start to a day.
Brooke wouldn’t do anything rash or crazy, would she? She wouldn’t do something she’d regret later on, right? No. Of course not.
As Charlotte slid on her flip-flops and ambled out of the room to shower, she remembered those stupid words Dr. Gilmore had told her while wearing that stupid paisley bow tie.
“Lying to yourself is never a solution.”
Chapter Ten
No Competition
Georgia nudged her SUV along the Silver Oaks driveway. 9:53. That didn’t leave her a whole lot of time. Valerie was due to arrive for their tennis date at ten. Still, Georgia could catch a quick few minutes with Marcus alone by the pool, and explain a couple of things to him.
Namely: They were going to be friends. That was all.
Georgia had deliberately pulled her hair into a sloppy bun and worn her most drab tennis outfit: a sleeveless, white, collared jumper that her mom always sneered at. “I don’t know why you wear it, dear; the design just isn’t becoming.” Which was the point. She didn’t want to be “becoming” today. Not in Marcus’s eyes.
Under any other circumstances, Georgia would have parked her car herself. But if she did that, she knew that she would just sit alone in the lot, and crank a cheesy Top 40 Sunday morning countdown, and lose her nerve. There was a precedent for this: Last summer, after Ethan had dumped her, she’d parked and listened all the way to song #5 —some rap ballad about a “mack dissing his shorty,” and it was so dumb and perfectly apropos that she’d ended up weeping.
With a quick punch on the gas, she swerved up in front of the main doors. There was just something so… country club about valet parking. Brooke and Charlotte never had a problem with it. Of course they didn’t. They were comfortable with being country club. And why shouldn’t they be? Actually, the real question was: Why couldn’t Georgia be?
For some bizarre reason, Jimmy the Bartender was handling valet duties.
He waddled over to the SUV, dressed in the perennial rumpled Silver Oaks polo-and-shorts uniform, his socks pulled high—then opened the door for her and extended a hand to help her out. She scooped her racket off the passenger seat.
“Hey, Jimmy,” she greeted him. “What’s going on? Where’s the usual guy?”
“He’s coming in late,” Jimmy answered hoarsely. “Probably hungover.”
Georgia shrugged. Hangovers after the first Saturday night of the season were practically expected.
Jimmy climbed in and handed her a ticket stub. “Hey, your friend Snow White is looking for you.”
Georgia frowned. “Brooke? She’s here? She never gets up before ten on Sunday.”
“Yeah, she seemed to be in a big hurry to get into the water, too. She drove up in her bathing suit! I told her she would catch cold. But you kids seem to play by your own rules. Hell if I understand.” Jimmy closed the door and drove off toward the parking lot, disappearing around the bend.
Georgia absently crumpled the parking ticket in one hand.
Hell if she understood, either. She hurried through the front doors, breaking into a jog in the main hall, past the sitting room and the parlor, and through the empty dining room. Finally she dashed out onto the patio, where she jerked to a stop.
There was Brooke all right, lounging poolside in her striped Shoshanna bikini, but at her side, in a lounger of his own, was Marcus Craft. The lifeguard station was abandoned, but it didn’t matter—there was no one in the pool at this early hour. From the way that Brooke and Marcus were positioned, with their loungers so close they were practically touching and Marcus’s hand resting ever so casually near Brooke’s thigh, they looked as if they might be lying in bed together. Brooke’s face was turned to Marcus, and her expression was rapturous. Georgia’s stomach gave a jump; maybe it was Brooke she needed to talk to, even more than Marcus.
She padded over to them, her flip-flops thwacking, and took a deep breath.
Brooke wouldn’t do anything rash or crazy, would she? She wouldn’t do something she’d regret later on, right? No. Of course not.
As Charlotte slid on her flip-flops and ambled out of the room to shower, she remembered those stupid words Dr. Gilmore had told her while wearing that stupid paisley bow tie.
“Lying to yourself is never a solution.”
Chapter Ten
No Competition
Georgia nudged her SUV along the Silver Oaks driveway. 9:53. That didn’t leave her a whole lot of time. Valerie was due to arrive for their tennis date at ten. Still, Georgia could catch a quick few minutes with Marcus alone by the pool, and explain a couple of things to him.
Namely: They were going to be friends. That was all.
Georgia had deliberately pulled her hair into a sloppy bun and worn her most drab tennis outfit: a sleeveless, white, collared jumper that her mom always sneered at. “I don’t know why you wear it, dear; the design just isn’t becoming.” Which was the point. She didn’t want to be “becoming” today. Not in Marcus’s eyes.
Under any other circumstances, Georgia would have parked her car herself. But if she did that, she knew that she would just sit alone in the lot, and crank a cheesy Top 40 Sunday morning countdown, and lose her nerve. There was a precedent for this: Last summer, after Ethan had dumped her, she’d parked and listened all the way to song #5 —some rap ballad about a “mack dissing his shorty,” and it was so dumb and perfectly apropos that she’d ended up weeping.
With a quick punch on the gas, she swerved up in front of the main doors. There was just something so… country club about valet parking. Brooke and Charlotte never had a problem with it. Of course they didn’t. They were comfortable with being country club. And why shouldn’t they be? Actually, the real question was: Why couldn’t Georgia be?
For some bizarre reason, Jimmy the Bartender was handling valet duties.
He waddled over to the SUV, dressed in the perennial rumpled Silver Oaks polo-and-shorts uniform, his socks pulled high—then opened the door for her and extended a hand to help her out. She scooped her racket off the passenger seat.
“Hey, Jimmy,” she greeted him. “What’s going on? Where’s the usual guy?”
“He’s coming in late,” Jimmy answered hoarsely. “Probably hungover.”
Georgia shrugged. Hangovers after the first Saturday night of the season were practically expected.
Jimmy climbed in and handed her a ticket stub. “Hey, your friend Snow White is looking for you.”
Georgia frowned. “Brooke? She’s here? She never gets up before ten on Sunday.”
“Yeah, she seemed to be in a big hurry to get into the water, too. She drove up in her bathing suit! I told her she would catch cold. But you kids seem to play by your own rules. Hell if I understand.” Jimmy closed the door and drove off toward the parking lot, disappearing around the bend.
Georgia absently crumpled the parking ticket in one hand.
Hell if she understood, either. She hurried through the front doors, breaking into a jog in the main hall, past the sitting room and the parlor, and through the empty dining room. Finally she dashed out onto the patio, where she jerked to a stop.
There was Brooke all right, lounging poolside in her striped Shoshanna bikini, but at her side, in a lounger of his own, was Marcus Craft. The lifeguard station was abandoned, but it didn’t matter—there was no one in the pool at this early hour. From the way that Brooke and Marcus were positioned, with their loungers so close they were practically touching and Marcus’s hand resting ever so casually near Brooke’s thigh, they looked as if they might be lying in bed together. Brooke’s face was turned to Marcus, and her expression was rapturous. Georgia’s stomach gave a jump; maybe it was Brooke she needed to talk to, even more than Marcus.
She padded over to them, her flip-flops thwacking, and took a deep breath.
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