Club Soda

"You knew."

It isn't a question. You're still standing in the doorway with the keycard in your hand, and the wind off the harbor is blowing your loose hair across your face.

Nathaniel sets his glass down on the balcony rail. He doesn't come toward you. You'll notice that later too: how he stays exactly where he is, like a man who knows the difference between a door and a trap.

"Three weeks ago," he says. "The bar at the Marlowe, on King Street. They weren't careful."

"And you didn't tell me."

"I told Trevor. I told him he had until after the party to tell you himself, or I would." His jaw tightens. "I thought he deserved the chance to be a man about it. That was a mistake. It was your life, not his, and I let him hold it for three weeks. I'm not going to make excuses for that."

You wait for the excuses anyway. Men always have them. Your father used to say the length of an apology is in inverse proportion to how sorry a man is.

Nathaniel doesn't say anything else.

"Okay," you say finally, because you don't know what else to say. Then you look at the card in your hand. "Why does my key open your door?"

He crosses to the desk, picks up a cream envelope that matches yours, and holds it up. Pendarvis, in calligraphy. "This was waiting at the front desk for me. I opened it, saw your name, and was going to send it back down in the morning. I assume you have mine."

Lenora's assistant. Two envelopes. One wrong slot.

You start to laugh. It comes out cracked and ugly, and you put your hand over your mouth to stop it.

"I'll call the desk," he says. "Or I'll go. There's a whole hotel. You shouldn't have to look at a Crofton tonight."

"You're offering to leave your own suite."

"Yes."

You look at him. At the open collar of his white shirt, the sleeves rolled to the forearm, the way he holds still. Every other Crofton you know fills a room the second they enter it. This one seems to take up less space than he should, on purpose.

"What are you drinking?" you ask.

"Club soda. Lime."

"Can I have one?"

Something shifts at the corner of his mouth. Not a smile. The place a smile might go if he let it.

"Sit down, Ava," he says. "I'll get you one."

The balcony faces the river. Below, the harbor is black glass broken by the lights of the cargo terminal, cranes standing over the stacks like long-necked birds. You can see the Pendarvis yard from here if you know where to look. You always know where to look.

He hands you a glass and sits in the other chair, not too close.

"You don't drink," you say.

"No."

"At all? Ever? You're a Charleston man in a hotel bar town."

"My father drank." He says it simply, looking at the water. "My first father. Before Hollings. He drank and he left, and I was eleven and I decided I'd rather be bored than be him. It turns out I'm very good at being bored."

"I was on call tonight," you say. "Docking a car carrier. I'm sober too. In case you were wondering."

"I wasn't. You don't look like someone who walked out of that room drunk. You look like someone who walked out of it with her back straight."

You look down at your hands. They've stopped shaking.

You don't know how long you sit out there. Long enough for the wind to change. You tell him about the Cooper Belle, about learning to steer a tug at fourteen standing on a milk crate, about your father bellowing Ease her, ease her, she's not a pickup truck. You tell him about the night your father died, alone at his desk, and how you were out on the water and didn't get the call until the boat was tied up.

You tell him why you said yes to Trevor.

"Because he picked me," you say. "That's the stupid truth. After Dad, nobody was looking at me like I was someone to pick. Trevor showed up with coffee every morning for a year and it felt like a rope thrown in the water. I didn't check what was on the other end."

Nathaniel is quiet for a while.

"When Hollings adopted me," he says, "I was fifteen and I had one pair of good shoes. Lamar was thirty-nine and already ran half the company. On my first night in that house on East Battery, Lamar told me I'd always be a guest. He wasn't wrong. You can be grateful for a rope and still know it isn't yours."

You turn to look at him. In the light from the room behind you, his profile is so clean it's almost unfair. You understand, suddenly and completely, why every woman at the engagement dinner went quiet when he walked in late.

"Why didn't you toast," you ask. "At the dinner."

He meets your eyes. "Because I didn't think he deserved you. And I didn't think I had any right to say so."

The wind drops.

You become aware of a lot of things at once. That his knee is eight inches from yours. That his hands are big and still on the arms of the chair. That you're not engaged to anyone. That you haven't been looked at like this, like you're the only lit window on the water, maybe ever.

"I'm going to say something," you tell him, "and I want you to know I'm not drunk and I'm not in shock. I'm furious, but that's different."

"I know it is."

"I don't want to go to room 1806 and stare at the ceiling. I want to stay here." You put your glass down. "With you."

He doesn't move. He looks at you for a long moment, and his voice, when it comes, is very low.

"Ava. Is this for you? Or is it so that tomorrow you can look at Trevor and know?"

It's a fair question. You make yourself actually answer it.

"Trevor doesn't get to be part of this," you say. "I don't want him to know. I want you to know. That's all."

"Ask me again in a minute," he says. "When you've stood up. When you've had a chance to walk to that door."

So you stand up. You walk to the balcony door, all the way to the edge of the room, and you turn around.

"Still asking," you say.

He rises. He crosses the balcony slowly, giving you every second in the world to change your mind, and stops close enough that you can feel the warmth of him through the wet wind. He lifts one hand and brushes the salt-stiff hair off your cheek, and doesn't do anything else until you lean up.

The kiss is careful at first. Then it isn't.

His hand slides to the back of your neck. Yours fist in his shirt. He tastes like lime and cold air, and he kisses like a man who's been patient for a very long time and has just stopped. When he pulls back, you're both breathing hard, and his forehead rests against yours.

"Lock the door," he says against your mouth, "if you're sure. And if you change your mind at any point tonight, you say so, and I'll still be the man who walks you to your room."

You hold his eyes. Then you walk back across the suite, past the envelope with your name on it, and turn the deadbolt.

It clicks.