Page 60 of The Rehoboth Retreat
“You’re just in time,” Cecilia cooed, flopping elegantly into a chair by the island and crossing her legs with regal authority. She took a sip from her Bloody Mary and simpered like a woman who’d had her martiniandthe bartender.
She leaned toward me and whispered behind her glass. “If you want the best Bloody Mary ever, darling, have Miles make it for you. I’m not kidding when I say it’s the best I’ve ever had, and that’s saying something.”
I raised a brow. “Best ever, huh?”
“Ever,” she repeated with reverence, as if invoking a sacred truth. “And I’ve had them from Boston to Barcelona.”
I turned to Miles, who had finally noticed me, and gave a tight smile—somewhere betweenhelloandI might stillbe thinking about your lips on mine last night.
“I’ll bite,” I said, easing into the barstool across from him. “Make me your masterpiece, Whitaker.”
He smirked, sliding a glass toward the prep area. “Coming right up. But if you faint from flavor, I’m not resuscitating you.”
He moved like a man possessed, yanking bottles from a lower cabinet and arranging them with surgical precision. I watched with the kind of fascination usually reserved for court trials and Bravo finales.
He added cucumber-lime vodka—what the hell—followed by a slug of tomato juice so thick it looked like sin in a glass. A splash of pickle brine. A whisper of horseradish. Celery salt. Cracked pepper. A few drops of something dark and mysterious that he wouldn’t name, which only made me want it more. Then the pièce de résistance: a skewer with a dill pickle, a blue cheese-stuffed olive, and what looked suspiciously like a candied bacon twist.
Miles handed me the drink with the poise of an award-winning chef serving royalty. “Here. Sip slowly. This is not a drive-thru cocktail.”
I raised the glass to my lips and took one long, decadent gulp. My eyes fluttered shut. My soul levitated.
“Damn,” I muttered, licking the rim like a man who hadn’t tasted joy in months. “Cecilia was right. This is one of the best Bloody Marys I’ve ever had. And I’ve had one made by a drag queen in Palm Springs who lit the celery on fire.”
Miles raised a brow. “That sounds…smoky.”
“Debilitating,” I corrected. “But iconic.”
Cecilia beamed. “Told you. It’s like breakfast, therapy, and sin all in one glass.”
I leaned back, drink in hand, and looked between the two of them. Somehow, I felt like I’d been dropped into a Sofia Coppola brunch scene—with a touch more gay trauma and a splash more vodka.
“So, what’s on the menu?” I asked, eyeing Miles as he plated something on bone-white china with an edible flower tucked to the side like it paid rent there.
He didn’t answer yet, but his smirk said: something that’ll haunt your dreams in the best way.
And goddamn, I believed him.
By the time I finished the Bloody Mary, I was somewhere between a light buzz and a religious awakening. I had a full-onRay of LightMadonna moment—complete with existential clarity. It was like my taste buds had taken a spa vacation in Tuscany and refused to return to the real world. Honestly, if Miles had handed me divorce papers immediately after that drink, I would’ve signed them with a lipstick pen and asked for joint custody of the vodka.
Miles, of course, was already wiping down the quartz countertop with a microfiber cloth. He turned to me and Cecilia with that unbothered, pristine air he always seemed to float on.
“If you two don’t mind,” he said, slipping off his apron with one smooth, practiced motion, “breakfast is ready. Come join me out on the deck.”
Cecilia stood immediately, as if summoned by a god and a flute of champagne. “Oh good,” she cooed, adjusting her green caftan and gliding toward the sliding glass doors. “I was starting to worry you’d tease us with the smell and serve us air and judgment.”
I stood to follow her, still sipping the last inch of tomato-vodka heaven like I was rationing it during a war. “After that Bloody Mary, I’ll follow you anywhere,” I mumbled, trailing behind Cecilia as she pushed through the sliding doors with a dramatic sweep of silk and motherly mischief.
And then—bam.
I stopped.
Iactuallystopped.
The deck was…obscene.
Not in a naked-men-wrestling-in-mudkind of way. No, this was domestic obscenity. Tablescaped to hell and back. An orgasm of aesthetic excess. A visual buffet that looked like the Barefoot Contessa had been possessed by a French pâtisserie ghost and then partnered with Martha Stewart after four bellinis.
The long wooden table—driftwood gray, naturally—was dressed in a crisp ivory linen runner, draped just enough to look like itaccidentallyfell into place like that.As if. At the center was a massive bouquet of pale yellow peonies and wildflowers in a sea glass-blue ceramic vase that looked “thrifted” in a way that meant it cost $180 at a Rehoboth Avenue artisanal boutique with one parking spot.
