kensington Palace, engaging his subjects, and not holding court at the London. And in that moment he reminded me of a young Daniel, right down to the aristocratic nose. How I had loved him. Controlled, powerful, elegant. My Princeton fencer. Ol stopped to take a few photos, and all I could hear was “OliverOliverOliverOliver” until the pitch changed and there were incoherent shrieks and I knew without even looking that my date had exited the building.

It was strange to see Hayes from this perspective. The way he smiled easily and turned on the charm. Perfect teeth, dimples, his long torso angling over the barricades to fulfill every selfie request and hug. Like a demigod. They swayed and scrambled and screamed “Iloveyou Iloveyou Iloveyou.” “Hayes, here. Hayes, over here. Over here, Hayes!” “Hayes, I love you!” And my heart broke for every one of them.

And it broke a little for me.

And then the doors were opening and they were filing into the car, Desmond and Fergus accompanying them. When they shut the door, Trevor banged thrice on the side of the SUV and our driver pulled out.

“All good?” Hayes turned back to check on me. There was lipstick on his face, a frosty pink that I would never have worn on one side, a deep plum on the other.

I gave him a thumbs-up from the third row, and he winked in return.

“The adventure begins.” He smiled.

Three dozen or so girls were following the Navigator. Running alongside us as we headed east on Fifty-fourth. Banging on the doors each time we slowed, holding up their phones, pleading for the guys to roll down the windows.

“Is this okay? Are we okay?”

“We’re okay. They can’t see you.”

But it did not feel okay. The panting, painted faces pressing up against the window, desperate, deranged. Was this what his life was like? All the time?

“You get used to it,” Hayes said, as if reading my mind. “And this is nothing compared to Paris. You’ll see.”

“Or Peru,” Oliver tossed over his shoulder.

“Oh God, Peru,” Hayes laughed. “Desmond, remember Peru?”

Desmond looked back from his position in the front seat and grimaced. “Fucking crazy bastards.”

Somewhere around Fifth Avenue we lost the last of the fanatics and then proceeded down to Twenty-third and the FDR Drive unscathed. But my mind was still on Paris and the promise Hayes had made.

*   *   *

It took us forty-five minutes to get to Sag Harbor via seaplane. The flight out was calm, the skies clear, and the views traversing Long Island’s North Shore sublime. Sprawling mansions and fields of green, the colors vibrant and exaggerated like a David Hockney. He held my hand the entire trip, squeezing it at times, and the gesture seemed so natural and comfortable, one would have thought we were an established couple and not two mismatched people navigating an illicit arrangement.

I smiled to myself at one point during the ride, somewhere over Sands Point.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, leaning into me close, his nose buzzing my neck.

“I could be your mother.”

“You find that amusing now, do you?”

I nodded. “Just a little.”

He smiled, wry. “I’m going to make you forget that … if it’s the last thing I do.”

*   *   *

The house in Bridgehampton was a sprawling nine-thousand-square-foot shingle-style manse on 3.3 acres of manicured lawn, complete with pool, pool house, tennis courts, a putting green, formal gardens, and home theater. Naturally, it was fully staffed. We would want for nothing.

But what impressed me most was the D’Amatos’ contemporary art collection: Cy Twombly, Kara Walker, Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami, Roy Lichtenstein. I found myself salivating at every turn. Furthermore, it was well curated. Not cluttered or intentionally ironic, but all coexisting beautifully. Each piece allowed to breathe in its own space. The D’Amatos not only had taste; they had restraint.

“What’s the wife’s name again?”

We were in our bedroom, an airy suite with views overlooking the putting green and the stretch of lawn extending to the pool. On the far wall, above the sitting area, was a framed pigment print of Kate Moss, taken by the legendary Chuck Close.

“Sylvie … Sylvia … One of those. Do you want me to introduce you?” Hayes was lying on the chaise longue, watching me unpack.

“I’d like that. Yes.”

“Where is she getting her art?”

I did a quick mental compute. “Mainly Gagosian, and probably some auctions.”

“Like that?” He nodded toward the Moss photo.

“No. That’s Chuck Close. He’s with Pace in New York. She probably bought it from them or at auction.”

“Is that Kate Moss? She looks weird.”

“It’s the process he uses,” I explained, “like a daguerreotype. The way you can see every pore on her face. Age spots that the naked eye probably can’t even pick up yet.” I made my way back across the room to the closet.

The Close piece was haunting. Mostly because Kate was my age. She couldn’t have been more than thirty in the photo, and yet I could see everything that she would become. Everything that I, we, probably already were. I wondered if Hayes could see it, too. The opposite of youth.

“I used to love her as a wee lad.”

“Yes. Well, who didn’t?”

“Come here,” he said. It was the way he said it. I knew that we’d stopped talking about Kate. That we’d stopped talking about art.

I made my way over to him, and he extended a languid arm, his hand wrapping around the back of my thigh, beneath the hem of my dress.

I did not speak as his fingers moved up my leg, arriving at my underwear, slipping beneath the fabric. “Hiiii.”

“Hi.” I smiled.

“I missed you.”

“That’s … apparent.”

He nodded, his fingers moving against me. “It’s been three weeks. That’s like decades in the music industry.”

“I imagine it is,” I said. But I could not imagine it was as he was saying it. Had he not been with anyone? Or just not with me?

I was quiet for a moment, listening to him breathe, listening to my heart beat, watching his hand move beneath my dress. Possessing me.

The bedroom door swung wide open suddenly, and Fergus was standing there at the threshold, his bald head buried in a pile of magazines. Hayes’s arm was back at his side before I could even register what was happening.

“Hey, mate, we picked these up for you,” Fergus said, finally looking up. “Sorry. Door was ajar.” He stepped into the room and very casually tossed a handful of magazines onto the credenza before turning and leaving. As if he hadn’t just walked in on us.

“We should probably lock that,” Hayes said, calmly.

I nodded. “We should.”

*   *   *

It was hours before we left the room.

I had the thought that, regardless of how unconventional or ill-fitted the two of us together seemed, the chemistry was like nothing I’d ever experienced. And by the way he responded to me, it appeared that for him it may have been the same.

He lay there at one point, staring at the ceiling.

“What?” I asked, my fingers tracing his ample mouth. “What are you thinking?”

“Just … I don’t know. I don’t want to say the wrong thing again.”

“Okay.”

He reached for my hand then, stilling me, his eyes intense. “This thing … us … It’s more than I expected.”

I hesitated, not wanting to misread the moment. Something had shifted. “Yeah,” I said, “for me, too.”

*   *   *

We went for a walk before dinner. Down the winding tree-lined drive and out onto Quimby Lane.

“So I’m going to do the TAG Heuer thing,” he said, his fingers entwining with mine.

“Really? That’s good.”

He shrugged. “Expanding my brand, right? Life outside of August Moon…”

“You’re not thinking of quitting the band?”

“No. I couldn’t … Not now … No. It’s my band. I can’t leave them. Contractually or otherwise …

“And all this.” He waved his free hand in the air, gesturing at our surroundings: massive hedges hiding estates, endless green. “All this stuff that kind of falls into your lap. All this is because of them. Us. I’m not ready to end us.

“When Ol and I first started writing music together, we never imagined this. We fancied ourselves a modern-day John and Paul. But really we were just a couple of posh toffs sitting around our parents’ country homes writing songs about love and loss and things we hadn’t actually experienced because we were thirteen.” He laughed then, trailing off.

I squeezed his hand but said nothing.

“How’s Isabelle doing?”

“Good. I told her.”

He stopped, his eyes wide. “No fucking way.”

“I told her you were a client, so … not exactly everything.”

“Not anything at all actually,” he laughed.

“Baby steps…”

We began walking again, east, toward where the road dead-ended.

“So, a client, huh?” he said, after a minute. “I’m afraid to see what you do for your friends.”

“What was it you said? ‘I have a lot of friends. Most of them I’m not fucking.’”

“Did I say that?”

“You said that.”

“Hmm.” He smirked.

“Yeah, well … I’m not fucking any of my friends.”

“Just me?” He squeezed my hand.

“Just you.”

*   *   *

We had dinner at the house. The D’Amatos’ chef—they had two: one they’d taken with them to Ibiza, and a second they were kind enough to leave with us for the weekend—prepared a paella feast that we downed on the back patio beneath a lilac sky. The conversation flowed, lubricated by endless pitchers of sangria. Oliver and Hayes held court, regaling us with stories from their travels and school and growing up in London. They’d shared such a long, entangled history, and they seemed to speak in code, like something out of Hogwarts:

“We were playing football on Green, and it was Fifth Form.”

“No, we were Lower Shell that year, because Simon was Upper.”

“Right. And our headmaster said never in the history of the school had he seen such hooliganry. He was quite cross. Not even during the Greaze.”

“We won the hooliganry award. Unofficially.”

This, I was able to detect, was regarding an incident that had happened at school and not with the band, but it was difficult to keep it all sorted. And each time the others got the joke and I didn’t, I felt decidedly American.

Desmond had a raunchy sense of humor and peppered the discussion with sordid tales from the road, mainly the antics of Rory, which were easy enough to follow. Fergus had an infectious laugh, but spoke little. And Charlotte sat, taking it all in, a sweet smile on her delicate face. She clung to Oliver’s hand. And every once in a while she would look over to me, shake her head in feigned annoyance, and toss off something wry, like: “You’d think they’d tire of talking about themselves?”

When the sky was finally dark, around nine o’clock, and Desmond and Fergus had retired to watch a movie in the subterranean theater, the four of us relocated to the sofas and sat gazing at the stars, enjoying the breeze blowing in from the ocean mere blocks away. Oliver lit up a cigarette. The figure he cut, reclining—legs crossed in white trousers, linen shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, golden hair pushed back off his brow—brought to mind another era. Like something out of a Fitzgerald world, if not Gatsby himself.

“I plan to lie by the pool and do nothing all weekend. And not sign one fucking autograph or write one tweet. Is that okay with everyone?”

“It’s a real tough life you lead, HK,” Hayes said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. He occasionally called Oliver by the initials of his last name, Hoyt-Knight. And there was something about that that I found old-boy-ish and sexy.

“Yes, well, someone has to do it. And I brought three books, and I intend to crack at least one. Which I am sure is a hell of a lot more than those blokes are doing in South Beach.”

Hayes glanced at his watch. “I’m guessing they’re about three mojitos in, apiece. And they’ve got ten models with them.”

“Where are they staying? Soho House?”

“Yeah. Watch.” He pulled his iPhone from the pocket of his shorts and began texting. “How. Many. Models. Do. You. Have. With. You. Right. Now.”

“We have to do something absolutely mad so we can prove we had more fun.” Oliver flicked his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. Charlotte tossed me one of her exasperated looks.

“I am having more fun,” Hayes laughed.

“Really?” I turned to him. “You wouldn’t rather be with ten models in South Beach?”

He looked at me for a moment, not speaking, one eyebrow raised. And then finally: “Do you not know me?”

“I do. I was just … teasing.”

He leaned into me so that the others could not hear. “I wouldn’t rather be anyplace else. Than here. With you.”

“Ditto.”

His phone buzzed in his hand. “Eleven!”

“Fuck!” Oliver laughed.

“Yes, I don’t know how you’re going to have more fun than that,” Charlotte said, straight-faced.

Oliver furrowed his brow, snuffed out his cigarette, and then pulled her onto his lap. “Charlotte, you know me. Models are like toffee. They often seem like a great idea, especially on holiday. But once you get them in your mouth, you remember that they’re cloyingly sweet and they stick to your teeth. Plus they’ve no nutritional value whatsoever … But they’re certainly very pretty in the window.”

It is likely I had never heard anything more perfect.

We laughed for a long time.

Hayes excused himself at some point and went inside, and when he reemerged five minutes later he had a bottle of Scotch in one hand and two glasses in the other. He was laughing to himself as he traipsed across the patio.

“What?” Oliver asked.

“Simon sent another text. He said, ‘We had eleven models and seven of them just left with Rory.’”

“Ha!”

“Wait, I have to read it to you,” he snorted, placing down the Scotch and pulling out his phone. “‘Liam was totally gutted and I had to remind him that he only has one dick … He thinks it might be Rory’s tattoos and now he’s considering getting one.’”

“Tell Liam he mustn’t forget where he comes from.” Ol smiled. “And to not fret if his type is not appreciated in South Beach, because it still has value in Courchevel.”

“‘We are this close to becoming a joke.’”

“How old is Liam?” I asked.

“Nineteen. God, that’s priceless.”

“Only two glasses?” Oliver sat up and began pouring the drinks with Charlotte still on his knee. Laphroaig 10. Neat.

“My hands are only so big, and I didn’t want to break Mrs. D’Amato’s crystal. Just double pour it and we’ll share.”

“Mrs. D’Amato?” Oliver mocked him. “She’s like in her forties, mate.”

“Great,” I said.

“Sorry,” Oliver said.

“But she looks like a Mrs. D’Amato. You don’t look like a Mrs. D’Amato,” Hayes explained.

“What exactly does a Mrs. D’Amato look like?”

“Like she’s done stuff to her face.” He gesticulated. “She’s like frozen things and puffed things up. Your face isn’t anything like that. Your face—”

“Your face is perfect,” Oliver interjected.

It was more than a little awkward.

“Thank you.”

Hayes spun to look at him. “Yes, Oliver. Thank you … And your face is perfect as well, Charlotte,” he added, pointedly.

Charlotte smiled, trying to make the best of the situation. “Thank you, Hayes. For noticing.”

“Bloody hell, I was just paying a compliment,” Oliver laughed.

Hayes held his gaze for a moment and then shook his head, as if he did not know what to make of him. “All right,” he said, grabbing one of the glasses, “we’re going for a walk. Don’t follow us.”

We trekked down across the lawn to the far side of the pool and installed ourselves on one of the lounges.

“I’m sorry about that. That was weird, right?”

“No weirder than Liam only having one dick.”

He laughed. “God, I love your humor.”

“I love hanging out with you. Thanks for inviting me. I’m glad I came.” S~ᴇaʀᴄh the Find ɴøᴠel.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“I’m glad you came, too. And it is perfect … your face.”

I kissed him then. “Yours, too.”

We lay there for a bit, side by side on the lounge, kissing, and it felt like high school, innocent and pure.

He stopped at one point, reaching for the Scotch and taking a long sip before offering it to me.

“I’m not really a Scotch person…”

“How do you know? You weren’t a boy band person either, and now look at you. You’re like knee-deep.”

I laughed at that.

“You’re worse than knee-deep. You’re like up to your chin.”

“Fine.” I allowed him to serve me. It was hot going down, smoky, like all the goodness of the first fire lit in winter, bottled and put in my mouth. And suddenly, that night at the Crosby Street Hotel came rushing back. The nervousness of it, the newness, the postorgasmic freak-out.

“Well…?”

“It reminds me of you.”

“That’s good enough.” He placed the glass down and rolled me on top of him.

“I love this face,” I said, tracing my thumbs over his eyebrows. “I love the proportions of it. I love the symmetry. I love that it reminds me of a Botticelli cherub.”

He smiled. “I’m pretty certain I’ve never heard that before.”

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“Do.”

“That first night, in Las Vegas … I distinctly remember thinking, ‘God, I just want to sit on this kid’s face and pull his hair.’”

“What?” He began to laugh. “You thought what? That you would compare me to art and then consider desecrating it in almost the same breath is a little unnerving.”

“Sorry to have unnerved you.”

“And yet you made me beg you for a date…”

“I wanted to have sex with you, I didn’t want to date you.”

“I’m going to pretend I’m not offended by that … What made you change your mind?”

“What makes you so sure I have?”

He stopped laughing then and grabbed both my wrists, tight. “What are you afraid of? Right now, what are you afraid of?”

I didn’t say anything, but I knew it was written on my face.

“Yeah,” he said. “Me, too.”

*   *   *

Oliver and Charlotte turned in shortly after, and Hayes and I resumed our high school make-out session, which led, as high school make-out sessions are wont to do, to the inevitable blow job. There was something about it that was terribly amusing to me. Because I could not remember the last time I’d snuck through someone’s backyard on a balmy summer night to suck a dick in the dark. It felt almost nostalgic and it made me laugh.

“What’s so funny? Why are you laughing?” he asked, his hand on the top of my head.

“I’m too old for this.”

“No, really, I can assure you, you’re not.”

I laughed harder. “It’s not the dick sucking, it’s the sneaking around. It feels so nineties.”

“Fuck.” He tipped his head back, staring up at the stars. “I was born in the nineties.”

“Shhh. Okay, stop thinking,” I said, lowering my head, taking him again in my mouth.

“You were sucking dicks in the nineties?”

“No,” I lied.

“Yes, you were,” he laughed.

“Hayes, do you want this blow job or not?”

“I want it, I want it. Just give me a second to laugh. Please. I’m just processing this.”

I sat up then. “I’m going back up to the house.”

He reached out for my arms. “No, you’re not.”

For a second we sat like that, neither of us laughing, speaking.

“This is crazy,” I said eventually. “This is completely crazy. What the hell are we doing?”

He sat up then and kissed my forehead before leaning into my ear, the smell of Scotch on his breath. “I like you, so fucking much. I don’t give a damn what you were doing in the nineties. Or anytime, really … Please don’t go up to the house. Please.”

For a moment I did not move. I sat, letting him breathe into me, wanting him and knowing that we were both now in deeper than either of us had intended.

“Lie down,” I said.

He did. And he remained quiet while I finished what I’d begun. And it was just us and the sound of him moaning and crickets and the ocean and summer and his dick in my mouth. And it was perfect.

He came. And then held me afterward, a wide grin plastered across his face.

“Are you happy?” I asked, borrowing his line.

“Very.”

“Good. You wouldn’t happen to have a stick of postcoital gum on you, would you?”

He laughed, shaking his head. “No, sorry. Have some Scotch.”

“You. You’re supposed to be responsible for the condoms and the gum.”

“What do you bring?”

“I bring my mouth.”

“All right, then.” He nodded, smiling. “That seems like a fair trade.”

*   *   *

In the morning, I went on a long run and convinced Charlotte to join me. We were evenly paced, despite the fact that she was barely half my age, and I enjoyed her company. She shared that she was about to enter her third year at Oxford, where she was studying philosophy. She’d met Oliver through mutual friends who had attended Westminster with the boys, and they’d been dating for the better part of a year.

“I imagine you’ve seen a lot,” I said, alluding to life with the band.

She shrugged her shoulders, noncommittal. We were heading up Ocean Road, one tremendous lot after another. And passing each $15 to $20 million manse, I could not help but wonder what they had on their walls.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I probably don’t want to know…”

“He’s a good guy, Hayes. He’s really sweet and respectful and responsible and … kind.”

I let that sink in for a bit.

“He’s different,” she continued. “I mean, the others are all lovely in their own way, and Oliver is Oliver. But Hayes is … different. He’s a little more mature and serious, which, you know, you’ve seen him, so that says a lot about the rest of them.” She laughed at that. I hadn’t seen her laugh much. It was beautiful on her.

“I think they all take the group seriously, but Hayes has this added pressure, because it was his idea, and he put the band together, and it was his mum who was longtime friends with their managers.”

“Really?” That I did not know. Outside of our first lunch at the Hotel Bel-Air, we had not discussed the nuts and bolts of how August Moon had come to be. “Hayes’s mother was friends with their managers?”

“Yes, the Lawrences. Alistair and Jane. You’ll meet them eventually. They’re very daunting,” she emphasized with a clenched jaw. She sounded to me like Emma Thompson.

“He doesn’t really talk about them. I know Raj and Graham.”

“Graham, blech,” she scoffed. “Graham is not particularly fond of girlfriends. Or girls at all, I presume. He and Raj are associates—or, as I prefer to call them, glorified minders. But Alistair and Jane own the company. Jane and Hayes’s mum, Victoria, grew up together. And when Hayes was seventeen, he came up with this idea and made a video and a PowerPoint presentation and sold Jane and Alistair on it. They did a search to find Rory, and it went from there. It was pretty brilliant on his part, because no one had ever thought of a posh boy band.”

“No. And why would you?” I laughed. It seemed far-fetched. But there was no denying the way it had caught on. The genius of it. Like bottling the appeal of a young roguish Prince Harry, multiplying it, and distributing it to the masses. With some infectious melodies, strong vocals, and clever lyrics thrown in. And just the right amount of edge.

“Yes, well, I think they all thought it would be amusing. They’d have lots of fun and there’d be lots of girls and it would be a cool way to see the world. I mean they certainly weren’t doing it for the money … But it was Hayes’s brainchild, so things tend to weigh more on him. Plus he’s serious about his music.”

I sat with that for a while. Replaying all our conversations about the group and the things that made him unhappy, the relentless touring and promotion, the idea of being crammed down people’s throats.

When we reached Route 27, we turned around and headed back toward the ocean. It wasn’t until we were bypassing our turnoff and continuing on to the beach that she spoke again.

“I have seen a lot.” She picked up our conversation with no lead-in, as if she’d been mulling it over for the past four miles. “You are his quintessential type. You’re just better at it than the others.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re smarter, you’re wittier, you’re more sophisticated, and you don’t seem to get caught up in all the bullshit…”

“Oh.”

“You’re also older, and for some reason he likes that.” She’d said it plainly, but there was something there. “And, you know, your face is perfect.”

*   *   *

The boys were lounging by the pool when we got back to the house. They’d finished playing tennis and were sitting out in shorts and not much else soaking up the sun.

“How was your run?” Hayes pulled me onto his lap, nuzzling my neck. “Mm, you’re all sweaty.”

“So are you. Shower?”

He nodded. “Just a second.”

“What are you doing?”

He had his iPhone, poised down by his knees. “I’m Instagramming a picture of my feet.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No. They love this rubbish. Watch … and ‘share.’”

I leaned in to see the image of his tanned feet with the pool as a backdrop. Hayes counted to ten and then pressed refresh. There were 4,332 likes. He counted again: 9,074.

“Holy shit.”

“That’s just my feet. Someday I’m going to put my penis on there and see what happens.”

“If you could perhaps time it with the release of Wise or Naked so we could all profit from it, that would be great,” Oliver quipped. Charlotte giggled.

Hayes turned to look at him and laughed. “I’m not sharing the proceeds from my dick with you. I’m saving that for my solo album.”

“Oh my God, you are twenty, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” He smiled, running his hand over my back. “And you still love me. We’re showering, right?”

“Maybe. Do you read your comments?”

“Sometimes.” He began scrolling through. “‘I love you so much. Come to Turkey.’ ‘Why are you so hot?’ Something in Arabic. ‘I wish I could show you how much I really love you. I’m not like the other fans, try me.’ ‘I want to lick you but your music sucks’—tell me how you really feel. ‘Can I sit on your big toe?’ Wow, part of me is horrified and part of me wants to check her picture. Is that bad? All right, continuing, ‘Dork ass—’ What? I can’t say … It says the n-word. Why are they calling me that? Something in Hebrew. ‘Your feet are sexy as fuck.’ ‘I just want to be you.’ ‘Hayes, if you see this, I love you.’ Aww, that’s sweet … Right then, so there you go. There’s a nice sample for you.”

I don’t know why, but I was stunned. The immediacy of it, the fact that our moment here was playing out around the world in real time. The idea that they could communicate with him, that they were anticipating his every action. It was unfathomable, this level of adoration.

“How many likes now?” Oliver asked.

Hayes pressed refresh. “Sixty-seven thousand six hundred and forty-three.”

“Show-off.”

“Hey, I’m just keeping the fandom happy. If I were showing off, trust me, mate, you would know.” He smiled before turning his attention back to me. “So, shower?”

*   *   *

There were many words I would use to describe Hayes Campbell. “Show-off” was not one of them. But his post-tennis performance that morning was undeniably brag-worthy. Because it took a certain level of skill to make me feel dirty in the shower.

After, when we were preparing for a drive into East Hampton, he headed downstairs to find Desmond. I was still in the bathroom struggling with the buttons on the back of my dress when I heard him return to the room.

“Can you do these for me?” I asked, stepping out into the suite.

But it was Oliver who looked up from the ottoman at the foot of the bed, where he was riffling through Hayes’s weekend bag. “Hey.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Searching for headphones. I left my Beats back at the hotel in New York. Hayes said I could borrow his.”

“Do you not knock? Does no one knock here? Are there no boundaries?”

“The door was open. Sorry.”

I wanted to believe him, but something in his eyes said differently.

He turned back to the bag then and fished out Hayes’s headphones. “Got them. Thanks.”

My eyes were glued to him as he made his way across the room. When he reached the door, he stopped.

“Do you want me to fasten your dress?”

“No, thank you.”

“Do you want me to send up Hayes?”

“It’s okay. I can handle it.”

“Right then. Sorry I disturbed you.”

As he was turning to leave, he paused again, peering at something beyond my shoulder. “Chuck Close,” he said, gesturing toward the print. “Nice. Clearly, Hayes got the better setup.”

He’d said it casually, but instinct told me there was more there.

*   *   *

Hayes, Desmond, and I whiled away a few hours touring East Hampton and Amagansett. On the way back to the house, we made a detour to a pharmacy and Desmond ran inside, leaving us in the air-conditioned car with the engine running.

“We’re almost out of condoms,” Hayes stated, matter-of-factly.

“We are?” I could have sworn he’d opened a box yesterday. Of how many? Twelve? It took me a moment to process. “You sent Desmond in there to buy us condoms?”

He nodded from the front seat of the SUV. “I wasn’t going to send you, and it’s not like I can be seen casually buying condoms in the Hamptons on a Saturday afternoon.”

“He’s your bodyguard, Hayes.”

“Well, it is guarding a part of my body.” He smiled. “I was trying to be responsible.”

“Yes, I appreciate that. It’s just … Your life is so bizarre.”

An understatement. We’d spent most of the day in the car, thwarting any would-be photographers. I had not protested.

“Not that we really need them…” he said.

I pitched forward on the seat in order to see his face. “What do you mean, ‘not that we really need them’?”

Hayes was quiet for a moment and then he turned back to me. “I know you’re on the Pill, Solène.”

This threw me. How he knew, what it meant, what he might have been insinuating. “You went through my stuff?”

“I’ve racked up quite a few hours in hotel rooms with you these past couple of months. I might have seen it in your wash bag.”

“Might have?”

He leaned back through the gap between the seats. “Might have.”

“I’m not having sex with you without a condom, Hayes.”

“Have I asked you to?”

“I don’t know what you do when you’re not with me.”

“Why is it you think I’m doing something?”

“Because you haven’t convinced me that you’re not.”

He paused, tugging at his lower lip. I couldn’t see his eyes through his sunglasses. “They test us regularly, you know.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“Management. They have to do it for insurance purposes.”

“Well, good for them. They can sleep with you, then.”

He laughed. “All right, you’ve made your point.”

I scooted back in the seat then. The elephant in the room. The idea that he was randomly hooking up with other people. That I had tacitly accepted it. I had thought the less I knew, the better. But maybe not.

“Fuck.”

I thought I said it under my breath, but he heard.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

Desmond stepped out of the pharmacy just then and started toward the car. The stocky, tattooed ginger fellow in head-to-toe black. Desmond stood out in the Hamptons.

“Can we discuss this later?” Hayes asked.

I did not respond. Later we would have sex again and again and again, and he would manage to make me forget that at this moment I was angry.

*   *   *

By midafternoon we were out by the pool drinking sangria in the heat. The D’Amatos’ cook had mixed a few more pitchers at our request, and Hayes, Ol, and I plowed through them with ease, while Desmond and Fergus played video games inside and Charlotte napped.

“I think I could be happy with a house in the Hamptons,” Oliver said at one point. We were all three sitting in the spa, and the millennials were discussing multimillion-dollar real estate like middle-aged men in Brentwood.

“You’d never get to use it. I’m thinking London, New York, Barbados, Los Angeles,” Hayes said. His pronunciation of Angelees always made me smile.

“I might just move in here with Dominic and Mrs. D’Amato,” Oliver teased. “I like what she’s done with the place. Solène, did you see the Hirst in the dining room?”

“I did.”

Hayes’s eyes traveled back and forth between the two of us. “How did you know that?”

“Because my mother collects art, you idiot. What does your mother collect? Right, ponies.”

“Fuck you, HK,” Hayes laughed, splashing Oliver on the far side of the spa.

“Hayes Philip Campbell is not the culture vulture he makes himself out to be.”

“Solène”—Hayes tightened his grip around my waist—“do I make myself out to be a culture vulture? Or do I mostly just sit in awe when you talk about art?”

“You mostly just sit in awe.”

“Thank you.” He beamed before turning to Oliver and sticking out his tongue. Lest I forget I was dating someone half my age.

“What are you? Twelve?”

“Sometimes…”

“All right,” I laughed, “I’m getting more sangria.”

I was already out of the spa and wrapped in my towel when he called out to me. “And see if they have any more crisps, please.”

“Yes, Your Highness. Oliver? Anything?”

“I’ll help.”

Oliver followed me up to the house, snatching a towel and wrapping it around his narrow hips en route.

“I didn’t know your mother collected art,” I said as we headed beneath the loggia and through a set of French doors leading to the kitchen.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

I stopped then, turning to look at him. Golden hair wet and swept back off his brow, hazel eyes piercing, serious mouth. He was beautiful, in a certain unattainable way.

“I suppose that’s true.”

He slipped into the pantry to find a bag of “crisps” then while I headed across the kitchen to one of the two Sub-Zeros on the far wall.

I was grabbing the pitcher of sangria from the refrigerator when I felt it: a cool fingertip tracing the span of my back, from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. And then it was gone. For a moment I could not move, and when I finally turned around he was on the far side of the room, bag of chips in hand, heading out.

I stood there, shaking. Not knowing quite how to react. Because it was so subtle he could have easily denied it. So faint, I could have imagined it. But I hadn’t, and there was no mistaking his intention.

I returned to the pool eventually and dropped off the pitcher before making some pathetic excuse about needing a break from the sun and retiring to our room. He and Hayes had been laughing about something, and I could not even bring myself to look at them.

I felt sick.

Within half an hour Hayes appeared at the bedroom door. “Hey, what are you doing in here?”

“Reading,” I said, barely looking up.

“You all right? I missed you.” He planted himself at the foot of the bed.

“I just wanted to be alone for a little bit.”

“You sure everything’s all right? ’Cause I can’t really leave you alone,” he said, wrapping his hands around my feet. “I mean that kind of defeats the purpose of you being here.” He lowered his head then, kissing my ankles, my shins, my knees.

“I can’t have half an hour to myself?”

He shook his head, forced my knees open. “Nope. What are you reading?”

I held up the book. Adé: A Love Story by Rebecca Walker.

“A love story,” he said, planting kisses on the inside of my thigh. “Is it any good?”

“Yes.”

“Very good?”

“Very good.”

“Is it as good as ours?”

I laughed at that. He had my attention. “Is ours a love story?”

“I don’t know. Is it?” He took the book from my hands then and placed it on the night table, before peeling off the bottom of my bikini.

“What are you doing, Hayes?”

He smiled. “I brought my mouth.”

The thought occurred that it might not be the most opportune time to mention Oliver’s transgression.

*   *   *

In truth I did not know how or what exactly I would say to Hayes about what had happened. Because their relationship was already so peculiar and complicated and because what Oliver had done was relatively benign and because I did not want to be stuck in the same house with the two of them if and when things were to blow up, I kept it to myself. I managed not to be alone with him for the remainder of the weekend. And Oliver went back to being his occasionally charming, occasionally disdainful, amusing, aristocratic self. And all was well, on the surface.

*   *   *

On Sunday, Hayes and I took a long bike ride before having lunch in Sag Harbor and then returning for a swim. The others were elsewhere, and we relished the solitude.

“How is it I don’t tire of you?” he asked. We were drying in the sun, our lounge chairs drawn in beside each other, cozy.

I laughed at that. “Do you tire of people easily?”

He nodded, his fingertips tracing over my back. I’d untied the straps of my swimsuit to avoid tan lines but taken care to shade my face with a large hat, and he’d managed to wedge his face in next to mine beneath it.

“But not you,” he said, soft, his lips against my temple. “I never tire of you.”

“And yet…”

“And yet?”

I said nothing.

“This is about yesterday, isn’t it?”

“Here’s what I’m going to say. Once…” I rolled into him. He reached out to finger my nipple, and I stilled his hand. “Are you listening to me?”

He nodded.

“I understand you’re in this unique position, and girls are constantly falling in your lap, but you always have a choice. At some point, one way or another, you make a choice. And I’m not inclined to let this go on much longer without you making a choice. I trust you’ll let me know when that happens.”

He nodded again, slow. “I’ll let you know when that happens.”

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