Chapter One: Birdie
The sun was high, and a sea breeze came in over the dunes. I balanced the tray of hors d’oeuvres the caterer—my mother—handed me and got ready to circulate amongst the guests of the Hamilton-Gardiner wedding party. It was a small party and not very demanding, but the pay was good. It was worth it to travel back from NYU Law for the weekend. This would pay for textbooks.
“Ugh, Birdie, how are you not sweating in this heat?” The other waitress, Maya, blew out a huff, and her shiny brown curls puffed over her forehead. Her cheeks were bright pink, and her blue eyes were brilliant. She was an adorable high school student that my mom often worked with, and she’d been available on short notice for this wedding. “You look perfect. I’m so jealous.”
I’d actually changed my shirt, re-done my chignon, and powdered my face between setting up and serving guests, but I wasn’t telling anyone that. I leaned in slightly. “Never let them see you sweat.” I winked at her and then headed into the small group of wealthy, powerful, and good-looking guests.
Someday, I thought, I’d be one of them. I’d worked at enough of these high-end Hamptons events to know that money did not mean superiority. No one had to know that my mom and I had lived in a trailer while she went to culinary school or that she’d worked at various restaurants in the kitchen until she’d found investors for her catering business. I’d worked hard at school and had gotten scholarships to private school, then to college, and now law school. I knew I had it in me to be just as respectable, just as powerful, and just as important someday, and I was on my way.
But first?
“Appetizers?” I asked the young men standing there, drinking their cocktails, and talking in low voices as they looked about the backyard.
As one, they turned to look at me. I blinked, startled by the sudden intense attention of the uniformly gorgeous, tall, and broad-shouldered men.
“Hello,” one of them said. “What’s your name?”
I put on my professional smile and got my wits about me. They weren’t the same man in quadruplicate. That was an illusion brought on by the stunning smiles and high cheekbones. “I’m Birdie.”
Two of them were twins, I realized, brown-eyed and brown-haired. One looked similar to the twins—same coloring but more rugged, less pretty. The other was dark blonde with stunning green eyes. He was just as handsome, but he lacked the exact same features. Twins, a cousin, and a neighbor, I realized. I knew the guest list. My mom had told me all about them. The twins were her best friend and investor’s sons.
“Appetizers?” I asked. Again. They were still smiling. They hadn’t noticed my loss of composure. Like I’d told Maya, never let them see you sweat. The same went for lusting. Goodness, but they were attractive men. Not that I’d ever let on.
“I was just telling my brother here that there were no unrelated beautiful women here to make things lively, and then you go and prove me wrong.” One of the twins twinkled his eyes at me. “Hello, darling.”
I very specifically did not respond to his flirting.
The other twin smacked him in the shoulder. “Have I not told you that you don’t hit on women while they’re working? They’re here to do their job, not flirt with you.” He turned to me. “I’m so sorry for my brother, Dave. He’s been spoiled terribly all his life. This looks delicious.” He plucked a crab cake off of my tray. “What kind of name is Birdie? Is it short for something?”
He trapped my eyes with his. I felt a tingle all the way down to my toes. I kept my smile. Never let them see how they affect you, sweat, or no. “Bernadette.”
“Lovely to meet you, Bernadette. Call me William.” he said.
“Nice to meet you, too, William,” I said.
His smile made sweat break out down the middle of my spine. I offered the appetizers to the rest of the young men, and they all took their choices, remembering their manners. I moved on, doing my job, but I kept an eye on him the whole night. I couldn’t help myself. I tried to convince myself that it was just me doing my job, keeping an eye on the guests, and making sure they had what they needed, but I knew myself too well to lie to myself.
I was attracted to him. Intensely. I didn’t particularly like that. I had a boyfriend. He was a perfect boyfriend. We’d met in college, and he already had a great job on Wall Street. He’d just closed on a condo in Tribeca, and I would be moving in with him soon.
Yet, I couldn’t stop watching this stranger. As the night went on, William drank and got loud with the other men—no boys, they were acting like boys now—clowning around, hassling the other girls, related or not, and just being an all-around bother. Then he and the twin, started roughhousing with the younger man, nearly knocking over poor Maya as she carried a tray of empty plates away. The matron of honor, his mother, told him to take the game out to the beach.
As the sun sank lower in the sky and the air cooled, the wedding party slowed down. With the boisterous boys off running the beach and only the grownups left inside, I could clean up behind everyone. The DJ shut up her booth, and the bartender asked me to keep an eye on the bar while he snuck off to have a fling with one of the guests. I didn’t mind. I got to rest my feet and text my boyfriend, telling him when to come and pick me up. It was best to remember that no matter how cute that idiot William was, he was not boyfriend material. He was not one of the steps to the life I’d always wanted to live. Urges were meant to be ignored.
The bartender came back, and by then, the entire wedding party was gone. The party was over. We cleaned up and straightened up the yard. All done, I waited in front of the house. Eddie had texted that he was running behind, caught in traffic. I didn’t know what kind of traffic he’d found this late at night, but what was there for me to do?
There was no one to see me. I sat down on the porch steps to wait. My hair was pinned up too tight and was giving me a headache. Reaching up, I unfastened it and ran my fingers through the long red strands.
I sighed. It had been a long night.
“Wow.”
I jumped up from the porch steps as a man stepped out of the shadows. Not a man, one of the twins. William. His hair was longer, and he didn’t have the scruff of the other man.
“Sorry,” I said, and then almost kicked myself. I had nothing to be sorry about. “I’m waiting for my ride.”
“You could come home with me.”
A surge of pleasure went through me, but I pushed it down. It was just my ego, I was sure. I laughed, but whether at him or at me, I didn’t know. “You said it was wrong to hit on women while they were working.”
He smiled. “You’re not working. And you’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. Your hair is like fire-colored silk.”
His words were working on me. “You’re drunk.”
“I hold my liquor exceedingly well, and I thought you were beautiful when I had barely had a drink. I just didn’t know what your hair would look like down. May I touch it?”
“Touch my hair?” I should say no. Why did I want to say yes?
“Or you could come home with me.” He cocked his head and grinned.
“No.”
He sighed heavily, dramatically, and shook his head sadly. “It would be a life changing experience, are you sure you don’t want to come? You wouldn’t want to miss out on the rest of your life, would you?”