The Idea of You - The Idea of You: c么te d'zur

 

I knew I would go. The way he’d dangled it in the air … like candy. This sweet, sweet lure. The way he’d phrased it. As if I did not have a choice. The way it fit into my schedule. Easy.

I had the gallery’s travel agent make the arrangements: a quick detour to Nice following Art Basel. I lied to Lulit and told her I was visiting family. I lied to my family and told them I was meeting clients. I tried to be honest with myself. It was just physical, this arrangement. Carnal. Nothing more, nothing less. And knowing that, I thought, would allow me to enjoy the ride.

I should have been able to pull it off: sex without guilt, sex without shame, sex without expectation. The French had been doing it for centuries. It was in my DNA. Surely, I could tap into that part of me that had yet to surface. Three days on the Riviera with a beautiful boy and no strings attached. I would not overthink it. I would go and have fun, and then return to my life. And no one would be the wiser. It had been three years. I deserved this.

* * *

The week before I left for Switzerland, Isabelle and I spent the weekend in Santa Barbara. Just the two of us, at the Bacara Resort, catching up on some mother-daughter time as I’d promised. She was heading off to Maine for summer camp at the end of the month and would be gone until mid-August. As it did every year, the pending separation weighed on me. The idea that she would return to me forever changed, in some small way or another. Time eluding us both.

Late in the afternoon on Saturday, we laid out a blanket on a promontory overlooking the ocean, and set out to capture the view in watercolors. It had become something of a ritual for us, painting side by side. I dreaded the day she would outgrow it.

I watched her as she painted in broad, sure strokes, confident in her artistry. Her nose screwed up in concentration, her French pout. Her long hair knotted at the base of her neck, secured with a pencil, like I used to wear mine in school. For all her independence, she was still my mini-me. We had marveled at that when she was small. Those first few weeks home from the hospital when everything was new and full of wonder. Daniel and I would lie in bed cocooning her and gazing at her features, her every little movement. Discovering what was mine and what was his and what was decidedly Isabelle’s. Falling in love with her, and each other, anew.

“Do you think you’ll ever get married again, Mom?”

It came out of nowhere. The big questions always did.

“I don’t know, peanut. Maybe…”

She was quiet for a moment, filling in her sky.

“Why? What made you ask?”

Isabelle shrugged. “I just wonder sometimes. I don’t want you to be lonely.”

“Lonely? Do you think I’m lonely?” I laughed, uneasy. “I’ve got you.”

“I know, but…” She stopped to look at me. “I just want you to be happy.”

I was not sure where all this was coming from. In the beginning, I’d spent a great deal of time letting her know that I was all right. That the divorce was best for all of us. That Daniel and I would be happier people apart, and how that, in turn, would make us better parents. It took much consoling and eighteen months of therapy, but lately the topic hadn’t reared its head.

“I am happy, honey,” I said, returning to my makeshift easel. “I have everything I need.”

It sounded truthful.

She watched me for a while. Scrutinizing my horizon, the meeting of violet and cerulean. And then: “I think Daddy’s going to marry Eva.”

It was a kick to the gut. “Why do you say that?”

She shrugged, noncommittal.

“Did he say something to you?”

“I think he’s feeling me out,” she said.

I sensed it: the familiar tightness in my chest. It had been years, but there it was, that thick, heavy feeling of something lost. “Why? What did he say to you?”

She shrugged again, looking away. I could see her struggling to make this easier for me.

“Isabelle?”

“He said that you would always be my mother. No matter what happened. That nothing would ever change that.”

She’d said it flatly, with little emotion. But it was all there.

“Oh.”

We sat for a moment, neither of us speaking, lost in our thoughts. The sound of the waves. The sun flaring white on the water.

“I just thought it sounded like he was trying to prepare me for something. I thought you should be prepared, too.”

* * *

It stayed with me, Isabelle’s concerns. I did not bring it up with Daniel because it wasn’t my place. But it felt a bit like waiting for the other shoe to drop. And so I left for Europe with a little bit of a hollow in my heart. The one that I thought had mended. And I tried my best to forget it was there.

* * *

Hayes and his bandmates were staying at a fabulous villa on the Cap d’Antibes. They were there for only a week before heading up to record at some state-of-the-art studio in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. This was a luxury, he’d conveyed, as more often than not they found themselves recording in hotel rooms in between shows. Hayes and Oliver and occasionally Rory doing the bulk of the songwriting with their producers at odd hours of the night; the boys laying vocal tracks in their makeshift studio, mattresses propped against the walls for acoustics. No rest for the weary.

In the time since I’d last seen him, they’d wrapped up the North American leg of the Petty Desires tour, spent two weeks decompressing at home, and were gearing up for their next album. It was a machine, he’d explained. They were milking them, twelve months a year, to feed a growing fandom that seemed to not be able to get enough of these five boys.

“There’s like a clock ticking. An expiration date,” he’d said, late one night on the phone from London. “I think they’re afraid we’re going to grow hair on our chests and our fans are going to just up and disappear. So they’re trying to get as much money out of us as they can now. But really we could use a break. Take That are working on yet another album, and the New Kids are still doing cruises and they’re in their forties. They still have die-hard fans. But they both took breaks.”

“Do you want to still be doing this in your forties?” The idea seemed absurd.

“I don’t know. I think I just want to do it until it’s not fun anymore. Sometimes I think that could be sooner rather than later. But then, look at the Rolling Stones. They’re still having a heck of a good time.”

August Moon was not the Rolling Stones. But I did not want to be the one to tell him that.

* * *

The Monday morning after the closing of Basel, I flew directly to Nice and barely had time to unpack and shower at my hotel in Cannes before Hayes sent a car and driver to retrieve me. I’d rejected his offer to stay at their villa, not liking the impression it gave, but I’d agreed to join him for the afternoon.

The estate of Domaine La Dilecta was breathtaking. Iron gates rolling back to reveal a rambling drive, acres of lush lawn, a sizable guesthouse, a majestic villa perched atop the hill—stark white against an azure sky. I could get used to this, rock star living.

He was standing there beneath the portico. Tall and slim-hipped, in head-to-toe black and Wayfarers. His jeans, skinnier than mine.

“So…” I said, stepping out of the car. “This is you?”

He smiled, leaning into me. Oh, the smell of him. “This is us.”

“It’s not a bad pad you’ve got.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Thirty million records will do that for you. Welcome. No bags?”

“I told you: I’m not staying.”

“Right.” He smiled his half smile, dimples beckoning. “No pressure.”

He took my hand then, leading me into the house, through the foyer, and up the stairs to the main floor, past room after oversized room. The architecture was Art Deco, the décor ornate. Not particularly my style, but impressive nonetheless.

“So all is well in Basel?”

“All is well in Basel.”

“Did you sell a plethora of art?” He smiled. His skin was bronzed, kissed by the Riviera sun.

“A plethora of art.” My laugh echoed over the marble floors.

It had been a week of wining and dining and posturing in a variety of languages: English and French and Italian, a smattering of German and Japanese. Lulit had bemoaned the fact that, despite the three Ivy League degrees between us, it still came down to the length of our skirts, but we’d stuck to our mantra—Go. Sell. Art. To rich white men—and sold out our entire booth at the fair.

“This place is massive.”

Hayes and I had happened into a drawing room. There was a baby grand piano in the center, and he ran his fingers over the keys as we walked through. The motion was simple, and yet the melody he’d produced was so pure, it stayed with me.

“You have to see the rest of the grounds,” he said as he continued across the space. “The record company’s treat. A little ‘Well done, lads! Have a spot of fun and then back to work, all right? But if you’re inclined to do some writing in the interim, we won’t stop you.’”

He threw open a set of doors, opening onto a grand terrace, revealing the yard in all its vast verdant glory. A bit of a ways down there was a sizable pool, a handsome pool house, and way, way beyond the rolling hills and the horizon of trees, there was the Mediterranean.

The two of us stood for a minute, soaking it in. I could barely make out a few bodies prostrate on the lounges poolside. But other than that, it felt like we had the place to ourselves.

“So,” Hayes continued, “we’re here for a few more days, and then we head into the studio to work on Wise or Naked.”

“Wise or Naked?”

“The new album.”

“Oh. So which one are you?”

He laughed. “Which one would you like me to be?”

“Ideally, both.”

“Ha! That’s a flirt, not a spar.”

“You’re getting good at this.”

“I have an exceptional teacher. Come meet our friends.”

I followed him down to the lawn and across the wide expanse of grass. “Where is everyone?”

“Liam and Simon took the boat out to go jet-skiing with Nick and Desmond, a couple of our security guys. Oliver is playing tennis down at the courts with Raj. Trevor and Fergus, also security, are in the gym. And Rory … I think Rory is taking a well-deserved nap.” He laughed at that.

And then I understood.

Lying out by the pool were three young, sublimely formed females in various stages of naked. If I hadn’t had a heart-to-heart with myself about being comfortable with the fact that I would likely be twenty years older than all the other eye candy offered on this trip, I might have reacted differently. I might have run back to my hotel. Back to L.A. But I’d rationalized it shopping for swimsuits at Barneys. And on the flight to Switzerland. And again, just now, in the drive over from Cannes. I was here because Hayes wanted me to be. And being near forty and having birthed and nursed a child did not change any of that.

Hayes proceeded to introduce me to their guests. In one corner, Oliver’s girlfriend, Charlotte: a porcelain-skinned, bikinied brunette who’d separated herself from the others with the aid of an oversized sun hat and an iPad. She smiled up at me from her place in the sun, sipping Vittel and cracking pistachios with the finesse of a duchess.

And in the other corner, the French girls, Émilie and Carine. I’d mistaken them for twins, but Hayes disabused me of that notion. They were locals, friends of Rory, delightfully pretty and ridiculously young, in matching black bikini bottoms. And sunglasses.

“Ça va?” I nodded toward them. I’d grown up summering with girls like this. I had only stopped being intimidated once I’d realized that the particularly aggressive mixture of competitive tanning, cigarettes, and Bordeaux caught up with them at around age thirty-two. But I could appreciate them for all their nubile beauty now. I assumed Hayes could as well.

“Avez-vous du feu?” the one with the slightly more perfect breasts asked.

“Non, desolée. Je fume pas.”

“Tant pis, alors.” She tossed her blonde head.

Hayes called to me from the far side of the pool. Someone had set up a lovely spread: crudités, fresh fruit, a selection of chilled drinks. “Rosé?”

“What? No Scotch?” I made my way over to him.

“When in France…”

“So your friend Émilie—”

“Rory’s friend,” he corrected me, pouring the wine.

“Rory’s friend. She just vous-ed me.”

“So?”

“So I’m guessing she thinks I’m your mother. Or that I work here.”

“Really?” he said, handing me a full glass. And then, before I could take a sip, he grabbed my head in both his hands and kissed me firmly on the mouth. “Well … she doesn’t think that now.”

Somehow I’d managed to forget how wonderful his mouth was. Soft, enticing. “You should probably do that again. Just to be sure.”

“Just to be sure,” he repeated. And then he obliged me.

When he eventually pulled away, I could feel the girls’ eyes on us. Even Charlotte, who was still cracking pistachios.

“Not that that wasn’t fun,” he said, soft, “but you probably shouldn’t care what she thinks.

“Come.” He grabbed his glass. “Let’s go for a walk.”

“The French girls, what are they? Twelve?” I asked once out of earshot.

He laughed. “Eighteen.”

“You know that for a fact?”

“Desmond checked their IDs.”

I paused for a moment, making sense of it. “Is that what Desmond does? Does Desmond check IDs?”

Hayes smiled. “No one on the premises under eighteen. That’s the rule.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “No one asked for my ID.”

“I vouched for you. Come here.” He took my chin in his free hand and kissed me. “Twelve…” He laughed.

“They look twelve to me.”

“Isabelle is twelve. Isabelle is not that. Yet.”

I gave him one of my best withering looks.

“I’m kidding. Isabelle will never be that. She’s going to go from twelve straight to sixty. No stopping in between.”

I looked back toward the pool then. One of the girls was oiling the other’s back. Was this real life? “Aahhh, France…”

Hayes smiled, wide. “It’s like a gift.”

“I imagine it is. I imagine being in a boy band is like a gift as well.”

“Sometimes.” He sipped from his glass.

“Only sometimes? When is it not a gift?”

“When the woman you’re trying to impress reminds you that you’re in a boy band.”

“Touché,” I said. We were making the trek across the lawn down toward the south corner of the property. “Are you trying to impress me?”

“Was that not apparent?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“But you didn’t bring any bags.”

“I’ve got this.” I smiled, proffering my purse: the Céline hobo bag in chamois, perfect for everything but holding a change of clothes.

“Does it have a toothbrush in it?”

“You’re bad—”

“If not, I’m not interested.”

“You would fuck me even if I didn’t bring a toothbrush.”

Hayes stopped in his tracks, pushing his sunglasses up on his head. “You just used the f-word.”

“Imagine that…”

“I have been. For two months now,” he admitted. “You realize this changes everything, right? I was trying to be a gentleman, but why bother?”

I smiled, swilling the wine. “I like that you’re a gentleman.”

“You, Solène Marchand, are very complex. Which I find incredibly appealing.”

“Like unfolding a flower?”

It took a moment, and then he remembered, smiling. “Like unfolding a flower.”

A sudden glare of light ahead caught our attention, and Hayes and I looked up to see a golf cart careening toward us from the direction of what I assumed were the tennis courts. Rory was at the wheel, Oliver beside him, long legs outstretched on the dash, and Raj was seated on the bench in the rear. They made for quite a sight. Bronzed youthful skin, chiseled features. Like they’d rolled out of the pages of a catalog …

“’Ello, chaps!” Rory called, bringing the cart to an abrupt halt alongside us. “Where are you two off to? Hi, I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Rory.”

“Solène.”

“Enchanté,” he said in a thick Yorkshire accent. He had a lopsided grin and random tattoos on his arms, and still I could see the appeal. The dark hooded eyes, the leather necklaces, the scruff on his otherwise youthful face.

“You have actually,” Hayes intervened. “In Las Vegas.”

“This year?”

“How was Switzerland?” Oliver asked, which threw me. We hadn’t spoken since that evening at the Mandalay Bay and here he knew my itinerary. It made me wonder how much these boys shared. My mind flashed back to the Crosby Street Hotel. What, if anything, had Hayes told him?

“Switzerland was lovely, thank you.”

He smiled, nodding slowly. I could not discern what was going on behind his gold-rimmed aviators.

“Good to see you, Solène.” Raj waved. In a polo and madras shorts, he seemed decidedly less business wunderkind and more sixth boy band member.

“Are you guys coming from the pool? Are the twins still there?” Rory raised an eyebrow.

“They’re not twins, you know, mate. They’re not even sisters,” Hayes laughed.

“Let me have the fantasy, man.”

“Simon, Liam, and the others are on their way back,” Raj said. “The match is at six. Benoît is grilling lobster. We can eat at eight. And Croatia and Mexico won’t start until ten.”

I felt like they were speaking in code. “What match?”

“Netherlands and Chile,” Hayes said. And when my expression indicated that I’d registered nothing, he added, “The World Cup.”

“Oh. Right.”

“It’s going to be a hell of a match,” Oliver said. “I hope you’ll stay.”

“We haven’t decided what we’re doing yet,” Hayes said, wrapping his arm around my waist in a manner that struck me as possessive. “We’ll let you know.”

“All right, we’re off!” Rory announced.

“Nice watch,” Raj called back as they peeled out.

Hayes laughed. “She’s keeping it warm for me. I can only wear one at a time!

“We don’t have to stay,” he said once we were alone again. “It’s going to be loud and crazy, and if you’d rather not, I certainly understand. We can go out for dinner. Or we can go back to your hotel, or … whatever makes you most comfortable.”

There was something about Hayes when he was being polite that was such a turn-on. The idea that no matter how famous he was he had this breeding that would endure.

“You know what? Why don’t we go to your room?” Even as I said it, I could feel my face flushing. It was not like me. But none of this had been. I was redefining. This was me trying to enjoy myself. This was me trying not to care.

His eyes widened. “Now?”

“Yes. Now. Why? Is it not tidy?” I smiled up at him.

“Oh … it’s tidy.”

“Well, good then.”

“I just thought you wouldn’t want to … see it … so early in the day.”

“Well, we’re just looking at it, right?” I said, polishing off the rosé.

“Yep.” He nodded, all dimples. “We’re just looking at it.”

* * *

It didn’t take long to trek back to the house and up to Hayes’s suite. It was, like everything else at Domaine La Dilecta, lavishly decorated: an eclectic mixture of furniture, various objets d’art, trompe l’oeil on the walls.

“So this is where the magic happens,” I said, tossing my bag on an armchair in the corner. There was a sunken alcove off the main room, bright with magnificent wraparound views.

Hayes laughed, setting down his wine. “Magic? No pressure or anything.”

“None at all. Goodness, it’s like Versailles in here.”

“I think they were going for a thing.”

“A thing?” I approached him.

“A thing,” he repeated, reaching out for my waist and pulling me into him. “You are so fucking beautiful.”

“You said the f-word.”

“You started.”

“Maybe.” I flinched. His fingers had found their way beneath the hem of my blouse and were surprisingly cool against my skin.

“Are my hands cold? Sorry,” he said, but he did not remove them.

I stood there, breathing him in. Wondering at how effortlessly he managed to span my waist, making me feel fragile, breakable almost. His thumbs tracing over my bottom ribs, and alternately fondling the material of my shirt.

“I like this top,” he said.

The blouse was white, sleeveless, sheer in some places, ruffled in others, and altogether very feminine. I felt like a girl in it, which is admittedly why I’d bought it for this trip. So that I would not look like someone’s mother.

“Are you just going to stand there counting my ribs, or are you going to kiss me?”

He smiled at that, his eyes decidedly green. “You like me kissing you.”

“Well, I did come all this way…”

“I thought you came to return my watch.”

“You want it back?”

He shook his head. “I just want to look at you for a moment.”

“You’ve been looking at me for over an hour.”

“Yeah, but before I was trying not to be obvious about it. Come here.” He led me over to the daybed against the far wall and pulled me onto his lap.

I could feel him through his pants. Oh, the wonders of twenty.

“You want to be kissed, Solène?” His hands were in my hair, pushing it off my face, cradling my neck.

“Yes.” I nodded. “You think you can handle that?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

* * *

We had not been at it for five minutes when I was distracted by a series of calls coming in to my phone. I could hear it vibrating in my purse. Across the room, in the chair, while Hayes’s mouth was on my neck, his hands up the back of my blouse. I attempted to ignore it.

The calls then switched to the text signal, one after another. I pulled away from him for a moment, trying to do the math. What time was it in Los Angeles? Boston?

“Do you want to get that?” His hands were on my breasts, over my bra, his thumbs rubbing my nipples through the sheer material. Black, silk, ridiculously overpriced, purchased expressly for this trip. Getting that was the last thing I wanted to do.

Eight twenty-five a.m., I registered. Eleven twenty-five Eastern. “No.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay.” He smiled and slowly lifted off my blouse. “Hiiii.” That face.

“Hi, yourself.”

His finger hooked beneath the shoulder strap of my bra, before running down over my breastbone and dipping inside the demi cup. Teasing. He looked up, as if to check in with me, before pushing the material to the side and lowering his head. My breath caught, his tongue on my nipple. Fuck fuck fuck. What was it about being with him that made me feel as if everything were happening for the first time?

My fingers entwined in his hair as he unhooked the clasp and cupped my breasts in his hands.

“God, everything about you is perfect,” he said. It was precisely what an almost forty-year-old woman wanted to hear about her breasts.

I was reveling in the smell of his hair and the feel of his mouth when I heard it again, my phone. Dammit.

I waited for two more text alerts before I attempted to stop him. “Hayes … Hayes.”

He lifted his head, slow.

“I should probably make sure that’s not an emergency.”

He nodded, his eyes holding mine as he completed removing the bra and placed it beside him on the bed. “Go,” he said, coy. “But come back to me.”

* * *

There were three missed calls and voicemails from Isabelle. Followed by five texts:

Where are you?

Please call me!!

It’s urgent!!!

Mom!!!!!!!

Mommy!!!!!

Shit.

“I’m sorry. I have to take this. It’s Isabelle.”

He was reclining on the daybed, arms clasped behind his lovely head, long legs hanging off the edge. “Do what you have to do. I’ll wait.”

She answered in a tizzy. Frenetic, which was not typical of her behavior.

“Heeey. What’s happening?”

“Why aren’t you here?”

“Because, honey, I had to come for Basel. You know that. Is everything okay? What’s going on?” I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that it had happened, that Daniel had proposed. And that I was going to have to be strong for her, six thousand miles away and topless. And that I was going to have to lie and tell her that it wasn’t going to change anything, even though deep down I knew it would. And that Hayes was going to be witness to it all.

I folded my arm across my “everything about you is perfect” breasts and prepared for the worst.

“You should be here.” She’d begun to cry. “I need you.”

“Izz … what happened?”

“I got my period.”

I sank into the armchair then, relieved. “Izz, that’s great. That’s wonderful. Congratulations!”

“It’s not wonderful. You’re not here.”

“I know, honey, I’m sorry. But we thought there was a good chance it was going to happen this summer when you were in Maine anyway.” This was me trying to deflect the fact that I was an absentee mother out gallivanting in the South of France with rock stars while my daughter was experiencing her first true coming-of-age milestone. I sucked.

She was quiet for a moment. I was staring out at the lawn, the long drive winding down the hill, so much green.

“It got on the sheets,” she whispered.

“It’s okay, you can wash them. Use cold water. But do it now, okay. Don’t wait.”

“And I don’t have any, like, stuff here.”

“We’ll take care of that. Where’s Daddy?”

“He’s out running.”

“All right. He can swing by the drugstore before work.”

“I’m not telling him.”

I could feel her getting worked up again over the phone. “Isabelle, he’s your father.”

“He’s a guy.”

I smiled at that, looking over into the alcove. A guitar case was propped up against the far wall. Hayes was in the same position on the daybed, eyes closed. I wasn’t sure if he was sleeping or just lying very still, listening. “Honey, he’s your dad. He’s not just a guy. I promise.”

“No, I’m not telling him.” She paused. “You tell him.”

“Okay, I’ll tell him—”

“No, don’t tell him.”

I laughed. “Where’s Eva?”

“In the shower, I think.”

I hated going this route. I hated knowing that she would be the one to hug her first, to share knowing looks and nudges and traipse with her through the aisles of CVS in search of Always with Wings. Like some chummy big sister or cool aunt and not the intellectual property tramp who was fucking her father. But it was not to be avoided.

“Do you feel comfortable talking to Eva?” I asked.

She was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know. I guess…”

“She’s not a guy.”

“She’s not my mom.”

That hurt and felt good at the same time. “I’m sorry I’m not there, Izz. Truly. I’m sorry. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Hurry up and come home, okay?”

Just then a black Range Rover came pulling up the drive followed by two smaller cars. Simon and Liam were back. The thought arose that maybe they could see into this window.

“I’ll see you Thursday, in Boston. And we’ll celebrate. Promise.”

“Okay,” she sighed. “Have fun. Don’t work too hard.”

The last bit was like twisting the knife.

“Bisous,” she said.

“Bisous.”

“Everything okay?” Hayes asked when I sat beside him on the bed.

“Yeah.”

“Girl stuff?”

I smiled, nodding. “She would die if she knew you knew.”

“I won’t tell her then.” He reached up to stroke my hair, his movements slow, lethargic.

“Your friends are back.”

“Yeah. The match is starting soon.”

“I don’t think this is going to happen right now,” I laughed, awkward, my arms still across my breasts. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” He smiled. “It couldn’t be avoided. I’m sorry for Isabelle that you weren’t there.”

I felt my chest tighten then, and for a second I thought I might cry. “I’m sorry, too.”

“Come here.” He pulled me onto him. “Come lie down with me for five minutes. Before the madness…”

“The madness?”

He nodded. “There’s always madness.”

* * *

Hayes was right. There was a certain level of madness. Simon and Liam were loud, crazy. They’d returned from their jet-ski outing with two girls. Apiece. I wasn’t certain whether they’d just met them or they were prior acquaintances. I did not want to ask. But I had this moment of “What the fuck am I doing here?” followed by “Where are these girls’ mothers?” And I felt an intense need to chaperone them all.

Much later, when I had the gumption to ask Hayes if it was typical of his bandmates to entertain two women at a time, he laughed, amused. “No. Usually they’re interested in one and the other is a friend or sister who tags along for moral support. A wing woman, if you will. Except for in extreme cases … like Rory. Or … Ibiza.”

For those who cared, the Netherlands v. Chile game was a nail-biter. For me, it was an opportunity to down rosé and oysters on the terrace while the others hooted and hollered and yelled indecipherable Britishisms in the salon.

When the match was over and Netherlands had triumphed, the gang descended on the lobster spread and then, after, engaged in an impromptu soccer game and frolicking on the lawn.

“Do you have everything you need? Are you all right?” Hayes insisted on checking in every ten minutes or so. He’d swept his hair back with a headband and changed into a jersey and shorts to play, and there was something so boyish about him that it almost felt wrong. Almost.

“I’m fine. Watching you and your friends have fun.”

“All right.” He kissed me, the sweet smell of sweat on his skin. “Let me know when you stop being fine, all right?”

At some point in the evening, Rory headed up to the terrace with the French sister wives and a guitar and began serenading them. By the time he launched into a startlingly good rendition of “Hotel California,” the lot of us had joined him, Simon and Liam chiming in with some impressive harmonies. I felt like I was in college all over again. Except these guys actually got paid to do this. I drank in the moment: Cap d’Antibes on a balmy June night. Close to ten and the sky a pale orchid, the immense stretch of green, the smell of the sea, the wine, and “a lot of pretty, pretty boys…”

I chose not to stay for the second match. Hayes insisted on driving me back to my hotel but did not press to come upstairs when I pled exhaustion.

“Come with me to Saint-Tropez tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll have lunch.” We were sitting in his Bentley Continental cabriolet, a rental, in a parking space on the Croisette, a few doors down from the Hôtel Martinez. Stalling. “It’s just going to be a handful of us on the boat. Much less madness.”

“I don’t mind the madness.”

He smiled, reaching out to finger my hair. “I do. You were stellar. We’re a lot to take on, I know. I promise tomorrow will be different.”

“Did I say I didn’t have a good time? If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be here.”

“I didn’t really give you a choice,” he laughed.

“I always have a choice, Hayes.”

He let that sit there for a moment. “God … It’s really too bad you’re so knackered. It would be nice to finish what we started…”

“If you were to come upstairs now, you’d miss all of the Croatia-Mexico game.”

“Somehow I think it would be worth it.”

I took his hand from my hair then and held it to my mouth, inhaling new car leather. “I will … see you … tomorrow,” I said, and kissed his palm. Twice.

He grinned, his head reclining on the headrest. “Now you’re just teasing me.”

“Tomorrow,” I repeated.

“So you’ll come to Saint-Tropez?”

“I’ll come to Saint-Tropez.”

* * *

Not that I couldn’t have enjoyed a day alone decompressing from Art Basel at the hotel’s beach club, downing Campari and orange juice and luxuriating in all that was good about Cannes in its off-season. But that was not the purpose of this trip.

And I was reminded of that again, sailing through the sapphire waters of the Mediterranean under a cloudless sky. The jagged coastline bathed in Riviera light stretched out alongside us, offering up lush pines and terra-cotta rooftops. The extravagance of endless Moët & Chandon Rosé Impérial aboard a sixty-three-foot crewed yacht. The indulgence, the beauty—made all the more so with him.

It was just us, Oliver, Charlotte, Desmond, and Fergus. The others had opted to drive the Grande Corniche to Monac