Fuck! I wasn’t just drunk. I was drunk as a skunk and the space inside my head was a rambling mess baring all my insecurities. I stepped closer to the water. Given the wind and the noise of the waves crashing against the shore, maybe not the best idea. The water started licking at my feet and I jumped backwards.

I checked the house behind me. The lights still shone brightly through the ground floor windows. The place was more a mansion than a house, with its pitched roof, elegant mix of timber and stucco, and its wide French doors. I wasn’t ready to return there yet.

I missed Cassie. There was no fun away from her, and getting wasted with people I didn’t give a shit about was the lamest way of coping with her absence. I gave the sand a frustrated kick. I retreated farther up the beach and sat down on the damp sand. I couldn’t avoid it any longer. I wanted to hear her voice. Badly.

I checked my phone. No voicemail. No text. What was she doing? What time was it on the West Coast? Close to midnight. Was she in bed? I punched the sand and forced my hand downwards until my knuckles screamed in pain. I wasn’t going to think about her in bed with Dupret.

I decided to check my emails to keep my mind from wandering. Nothing there either except… When Sweet Second started climbing the charts, I’d set up a Google alert for Cassie’s name. I didn’t care if that made me a digital stalker. She didn’t have a publicist yet and I wanted to check whatever was said about her. I’d received one alert in the last hour though: a couple of hits.

It could have waited, but I clicked on the first link anyway. I focused on the illuminated screen of my smartphone and read through the lines from a gossip blog. I scrolled upward to check when the post had been published. Two hours ago.

I scrolled back down again to land on a vertical line of photos. Cassie with Dupret getting out of a limo. Strolling together arm-in-arm in what looked like L.A. Like L.A. yesterday. I had to squint to make sense of the comments under each photo.

“Shawn Dupret in Love”. “Long-time girlfriend and duet singer back on the scene... and in his heart.”

WHAT.THE.FUCK?

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

The voice made it to me through my anger, the wind and the waves. I looked up. Megan stood there, tucked inside a fur coat. Her loose hair flew around her face. With only the silvery light of a half-moon, I could have mistaken her for Cass. “I had to clear my mind. Too much booze.”

Like a Belle at a summer party, Megan sat by my side on the wet, frozen sand. “I’ve a weakness for Tequila and now my head is spinning like a merry-go-round.”

“Where is Jack?”

My friend had been hanging on Megan’s every word and smile since we flew yesterday from Ronald Reagan Airport, but she kept treating him like an overeager puppy lapping at her heals.

She answered with a dismissive shrug. “He’s puking up beer. Just like a freshman.”

He’d never been able to hold his drink. “Some things never change.”

Megan turned sideways and tucked a wisp of her hair behind her ear. It was in vain as the wind blew it out again right away. For once, she didn’t look like her usual bitchy self.

“You’re right, Josh. Some things never change.” Even her voice had lost its steely edge.

“What do you mean?”

“I still feel the same way about you as I did back in our freshman year.” Her hand came to rest on my knee. “I never let it go.”

I stared at her hand. I kept staring at it when it snaked down my knee along my thigh and… there I stopped it. “I’m married.”

“I know.”

She snuggled her face in the hollow of my neck and soon her lips were tracing along my jawline. I shut my eyes. I wanted those lips to belong to someone else. But the scent of wild daisies wasn’t there to make the kiss what it should have been. What it always was with Cassie.

Mine.

Ours.

“Josh, please. Let yourself go.” Her mouth landed on my mouth this time.

I pushed her away— more roughly than I’d wanted to—and stood. She jumped to her feet too, this time looking nothing like a Southern Belle.

“Megan, I’m sorry if coming here misled you. I needed a break from D.C.—”

“—from her. Don’t fool yourself, Josh. I saw how you both were at the Langford. You need more than a break. You need a divorce.”

“Shut up!”

She stepped closer and her hand now cupped my jaw. “This marriage of yours is all wrong. It’s going to cost you your future. You already have Bruce Carrington on your back. You don’t need—”

My fingers gripped her wrist tightly. She flinched and I pushed her away from me. “My marriage and my career are two different things.”

She shook her head as if she was negotiating a business deal. “Not on the Hill and you’re smart enough to know that.”

“And I’m smart enough to know what makes me happy. My family does and it’ll always take priority over everything else.”

Megan threw her head backwards and broke into a cruel laugh that made me question her sanity. “Listen to yourself, Josh. If you don’t sound like a politician right now, I’ll be damned. You make family values sound sexy.”

My own voice came from the frozen depths. “You’re right. Some things never change. You were already a waste of space back in freshman year and you still are.”

Megan wasn’t used to being told it like it is. Her mouth gaped open like a fish at feeding time. She recovered quickly though, and when she spoke, her words dripped with acid. “You should be more careful. I know a lot of people and—”

“—Stop right there, Megan.” I stepped towards her so that I towered over her with my full height. “Behind that pretty face of yours, there’s actually a sharp brain. I’ve never doubted that. So think twice before threatening me. Then think ten years down the line and of how much damage I could do to you… and whoever you end up married to.”

She chuckled bitterly. “Don’t dream too big.”

“Don’t get in my way.”

That sealed the end of my weekend in the Hamptons. I turned back towards the house, but Megan wasn’t done yet.

“You’re not fooling me, Josh. The day that wife of yours becomes too much of a burden, you’ll get her a one-way ticket back to Kansas.”

I turned back to face her. “You mention my wife one more time and I’ll get you a one-way ticket to hell. She’s off-limits.”

I hurried back to my bedroom because I had to find my one-way ticket to D.C.

I managed to fly from New York early that morning, then spent the entire afternoon spread on the sofa of our living room. I hadn’t closed my eyes after my four-a.m-‘chat’ with Megan Alistair. Boarding a plane with a hangover was the lamest idea after going to Megan’s weekender.

The Advil I’d taken was just starting to kick in. My senses were operating again because I picked up on the sound of keys rattling by the entrance. I quickly closed my laptop. It was a relief not to watch the same picture again.

“Hi,” Cassie said with a bright smile.

“Hi.” My voice was flat.

I watched her dropping her duffel bag on the floor. That bag used to belong to Mrs. O’s husband when he was in the Marines. I wished Mrs. O. could be here to tell me how to handle her granddaughter. Or handle myself.

I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my thighs. Cassie was watching me and, for once, I couldn’t read her. For once I couldn’t find my words either. Her shoulders drooped and she headed to the kitchen. I heard the water running in the faucet. It stopped and she walked back into the living room, then sat in the chair directly across from me. The only thing between us was the large metal coffee table.

Her hands were linked together on her lap. Her back was stiff, her lips tight.

The scene was the perfect rendition of ‘awkward silence.’

With one hand, I opened the laptop again, and turned it around so that the screen faced her.