“Graham, blech,” she scoffed. “Graham is not particularly fond of girlfriends. Or girls at all, I presume. He and Raj are associates—or, as I prefer to call them, glorified minders. But Alistair and Jane own the company. Jane and Hayes’s mum, Victoria, grew up together. And when Hayes was seventeen, he came up with this idea and made a video and a PowerPoint presentation and sold Jane and Alistair on it. They did a search to find Rory, and it went from there. It was pretty brilliant on his part, because no one had ever thought of a posh boy band.”
“No. And why would you?” I laughed. It seemed far-fetched. But there was no denying the way it had caught on. The genius of it. Like bottling the appeal of a young roguish Prince Harry, multiplying it, and distributing it to the masses. With some infectious melodies, strong vocals, and clever lyrics thrown in. And just the right amount of edge.
“Yes, well, I think they all thought it would be amusing. They’d have lots of fun and there’d be lots of girls and it would be a cool way to see the world. I mean they certainly weren’t doing it for the money … But it was Hayes’s brainchild, so things tend to weigh more on him. Plus he’s serious about his music.”
I sat with that for a while. Replaying all our conversations about the group and the things that made him unhappy, the relentless touring and promotion, the idea of being crammed down people’s throats.
When we reached Route 27, we turned around and headed back toward the ocean. It wasn’t until we were bypassing our turnoff and continuing on to the beach that she spoke again.
“I have seen a lot.” She picked up our conversation with no lead-in, as if she’d been mulling it over for the past four miles. “You are his quintessential type. You’re just better at it than the others.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re smarter, you’re wittier, you’re more sophisticated, and you don’t seem to get caught up in all the bullshit…”
“Oh.”
“You’re also older, and for some reason he likes that.” She’d said it plainly, but there was something there. “And, you know, your face is perfect.”
* * *
The boys were lounging by the pool when we got back to the house. They’d finished playing tennis and were sitting out in shorts and not much else soaking up the sun.
“How was your run?” Hayes pulled me onto his lap, nuzzling my neck. “Mm, you’re all sweaty.”
“So are you. Shower?”
He nodded. “Just a second.”
“What are you doing?”
He had his iPhone, poised down by his knees. “I’m Instagramming a picture of my feet.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. They love this rubbish. Watch … and ‘share.’”
I leaned in to see the image of his tanned feet with the pool as a backdrop. Hayes counted to ten and then pressed refresh. There were 4,332 likes. He counted again: 9,074.
“Holy shit.”
“That’s just my feet. Someday I’m going to put my penis on there and see what happens.”
“If you could perhaps time it with the release of Wise or Naked so we could all profit from it, that would be great,” Oliver quipped. Charlotte giggled.
Hayes turned to look at him and laughed. “I’m not sharing the proceeds from my dick with you. I’m saving that for my solo album.”
“Oh my God, you are twenty, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” He smiled, running his hand over my back. “And you still love me. We’re showering, right?”
“Maybe. Do you read your comments?”
“Sometimes.” He began scrolling through. “‘I love you so much. Come to Turkey.’ ‘Why are you so hot?’ Something in Arabic. ‘I wish I could show you how much I really love you. I’m not like the other fans, try me.’ ‘I want to lick you but your music sucks’—tell me how you really feel. ‘Can I sit on your big toe?’ Wow, part of me is horrified and part of me wants to check her picture. Is that bad? All right, continuing, ‘Dork ass—’ What? I can’t say … It says the n-word. Why are they calling me that? Something in Hebrew. ‘Your feet are sexy as fuck.’ ‘I just want to be you.’ ‘Hayes, if you see this, I love you.’ Aww, that’s sweet … Right then, so there you go. There’s a nice sample for you.”
I don’t know why, but I was stunned. The immediacy of it, the fact that our moment here was playing out around the world in real time. The idea that they could communicate with him, that they were anticipating his every action. It was unfathomable, this level of adoration.
“How many likes now?” Oliver asked.
Hayes pressed refresh. “Sixty-seven thousand six hundred and forty-three.”
“Show-off.”
“Hey, I’m just keeping the fandom happy. If I were showing off, trust me, mate, you would know.” He smiled before turning his attention back to me. “So, shower?”
* * *
There were many words I would use to describe Hayes Campbell. “Show-off” was not one of them. But his post-tennis performance that morning was undeniably brag-worthy. Because it took a certain level of skill to make me feel dirty in the shower.
After, when we were preparing for a drive into East Hampton, he headed downstairs to find Desmond. I was still in the bathroom struggling with the buttons on the back of my dress when I heard him return to the room.
“Can you do these for me?” I asked, stepping out into the suite.
But it was Oliver who looked up from the ottoman at the foot of the bed, where he was riffling through Hayes’s weekend bag. “Hey.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Searching for headphones. I left my Beats back at the hotel in New York. Hayes said I could borrow his.”
“Do you not knock? Does no one knock here? Are there no boundaries?”
“The door was open. Sorry.”
I wanted to believe him, but something in his eyes said differently.
He turned back to the bag then and fished out Hayes’s headphones. “Got them. Thanks.”
My eyes were glued to him as he made his way across the room. When he reached the door, he stopped.
“Do you want me to fasten your dress?”
“No, thank you.”
“Do you want me to send up Hayes?”
“It’s okay. I can handle it.”
“Right then. Sorry I disturbed you.”
As he was turning to leave, he paused again, peering at something beyond my shoulder. “Chuck Close,” he said, gesturing toward the print. “Nice. Clearly, Hayes got the better setup.”
He’d said it casually, but instinct told me there was more there.
* * *
Hayes, Desmond, and I whiled away a few hours touring East Hampton and Amagansett. On the way back to the house, we made a detour to a pharmacy and Desmond ran inside, leaving us in the air-conditioned car with the engine running.
“We’re almost out of condoms,” Hayes stated, matter-of-factly.
“We are?” I could have sworn he’d opened a box yesterday. Of how many? Twelve? It took me a moment to process. “You sent Desmond in there to buy us condoms?”
He nodded from the front seat of the SUV. “I wasn’t going to send you, and it’s not like I can be seen casually buying condoms in the Hamptons on a Saturday afternoon.”
“He’s your bodyguard, Hayes.”
“Well, it is guarding a part of my body.” He smiled. “I was trying to be responsible.”
“Yes, I appreciate that. It’s just … Your life is so bizarre.”
An understatement. We’d spent most of the day in the car, thwarting any would-be photographers. I had not protested.
“Not that we really need them…” he said.
I pitched forward on the seat in order to see his face. “What do you mean, ‘not that we really need them’?”
Hayes was quiet for a moment and then he turned back to me. “I know you’re on the Pill, Solène.”
This threw me. How he knew, what it meant, what he might have been insinuating. “You went through my stuff?”
“I’ve racked up quite a few hours in hotel rooms with you these past couple of months. I might have seen it in your wash bag.”
“Might have?”
He leaned back through the gap between the seats. “Might have.”
“I’m not having sex with you without a condom, Hayes.”
“Have I asked you to?”
“I don’t know what you do when you’re not with me.”
“Why is it you think I’m doing something?”
“Because you haven’t convinced me that you’re not.”
He paused, tugging at his lower lip. I couldn’t see his eyes through his sunglasses. “They test us regularly, you know.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“Management. They have to do it for insurance purposes.”
“Well, good for them. They can sleep with you, then.”
He laughed. “All right, you’ve made your point.”
I scooted back in the seat then. The elephant in the room. The idea that he was randomly hooking up with other people. That I had tacitly accepted it. I had thought the less I knew, the better. But maybe not.
“Fuck.”
I thought I said it under my breath, but he heard.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
Desmond stepped out of the pharmacy just then and started toward the car. The stocky, tattooed ginger fellow in head-to-toe black. Desmond stood out in the Hamptons.
“Can we discuss this later?” Hayes asked.
I did not respond. Later we would have sex again and again and again, and he would manage to make me forget that at this moment I was angry.
* * *
By midafternoon we were out by the pool drinking sangria in the heat. The D’Amatos’ cook had mixed a few more pitchers at our request, and Hayes, Ol, and I plowed through them with ease, while Desmond and Fergus played video games inside and Charlotte napped.