A short while later, Penn tied everything off and set us on a smooth path through the water. He dropped down next to me, reaching for a water bottle out of the cooler. A smile touched my features as all those memories of our time together out on the water in the Hamptons hit me fresh. Sometimes, it was easy to forget how real that had all been for the both of us.
“You look hot when you do that.”
He set the water bottle back down. “What?”
“Sail.”
“I can’t believe that you forgot everything I’d taught you.”
“It was so long ago.”
He wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Hence why I thought it would be nice to make all new memories out here.”
“I like that,” I said, nuzzling into his embrace.
He kissed my hair, and for a while, we just sat there, enjoying the wind in our hair and the sun kissing our skin. It was peaceful after the go, go, go of New York. Charleston had its own charm.
“So, what happened with Michael?” he finally asked.
I sighed. I had known it was coming, but I’d thought that I would be able to escape it for a little while longer. “He was mad that the party was about me. That all of Mel’s friends were excited by my new socialite status and celebrity boyfriend.”
He arched an eyebrow at that. I shrugged.
“I tried to tell them that we weren’t famous, but I guess, we look famous here.”
“And how did they find out about all of that?”
I explained about Mary Beth and the alumni page that had generated my newfound celebrity status.
“I see. And so, when Michael got mad, that’s when he had all the girls get away from you.”
“Yes, and he was mad and said I was selfish and basically…nothing. And well, I’d had this realization while Mel’s friends went postal on me. I finally realized why you always say that you can’t escape the Upper East Side. Because I couldn’t. Even here in Charleston. Somewhere so far away from that life, and it had followed me here. And I haven’t been a part of it for very long while you were raised there your whole life.” I sheepishly looked up at him. “Before, whenever you said you wanted to escape but couldn’t, I used to think that you were being a bit…dramatic.”
He shrugged. “I really wish that I were.”
“But you actually can’t escape it, can you?”
He shook his head. “No, I can’t.”
“It follows you. The prestige, the name, the ramifications of who you are being more important than you. Even the people who had known me before got swept up in my new persona. And it’s like that for you all the time.”
“Yes. Which is why it was so refreshing when I met you in Paris. You had no idea who I was. And I don’t think that you cared.”
“I didn’t.”
“I was an ass for leading you on through the city and leaving after, but I’ve thought about that night a lot. How I wished my whole life could be that anonymous. But that’s not possible. And it becomes less and less so every time my mother runs for reelection, which happens to be this year. Court and I were talking about it.”
My brows rose in shock. “You and your brother talked?”
“Yes, and it was shockingly cordial.”
“Wow. That’s huge, Penn.”
“Oddly, I think he likes you. Like…as a person, not as a conquest. Which is another shocker for me.”
“I’m so glad that you two talked. That it was productive.”
“Me too, surprisingly.” He blinked as if the thought of him and Court getting along was too foreign. “So, you found out the Upper East Side isn’t so easy to shake after all.”
“Yes. And then I kind of channeled that into Michael.”
“Oh?”
I fully faced him. “I think I went full Katherine Van Pelt on him.”
He cracked a smile and then burst into laughter.
“What?” I gasped.
“You’re so serious right now.”
“I, like, verbally assaulted him.”
“Nat, he probably deserved it.”
“Yeah, well, he did, but I’d promised Melanie. And then he didn’t even tell. I was so confused.”
Penn patted my hand. “We call this using your superpower for good.”
“It felt good at the time but not after. I felt like I’d betrayed Mel’s trust.”
“Look, what you found out about Michael is that he’s all bark and no bite. When he recognized you as an actual challenger, he ran with his tail between his legs. You protected your sister. No one was hurt. And the bad guy was put in his place. What part of that is bad?”
I frowned. I hadn’t really considered it from that perspective. “I guess…none of it.”
Except how it’d made me feel.
But it had been worth it, too.
Maybe doing something bad for the right reason made a difference. More a vigilante than a villain.
“I think this has been very illuminating for me as well,” Penn said. He moved a stray strand of hair off of my face and lopped it behind my ear.