The Arrangement novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Yacht Club

Clive and Cressida quiz the new girlfriend over crab cakes. Joss lies with true details and Caspar's first public touch lands harder than either planned.

We drove to Jamestown in my hatchback, because Caspar didn't own a car he trusted on a bridge.

The passenger door only opened from the outside.

He climbed in through the driver's side and folded his long legs under the dashboard without a word of complaint.

"Say it back to me," he said.

"We met on the Kell ferry in September. It rained. I was carrying sample jars. You were drawing in the passenger cabin."

"You spilled your coffee on my chart."

"You didn't mind."

"I minded very much."

"Then I'll say you minded very much."

He turned to look out the window at the gray water under the bridge.

"I don't have to do this," he said.

"Yes, you do."

"I meant the lunch."

"Caspar. Your uncle gets a clubhouse and a ferry line if you stay in your flat."

He pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose.

"Okay," he said. "Okay."

The yacht club had white siding, brass cleats on the railings, and a wall of framed regatta photos.

A hostess in a navy polo took my oilskin jacket and looked at the boots I had worn under my skirt.

I had brought my good flats in my bag, but I had decided at the last second that I was not going to hide.

Caspar took a breath at the dining room door.

Then he put his hand at my waist and walked me in.

I had expected a stiff touch.

What I got was a hand so careful it felt like he thought I was made of paper.

He held me.

Heat went through my side where his palm rested, and I had to remind myself it was staged.

Clive stood up from a corner table with his arms wide.

"There he is. The prodigal."

He hugged Caspar and slapped his back twice.

Cressida stayed seated.

She wore a cream blouse and her dark-blonde hair was pinned in a perfect knot, and she smiled at me with every tooth.

"Josephine," she said. "Caspar told Dad you were a student."

"Joss. I'm a doctoral student."

"In what?"

"Coastal oceanography. I study how storm surge moves sediment through the Providence River."

"How fascinating." She said it the way you say it about a stranger's dog. "And Bayline has a program for that?"

"It has one for me."

Caspar's hand moved on my waist, a tiny squeeze.

Clive ordered crab cakes for everyone and a bottle of wine for himself.

They were the same crab cakes I had carried on a tray three days earlier.

I decided not to say so.

"So," Clive said, leaning back. "How did you two meet?"

"On the Kell ferry in September," I said. "It rained. I spilled coffee on his chart."

"He minded very much," Caspar said.

"He did. He glared at me for a full minute."

Clive laughed his loud laugh.

Cressida didn't.

"Funny," she said, setting down her fork. "I checked the schedule last night, because I love a story. The 6:15 out of Providence was cancelled in September for engine repair. All month."

Caspar went still beside me.

My stomach dropped through the floor of the yacht club.

I smiled.

"It was cancelled the day we met," I said. "That's why we met."

"Meaning what?"

"There was no ferry. The whole morning crowd waited in the shed on the dock for an hour. I was standing at the back with my jars, and he was at the end of the bench with his chart, and I was reading it over his shoulder."

"She was reading my chart over my shoulder," Caspar said, a half second behind me, in a perfect flat voice.

"He thought I was a spy for the atlas people."

"I thought she was a spy for the atlas people."

"He was wrong, because I'm a spy for the tide."

Clive laughed again and slapped the table.

Cressida's smile didn't move.

But her eyes did, to Caspar's hand on my waist, and then to my face, and I could see her adding up a total.

"Does he still take his coffee with oat milk?" she asked sweetly. "He used to be so particular."

"Oat milk and no sugar," I said. "He pours the milk first and then complains about the foam."

Caspar turned his head slowly toward me.

Nobody had told me that.

I had stood in his kitchen on Sunday and watched him do it while he read me clause six.

"You noticed," he said under his breath.

"I notice things."

His eyes were very dark, and for a moment the whole dining room felt small.

Clive cleared his throat.

"Well, you've charmed me, Josephine. I hope the trustee is as easily charmed."

"I hope so too."

He wiped his mouth with his napkin and leaned across the white tablecloth.

"Gull Point, Friday. The first dinner. The trustee asked that we all stay for the weekend, so she can see how the family lives."

"We'll be there," Caspar said.

"You'll have Grandfather's room, of course. Cressie had it aired."

Cressida lifted her wineglass in a small, slow toast.

"It's the only room with a bed big enough for two," she said.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend