I changed into swim trunks and a short-sleeved button-down (Heather got it for me on sale somewhere—she says short-sleeved button-downs are in). I grabbed my key card and the new David Baldacci novel and headed to the pool. I didn’t have a set plan, but for the first time in a long time, I was filled with an almost youthful optimism.

Everything about Gurney’s is decadent—all clean lines and shiny surfaces and crisp aromas; the opposite of our split-level in the suburbs of New Haven, with its squeaky floors and peeling wallpaper. The pool at Gurney’s is perfect, an oasis of turquoise surrounded by plush chaises on a sunny deck overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. I closed my eyes and felt the warm rays on my face and imagined I was fifteen again, not yet with Heather, the possibilities stretched in front of me in their expansive, limitless might.

When I blinked my eyes open, I was back in the present, and there she was, the blonde, just as I’d hoped she’d be, lounging on a chaise clutching a glass of something neon orange that could only be the coveted Aperol spritz. She was a vision in a white bikini, revealing a curvier frame than I’d expected—certainly curvier than skin-and-bones Heather.

The brunette friend lay on the adjacent chaise, using one hand to twist her long dark hair into a pile on top of her head. In the other she held an identical orange drink. The brunette was hotter than I’d realized. She had a Mediterranean vibe that reminded me of that sexy anchor on Access Hollywood. I stepped toward them.

“I’ve never seen a cocktail that color,” I said before I lost momentum. I knew that if I lost momentum, I’d stop myself, and I’d never go through with any of it.

I recognized the shift in their facial expressions—another creepy old dude hitting on us—and almost turned around, almost decided to abort the nonplan. But then the blonde smiled at me, and it lit up her whole face, and I remembered that even though I was forty-six and long out of the game, I still had a full head of hair, almost none of it gray, and that I was handsome in a way that Heather always said transcended age.

The brunette had a bored, slightly aggravated expression on her face that told me she wouldn’t dream of screwing me, so I turned my full attention toward the blonde. Because if I’m being honest, Dr. K, there was more to the reason I’d come to Gurney’s. I’d come to Gurney’s to cheat on my wife.

“Haven’t you ever had an Aperol spritz?” the blonde asked. Her voice had a mesmerizing quality, sweet and singsongy. “It’s all we drink in the summer.” She knocked her head toward the brunette, who was now busy scrolling through her phone.

“I haven’t. But I’m sold. Be right back. By the way, I’m Burke.”

Now, Dr. K, you know I don’t drink. And as much as I could’ve used a bit of liquid courage right about then, I wasn’t going to wash twenty-two years of sobriety down the drain. So I walked over to the bar, where I asked for a virgin Aperol spritz. The bartender looked at me like I’d just told an epic joke.

“Oh, you’re like, serious?” he said when I continued to stare at him, waiting. More Matthew McConaughey vibes. “I don’t think I can make a virgin one?” His voice spun the sentence into a question.

I drummed my fingers across the mahogany bar top. “Grapefruit juice and soda water, then.”

“Right on, dude.” The bartender gave me a knowing look, like we were in on a secret. Which, in a way, we were.

I paid for the drink and then wandered back over toward the girls.

“No spritz?” the blonde asked.

“I decided to stick with my regular old greyhound.”

The brunette rolled her eyes.

“Vodka or gin?” the blonde asked.

“Vodka.” I willed the dishonesty out of my voice.

I stood there like an idiot and sipped my mocktail, wondering if I should sit, or if I should wait to be asked to sit. Heather may not be wrong when she says I have terrible game.

“You want to sit?” The blonde finally nodded toward the empty chaise to her left. “Cheers.” She clinked her glass against mine, and I held her eyes, wide as saucers and almond brown.

I soon learned that the girls’ names are Skye and Andie, the blonde and the brunette respectively. They’re childhood best friends from a much wealthier part of Connecticut who now live in the city, and they’re in Montauk for a “quiet girls’ weekend.” As the alcohol hit their bloodstreams, they revealed more. I learned that Skye is a freelance editor for young-adult fiction, and that Andie is some kind of dietitian based in Brooklyn, which didn’t surprise me. Her scrawny body looks like it survives on healthy shit like tofu and broccoli.

When the waitress came by, I ordered them another round, and then, not wanting to be perceived as a creep trying to get two young women plastered, went to the bar and got myself another grapefruit soda. Even though I wasn’t drinking alcohol, something about the peculiarity of the afternoon made its edges blurry, and the longer I talked to Skye, the less I cared that Andie didn’t seem to want me there. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about, more just the feeling—the feeling of being free and happy and alive for the first time in longer than I can remember. I swear, I could’ve been drunk.

Andie finally wandered off to call her boyfriend, some guy named Spencer, who I feel bad for, because after only a few hours of being in her presence I can already tell Andie is a Heather-esque handful.

Skye suggested we take a walk on the beach, and that’s when I felt it, the sureness that she didn’t have a boyfriend. The sureness that she was interested, that this spark between us was a shared thing.

Skye asked for the check and the waitress dropped the bill in front of me—me, of course, old man sugar daddy—and Andie had already left, and I swatted Skye’s hand away when she tried to lay down a credit card, because even I know that’s what you do when you’re interested in a woman. I’d paid for my mocktails separately, but six Aperol spritzes at Gurney’s—they’d each had one before I arrived—at twenty dollars a pop plus tax and tip comes out to $134.32. I dug my Visa out of my wallet, and my mind flashed to Heather and the kids, and I wished I could, for once, just not think of them.

I forced the credit card transaction out of my head as I followed Skye toward the ocean. It was just after five, that perfect wedge of time near the end of a beach day when the sun isn’t quite so strong, and a golden film is in the air. Skye and I chatted for another hour, maybe two, the ocean waves rumbling back and forth, back and forth, a sprinkling of humid mist along the shoreline. I watched Skye dig her heels into the sand and squish it between her toes. This feeling is amazing, you have to try it, she told me. The ocean is my favorite place in the world.

Todd is so right. Gurney’s is the place.

Skye’s blond hair flew in wisps around her rosy face, strands of light dancing against the darkening backdrop.

I grabbed her hand, soft as silk, and interlaced our fingers. We walked like that for a while longer until the sun dropped into the ocean—a neon glow lining the horizon, Aperol-spritz orange. Darkness crept up the shore and it was time to turn back—Skye and Andie had a dinner reservation in town. Text me tomorrow, Skye whispered before we separated, typing her number into my phone. Skye Starling is the newest addition to my address book. Skye Starling—can you believe that? What a beautiful, fitting name.

Today, Dr. K, the world made a little more sense.

Chapter Three

Heather

OCTOBER 1989

I met Libby Fontaine when I was sixteen, a junior at the high school in the tiny, forgotten town in far upstate New York where I’d lived all my life. I looked my best back then, but Libby looked better. Even her voice sounded pretty—buttery and feminine and articulate, never tripping over a single word, never a like or an um. She called me one morning in early October.

“Hi. Is this Heather?… My name is Libby Fontaine. I got your number from your sign at the general store. I have a four-year-old and a three-month-old, and I’m in desperate need of a sitter. We just moved here and I don’t know anybody. Do you have experience caring for infants?”

“Absolutely,” I stammered. It was mostly true—I’d spent enough time looking after Gus when he was a baby and my mom would disappear for eight-hour chunks. That was before she disappeared for good when Gus was two, so toddlers … toddlers I definitely had experience with.

But I was desperate for money, always, and the truth was, I’d forgotten about the babysitting sign I’d posted on a whim at the general store over the summer. As it turned out, nobody in the microscopic town of Langs Valley could afford a babysitter—people locked their kids in the house in front of cartoons whenever they needed to run out, as I should’ve known—and Libby Fontaine was the first person to respond to my ad.

“Perfect,” Libby said. “Amazing. You’re a godsend. What do you charge? Is twelve an hour okay? Fifteen? Fifteen sounds right. I know it’s two kids.”

I almost dropped the phone. “Fifteen works,” I replied in sheer shock. At my last gig—pulling the weeds out of Mrs. Lundy’s garden—my hourly wage was five dollars.

“Amazing,” Libby repeated. “Can you come today?”