Love in Maine (20 page)

When Maddie looked up and saw Hank in a coat and tie she nearly lost her footing.
He was up from the couch and standing in front of her with that silent speed that
she now recognized as distinctly his. He held her upper arms.

“You look phenomenal, Madison Post.”

Maddie congratulated herself on her good sense to forget the blush. Her neck and cheeks
were hot immediately.

“You too, Henry Gilbertson.”

“I made a reservation somewhere. As a surprise. Is that okay?”

Almost unable to look at him, Maddie peered over his shoulder as if she were more
interested in the sunset view outside the window. “Sure. Whatever you decide is fine.”

“Fine?” Hank touched Maddie’s face and gently made her face him.

“Yes. Really, really fine.” She was about to become an emotional mess and she didn’t
want to ruin their awesome weekend with some sort of preemptive bawling about how
life was so unfair and why-did-she-have-to-go-back-to-her-senior-year-at-college-and-never-see-him-again?

“We’re going to have a great time. Trust me.”

Maddie tried to smile, but for some reason seeing him like this—in all his glory—was
a hard pill to swallow.
Sure. We’re going to have a great time. Until Monday. And then we’re never going to
see each other again.

“Come on.” Hank took her hand in his. “Stop being such a sad sack.” He led them to
the door of their hotel room, but before he opened it out to the public hallway, he
stopped in the narrow entryway. “Take off your underwear.”

Maddie looked up with wide-eyed confusion. “What?”

“You heard me. Off.”

The bastard. He knew exactly how to get her mind off all that maudlin, I’m-going-to-miss-you-like-hell
thinking.

She shimmied off the red lace and held it up by one finger. “Are you going to be all
kinky and carry it in your pocket?”

“Nope.” He took it from her hand and threw it like a slingshot back into the living
room. “Why do I need the underwear when I’ve got you?”

He opened the door and held it open for her. “Off we go.”

She felt more naked than she’d ever felt in her life.

“Breezy out here, isn’t it?” Hank taunted, walking ahead of her down the hall and
pressing the elevator button.

“You are a lunatic,” Maddie said.

“How lucky for you, since you’re obviously in need of a little lunacy.”

She shook her head. The elevator doors opened, they stepped in, and then they closed.
He was almost a stranger, dressed like Jason Statham and joking like that. But he
was right. She needed to be wild and free this weekend. It was great. They were great.
But there was no place for her in Blake, Maine, and there was no place for him during
her senior year at Brown. But after . . .

“Stop letting your mind wander. I’m right here.” He pulled her into a kiss, and they
were still making out like a pair of teenagers when the elevator doors opened.

“Madison Post! Is that you?”

Maddie was too dazed to pull away from Hank altogether. She held onto his hand and
stepped out into the lobby.

“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Lodge. How are you?”

Mr. Lodge was sizing up Hank. Mrs. Lodge was sizing up Hank.

“Oh, pardon me,” Maddie said. “This is Henry Gilbertson. Henry, I’d like you to meet
Lila and Theodore Lodge—”

Ted Lodge, a fit, good-looking man in his early sixties, extended his firm hand toward
Henry. “It’s a pleasure. You look familiar.”

The elevator doors closed, and Maddie repressed a sigh that her parents’ friends the
Lodges were still on this side of the silver doors. Ted Lodge was a good guy, old
Boston Brahmin, modest in his way. But Maddie wasn’t in the mood to stand around explaining
what she had been doing sucking face with Hank when they’d seen the doors open—

“Your name sounds familiar, too,” Ted pressed. “Are you the same Henry Gilbertson
who invented the patent for the deep-sea fiber-optic tubing?”

Maddie’s head spun. “Yes, Henry. I’ve been meaning to ask you that.”

Hank stared down at her, and she could have sworn he was thinking about the fact that
she didn’t have any underwear on and she best be watching herself if she knew what
was good for her.

Hank’s look silenced Maddie and he turned back to Mr. Lodge. “Yes, sir. I was on the
team that developed that. And you are at Ocean Works Laboratories, if I’m not mistaken.”

Lodge looked proud to be known for something other than his old Boston ancestry. “Yes.
Yes. Quite happy about what we’ve gotten up to down there in Woods Hole. If you have
any time this weekend, I’d love to talk to you about what you’ve been doing with the
depth/pressure components of the—”

“I’m so sorry to interrupt, sir, but we don’t have more time to talk just now. Madison
and I have a dinner reservation at seven thirty—”

“Of course, of course,” Mr. Lodge said. “Wonderful to see you, Madison. Wonderful
to finally meet you in person, Major Gilbertson. I hope we’ll get a chance to speak
soon.”

Mrs. Lodge was making not-very-subtle googly-eyes at Madison that might as well have
spelled “N-I-C-E C-A-T-C-H” in skywriting.

“Nice to see you, Mr. and Mrs. Lodge,” Maddie said.

Hank said his good-byes and fended off Mr. Lodge’s encouragement to meet up later
in the weekend with, “Sorry, but Maddie and I are going to be flat out for the next
few days.”

“Bye, dear. Say hello to your mother for me,” Lila Lodge called after them.

“As if that will be necessary,” Maddie muttered, once she’d put a bit of distance
between herself and the Lodges.

“What’s that?” Hank asked when they were standing out on the sidewalk. “We need a
taxi, please,” Hank said to the doorman, then turned back to Maddie. He kept his hand
on her lower back, which made her slightly less churlish.

“I said, ‘
As if!
’ There’s no way in hell I’ll need to tell my mom I bumped into Lila Lodge at the
Ritz in Boston, because I’d lay odds that Lila is in that elevator right now dialing
my mother’s phone to let her know.”

“Let her know what?”

Maddie threw her hands up. “Oh, forget it. I don’t care what Lila Lodge says or does.”

“Me neither,” Hank said, close to Maddie’s neck.

The taxi pulled up, and Hank held the door open, then smirked at Maddie. She realized
she was going to have to maneuver in and out of the car very carefully if she didn’t
want to flash half of Boston while she was at it.

“You are so going to pay for this,” Maddie said as she slid into the taxi. She held
one hand at the hem of her dress, at the back of her thighs, to make sure the fabric
didn’t fly up in the late summer wind.

“Mistral, please,” Hank said when he got in after Maddie. The driver took off, and
Hank settled the palm of his left hand between her legs. Maddie closed her eyes and
muttered, “Did we just bump into someone in the lobby, I can’t remember . . .”

Hank smiled and looked out the window at the passing tourists and pedestrians and
children. When he was here like this with Maddie, everything seemed possible: bumping
into mutual friends in hotel lobbies, going to dinner on a Friday night. He felt like
he might be a whole person after all.

While caressing the soft, warm skin of her inner thigh, Hank felt connected . . .
to everything. He knew it was wrong. He was using her in the most rudimentary way.
She was his ticket. When they were together, he was somehow able to look people in
the eye and talk to people and just be. When he was at work and he’d seen her the
night before, and knew he was going to see her again that night, he could manage just
fine. But. The abyss was beginning to stretch before him. He had a few plans in place
to put the misery at bay. He would travel. He would stay busy. He needed to make this
weekend count. To make himself take everything he could from what he and Maddie had
and savor it. For the future. Long-term savings.

Because after this weekend, it was back to business. Any type of relationship beyond
this summer just made him feel uncomfortable in his own skin. He didn’t want to meet
her family. He didn’t want to meet her roommates. He didn’t want to attend her graduation.
Hank wanted Maddie in his bed, and with him, like this, soft and pliable in his hands.
He didn’t want to have to navigate the rest of it. The family gatherings. The parameters
of commitment. It wasn’t that he wasn’t up for the challenge—who wouldn’t want to
be with someone who made him feel the way she did, after all? It was more that he
despised the idea of all those eyes on them, all those opinions, all that input.

It had taken him a lifetime to get used to his mother’s constant inspection, and even
now it made his skin crawl. It had taken him weeks to trust Maddie enough to let her
look at him like that. Like she was right now. But for the whole world to look at
him? No way.

And Hank could tell that Maddie was going to be out in the world. She was a part of
everything. She would probably make the Olympic cut in two years for the women’s crew
team. She was going to be someone public and important.

“What is it?” Maddie asked.

He looked back from the passing sidewalks and smiled into her dark violet eyes. “Just
you.” He smiled and kissed her cheek. “I was just thinking what an accomplished person
you’re going to be.”

Her face pinched together. “So . . . why would that make your face so dark and stormy?”

Squeezing the inside of her thigh, Hank said, “I wasn’t dark and stormy. Just thoughtful.
You’re amazing, that’s all.”

Maddie wanted to slap him. Slap him awake. Wake up! Wake up to the fact that I am
this way when I’m with you, you idiot. You make me feel like this. You make me feel
like I can accomplish anything when you look at me like that. But then I see that
the reason it makes you so wistful and distant is that you won’t be there to share
in those accomplishments, will you? Because that would be too exposed and miserable.

Taking a deep, quick breath, Maddie turned to look out her side of the car. “Thanks.”
She couldn’t think of anything else to say. Thanks for thinking I’m amazing, because
it’s going to be very short-lived, so you might as well revel in it now. Because when
you drop me off at the train station on Monday afternoon, and drive away, and don’t
wave or look in the rearview mirror, I’m going to be shriveling up inside and setting
my mind to rowing as fast as I can, and studying as robotically as I can, so I can
finish this chapter of my life and hope that missing you doesn’t destroy me.

She sighed. Again.

“Enough!” Hank was smiling. It wasn’t a fake smile, exactly. It was more of . . .
an effort.

“Okay!” Maddie tried to brighten along with him.

“We’re here,” the cabbie called from the front seat.

Hank pulled a few bills from his pocket and paid the fare, then stepped out of the
car and held the door open for Maddie. He smiled (no effort) when she had to swing
her feet out, knees tight together, and then dip her head and stand in a gymnastic
attempt to get out of the cab without letting her legs split open.

“Very funny,” she said as she passed right by him and walked straight into the glamorous
restaurant.

The maître d’ showed them to their table immediately, and Hank reached across the
narrow table for Maddie’s hand. She was fumbling with her napkin and looked up to
see his gorgeous, demanding expression.

She reached her hand out slowly and absorbed the relief that passed through both of
them when they were back in contact like that. She resolved not to sink into any misery
about the future, and opened the menu.

“Oh, this is heaven. Look at all this
meat
!”

Hank smiled. “I figured you’d be ready to eat half a cow after spending the summer
under my mother’s roof.”

“
Mm-hmm
,” Maddie said, without looking up from the menu. “You figured right. I feel like
I could rip flesh off bone with my bare hands.”

“Good.”

They ordered all the richest things on the menu—foie gras, escargots, corn chowder
with lobster, then rack of lamb for Hank and tenderloin for Maddie.

She ate every bite and loved the feeling of Hank’s eyes on her mouth while she did.
Her plate was nearly scraped clean, thanks to the final swipes of bread Maddie had
dragged across the surface. She swallowed the final bite and stared at Hank’s soft,
tender eyes.

“Did you like it?” he asked.

She nodded. “So much,” she whispered. And then she was crying right there in the stupid
restaurant and had to put the napkin up to her eyes and dab some of the ice water
around her eyes to stop from being all splotchy and red.

The waitress came over to clear their empty dinner plates. “Oh my gosh,” she exclaimed,
mistaking Maddie’s weeping for joy. “Did you just get engaged?”

Maddie must have looked up with the wrath of the gods shooting from her eyes. “No!”

“Oh . . . sorry.” The woman grabbed the plates and scurried away.

Hank was smiling.

“How can you smile at a time like this?”

“A time like what?” Hank asked.

Maddie rolled her eyes. “Please don’t be coy. It’s like the giant elephant in the
room—with a giant ticking bomb around its neck—which neither of us is talking about.
I’m leaving on Monday. That’s three days from now.” She looked at her watch. “That’s
actually two days and some, not counting when we’ll be asleep, which will be never
if I can help it. Because I don’t want to miss a minute—”

“Maddie—”

“What?!” Her voice had gone up an octave, and the two guys at the nearest table looked
over simultaneously to make sure everything was okay. She smiled and waved at them
like an insincere politician. “What?” she whispered, turning her full attention back
to Hank.

“Just . . . let’s just have such a great weekend, okay? You know I can’t do anything
more than that. You know I feel like shit about it, but would you rather have me make
a bunch of lame promises, like I’ll call you every Sunday at four to check in, or
I’ll come down to Brown for homecoming—” He jerked his head back and curled his lip
at the absurdity. “Look, it sucks. I agree. Maybe I’m weak. I don’t know what the
hell I am, but this is it.”