Page 83 of The Parent Trap

I pick her up and pivot, setting her on her feet under the spray. She twists sideways and cuts the cold water back, intensifying the wreathing steam. I step back and reach to draw the glass door shut, but she stops the door with a hand.

Her smile is…

Complicated.

Still fraught with emotion, but striving for something brighter, higher, deeper.

“Where are you going?” she says, that smile crooked and so beautiful.

“I—”

I don’t get to finish my thought—she grabs me by the hand and drags me toward her.

“Get in here,” she says. “I’ll wash your back, you wash mine.”

The gleam in her eyes is a spark of joy, a fragment of glimmering heat. A promise of what could be…

If I’m very, very lucky, whatwillbe.

Chapter Eighteen

Delia

Hours later,I’m home. Alone. My living room is piled to the dang ceiling with bags and boxes. All by itself on the coffee table, however, is the shining star of the entire absurd haul: the Birkin.

Before I open it and stare at it and treasure it as my very own, I ask myself a serious question: Did I do what I did with Thai in the ocean this evening as any kind of payback or expression of gratitude for all the stuff he bought me?

I hate having to ask myself that question.

Mostly because it means, if the answer even smells like ayes, I have to return everything. To him, and let him deal with it, or just give it away, or something. Including the Birkin.Especiallythe Birkin.

I give it true, honest consideration. I search my heart, let my gut speak to me.

The materialistic side of me is gratified when a pretty solidnopercolates up within me.

Not just my appreciation of expensive things, however—my pride, my dignity…my willingness to keep exploring this whatever-it-is with Thai.

If I had done anything physical with him in some slutty attempt to say, “thanks for buying me shit,” I’d be hugely disappointed in myself.

I pass no judgment on anyone else, only on me. If your boyfriend or husband or girlfriend or whatever buys you something nice and you want to say thank you in a physical way, go for it. Do you. But I personally don’t do that. I don’t believe sex should be in any way transactional—this for that, you did this so I’m going to do that, and it especially shouldn’t be Iwon’tdo this if youdon’tdo that.

That’s just me.

So, fears assuaged, I set aside the barrage of other questions batting around in my head and heart like moths trapped in a lampshade. Answer them later. Do more self-reflection later.

For now, I can enjoy all this stuff knowing it represents gifts freely given to me by Thai for reasons known only to him, and that our hanky-panky in the Pacific was enacted purely out of raw human lust.

As much as I want to, I don’t rip the packaging away like a rabid animal. I unfold the tissue paper and delicately remove the purse.

White crocodile Birkin 35…and all the hardware is encrusted with diamonds. Not little ones, either, or cheap ones, but big, real, expensive ones. The kind of diamonds that normally go on an engagement ring or wedding band.

My heart literally stops. More than a nice car? Try more than a nicehouse. Jesus.

If he dropped less than half a million on this bag, I’m a three-legged goat named Bob.

That didn’t make any sense. But then, with this bag in my hands, nothing makes any sense.

My entire freaking houseandmy resto-modded vintage Bronco aren’t worth as much as this freaking bag.