Page 103 of The Best Part of Breaking Up

There isn’t a hint of innuendo in his tone, but I feel myself suppressing a self-satisfied smirk. He’s still wearing the twine wish bracelet with the green stones. For luck, he told me, when I saw it tucked beneath the tailored edge of his shirtsleeves on Monday morning. As far as I know, it hasn’t left his wrist since I secured it there in that tacky beachfront shop. That also makes my heart do impossibly brave somersaulting tricks.

“So about this cat…” Auntie Lena begins.

I interrupt her with a disapproving smile. “You’re as bad as the media.”

So far this week, they’ve speculated heavily about my choice to suddenly start wearing glasses (to appear smarter, obviously), my power heels (this ain’t a fashion runway, sweetheart), and whether or not I’m sleeping with – drumroll please – Teddy. Yup, you read that right. Everyone wants to know if I’m hooking up with my client, who is in fact not yet divorced and is also roughly twenty-five years my senior. Nobody on the outside is concerned about Quentin.

Except of course to post online about the fact that he’s hot.

A couple of podcasters from North Carolina think we planted him on the case as a distraction, and their followers on the internet took up the torch of speculation. I teased him about this last night while I roamed his apartment with a glass of wine, wearing nothing but one of his t-shirts as he made us chicken tacos for dinner. As I admired his culinary acumen, I took back everything negative I ever thought about us living in the same building, because with suspicion and smartphones lurking around every corner, it’s amazing that nobody would question why we are both entering this building every night and leaving it every morning. Bernadette did me a huge favor with that one, and she doesn’t even know it.

I shield my eyes from the sun, squinting to where Kamille is emerging from the changing rooms, confident but not smiling. She walks into the water, adjusts the straps of her no-nonsense one-piece, and gives me a determined nod. Auntie Lena and Meg cheer from the sidelines. Quentin enthusiastically joins them.

“All right, Kami!” I say. “Show us what you’ve got!”

I don’t know why I’m nervous. She swells with a breath. It’s a false start, and she sucks in another. She deflates. She hesitates. I almost think she is going to back out when she dives under.

My heart is in my throat as the surface of the pool begins sloshing wildly with her movements. It’s a little hard to make sense of it at first, but within a few seconds I confirm: she’s swimming.

She’s actually swimming.

There are no uncertain starts and stops like we’ve been seeing the past few weeks. She makes slow, steady progress across the length of the pool, with her arms and legs moving in tandem. I expect her to cling to the far edge when she reaches it, to stop and catch her breath and maybe give us a grin, but she doesn’t. She immediately launches herself off the wall and heads back across. I feel a cheer escape me, though I know she can’t hear it. By the time she makes it back to the stairs where she started, we are celebrating like the Grizzlies just won the NBA championship.

I launch myself into the water with a squeal, meeting her with a double high five and a huge, sunscreen-scented hug.

“Didn’t I tell you you could do it!” I laugh.

“Yeah,” she says sheepishly, smiling as she rolls her eyes.

“You have officially reached dolphin status,” Quentin tells her. “Those water slides are yours.”

She wades towards him, grinning now.

“Thanks. You’re coming for pizza with us?” she asks.

He’s already pulling himself to his feet and shaking loose his pant legs. “I’d love to, but unfortunately I’ve got a lot of work to do tonight. Rain check?”

She scrunches her nose at him. “It’s not raining.”

“Another time,” he laughs. “Have fun at camp.” To me he says, “I’ll see you?”

“I’ll see you,” I nod, giving him a small, secret smile.

When he’s gone, I catch Auntie Lena and Meg staring at me.

“What?” I say defensively.

“So, at first you were fake dating, and now you’re fake not dating?” Auntie Lena says. “It’s so hard to keep up.”

“We were never… fake… not…” I groan. “You know what I mean.”

Meg tosses back her head with a devious laugh. “Oh honey. I hope you’re more convincing than that in court tomorrow.”

I splash them both, and they shriek indignantly. Still, I’m smiling. We’re all damp and laughing when we pack up to go for pizza, and I can’t help hoping that all my hard work is paying off. That everything is really truly coming together.

***

Whatever you prefer to call it, fake not-dating works for us. It really works. Quentin makes dinner, while I read case notes. We dive into another nature documentary and make plans to white water raft in New Zealand and explore volcanoes in Iceland. I get him hooked on one of my reality TV dramas, and he endears himself to me by learning how to quickly differentiate – and properly take sides – between all the characters. We make love in the middle of the night, somewhere between falling asleep and waking up, as if suspended in a delicious, pleasure-drenched dream.

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