Tears prick my eyes, and I know it’s ridiculous to cry over animal water safety, but the gesture speaks volumes about where Jake’s heart is, and how naturally it syncs up with my own.

  “Has anyone ever told you how wonderful you are?” I ask Jake as I clip Gram Parsons into his vest. A perfect fit.

  I half expect Jake to make a joke, to bat the comment away, to kiss me quickly and move on, because there’s a certain amount of goodwill that this marriage seems to take for granted, because there’s a way to see this life vest as just an impulse Amazon purchase. But it’s more than that to me, and Jake seems to hear this in my voice. He meets my eyes. He reaches for my hands. He takes the time to receive the compliment. Like a man.

  Emotionally available. Hot as hell.

  “Thank you,” he says, and then he kisses me. His lips lock around mine and I pull him close, drawn to him on every level all at once.

  “Let’s fove,” I whisper, gripping the lapels of his black jean jacket.

  He laughs as a yacht horn sounds in the distance. “Let’s catch this boat. But I’m going to fove you so hard in Catalina.”

  “Swear?”

  As Jake rolls our suitcase across the marina parking lot, our immediate future looms into view. The yacht Aurora chartered looks like a skyscraper fell over in the water—all angled glass and brooding black. Topless waiters in tuxedo pants and bow ties glide around the multilevel decks bearing trays of cold champagne. Guests stream aboard like contestants competing for the most flamboyant hat. Across the yacht’s hull the words Wet Dream are painted in cursive.

  I find myself staring grudgingly at the scene, holding back on instinct. It’s hard to be in public when all you want to do is have sex. And this crowd is such an obvious scene, I’m dreading wading into it. I find myself waiting for Jake to lead the way. But he’s waiting for me. This is my High Life crowd, not his. With these people, he’s more Mr. Dusk than Mr. Glasswell.

  I feel him take a breath beside me. “We’re really doing this?”

  “It’ll be fine,” I say. “I mean, fun. Picture the hotel bed on the other side of that water.”

  Jake closes his eyes. “I’m there right now.”

  This yacht would fit Glasswell like a glove, but Jake is distinctly uneasy. I wonder what High Life Olivia knows about Jake’s insecurity that I don’t. And then I wonder if she doesn’t know, if I’m picking up on it because of my real-life insecurity around this type of scene.

  We climb the gangway and board the ship. In a lustrous white toga dress, Aurora stands at the stern. Her arms extended, she awaits my hug as Jake and Gram Parsons and I head her way.

  “You bitches missed the caviar,” she says, air-kissing me.

  “But we made the boat,” Jake says, less than enthusiastic. “Which is clearly the caviar of yachts.”

  There’s zero chemistry between him and Aurora. She barely glances at him. In another life, they were inseparable—at least according to the Daily Mail. In any world, I’ve never seen someone look at Jake with such disinterest.

  Even when I thought I despised Glasswell, I recognized it was obsessive. Maybe something inside me always knew it was a shallow form of fascination.

  “You two are such rebels,” Aurora says.

  “How’s that?” Jake asks.

  Looking at Gram Parsons in his vested glory, Aurora says, “The invitations said to leave all furry bags of shit at home.”

  “Well, happy birthday!” I say. “Where’s the bar?”

  Aurora looks up at a second-story balcony. I take Jake’s hand and practically jerk him upstairs.

  The upper deck is crowded, overwhelming, the sun a spotlight on all the exposed flesh. Gram Parsons snuggles against me, making me want to lie down and snuggle back. When Jake’s arm comes around my waist, I’m grateful.

  I spot Fenny through the crowd, talking to Marty, the Zombie Hospital makeup artist. Fenny gives me a cheery wave. I gesture that Jake and I will head over to her once we get a drink.

  But the line for the bar is long. We’ve barely advanced when the boat backs away from the dock. The wind whips Jake’s hair, and I remember this was on my wish list for the trip to Catalina. So I take him in, how sweet he looks, and I kiss him.

  The boat rocks us apart as it steers out of the marina, into open ocean. I stumble forward a step, edging into the guy in front of us in line. He turns around, and it’s Michael Jinx—star of the recent action movie The Luddite . . . and one of Jake’s celebrity friends in Real Life.

  “Sorry, Michael Jinx,” Jake says, self-consciously starstruck.

  “No worries,” Michael says, already turning back around.

  It seems impossible they don’t know each other here. That Jake is gulping, coming down from the excitement of interacting with a star.

  All Jake has in this life is me.

  And compared to what I know Jake should have, I can’t stop asking myself: How am I enough?

  “You should introduce yourself,” I say in Jake’s ear, and when he laughs me off, I press. “I feel like you two would be friends. Like you have the same sense of humor.” I thump Jake on the shoulder. “You should invite him to come on the podcast.”

  Jake looks at me. “Is that a joke?”

  “Or a stroke of genius,” I say.

  “He’s here to party,” Jake says under his breath. “Not to be accosted by nobodies.”

  “Maybe if you stopped referring to yourself as a nobody, you wouldn’t be one,” I say. “That came out wrong! You’re not a nobody.” My voice is rising to the point where Michael can definitely hear us, whether he wants to or not.

  “Okay,” Jake says, “I’m a somebody.” He looks around theatrically, then looks back at me. “Big change!”

  Gram Parsons whines, disliking the tone this exchange has taken. Jake takes him from me and pats his head.

  “I agree!” I whisper. “You’re just the kind of somebody Michael Jinx would love if given the chance. Believe me. I know these things.”

  “Maybe you hit your head harder than we thought the other day,” Jake whispers back. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Think about it. Michael Jinx just did that Luddite movie whose plot hinged on the troubled father-son relationship. It’s the perfect segue for your show. Just ask him. What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

  “Hard pass,” Jake says, giving me a look. “New topic: What do you want to drink, if we ever make it to the front of this line?”

  “What if fate put you in this endless line,” I push on. “Directly behind your favorite actor, for a reason? What if fate wants you to stop wasting your talent by directing traffic jams in palm trees and making obscure podcasts—and start using it in places like this, on people who—”

  “Who what?” Jake says, squinting at me. “Matter?”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Feel free to clarify.” There’s irritation in his eyes. “You didn’t seem to think I was wasting my talent last month when you ordered all that podcasting equipment.”

  “Well . . . I . . .” I start to say.

  Gram Parsons tilts his head, warning me I’m in over my head. I don’t know enough about last month to have this argument. I wasn’t expecting to face off against a version of myself I can’t remember. But why doesn’t Jake want more for himself?

  “I don’t get it.” Jake’s voice is rising now. “All it takes is five minutes on a yacht with people who matter—”

  Michael Jinx turns around to glance at us, eyebrows raised.

  “Not you,” Jake stammers apologetically at the actor. “I mean . . .”

  “Actually,” I say to Michael Jinx. “Yes, you. This is Jake Glasswell and he has a question.” I motion to Jake, like ask him. I know it’s a mistake, but it’s too late.

  Jake shakes his head, closes his eyes, and lets the moment awkwardly pass. The bartender hands Michael Jinx his drink, and he gives us a pitying look before disappearing into the crowd.

  “What the hell was that?” Jake asks me.

  “Jake—”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have come,” he says as we make it to the front of the line.

  “Cute pup!” the topless bow-tied bartender says to Gram Parsons. “What can I get for you—”

  “Scotch. Neat. Double,” Jake says.

  I motion the bartender for the same. Jake puts a twenty in the tip jar. We take our glasses as Aurora clinks a fork against her champagne flute.

  “On this, my thirtieth trip around the sun,” she says, her voice cloyingly sweet, “I am so, so blessed to be surrounded by such breathtaking beauties—”

  Jake groans audibly, causing people around us to look at him. I pull him around the corner of the deck.

  “You don’t want to be here,” I say.

  “I want to be with you,” he says. “But I’m starting to wonder if you want to be with me. In whatever state of non-success I’m in.”

  “It’s just that I’ve seen . . . I know what you’re capable of—”

  “You keep saying that, Olivia, and I truly have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You said we know by now what to leave alone in our lives, but I disagree. You’re a star, Jake, you don’t know it, but—”

  “Do you hear yourself?” he says.

  “And I can’t leave my relationship with my mother alone—”

  “Says who?” Jake demands.

  “Says the little girl inside me who wants her mom back.” I swallow and meet Jake’s eyes. There’s a distance between us in this conversation that’s making my chest tense with anxiety.

  “You’re the one who told me ten years ago,” he says, “that our love would generate its own world, a parallel universe. That we could leave the pain outside our doors, that we could build a sanctuary just for us. I believed you, Olivia. And we did it. I don’t have to interact with my toxic parents and neither do you—”

  “My mom isn’t—” I start to argue. But I’m out of my depth again. Jake knows more about the dark side of that relationship than I do, and suddenly I want to cry.

  “I don’t think we should talk about this right now,” Jake says, his cheeks flushed.

  “Hey now!” a female voice interrupts us and a hand squeezes my shoulder. “Had any hot dogs lately?”

  I turn to see a blond middle-aged woman in a blue blazer with white trim and matching blue skirt. She’s holding a fruity cocktail with a little rubber apple sticking out, and I have no idea who she is.

  “Actually,” I say, “I had three just the other day.”

  “Three?” The woman throws back her head and laughs. “That’s my gal!”

  She turns to Jake and extends her hand. “Amy Reisenbach.”

  I inhale a quick sip of scotch. The president of CBS Entertainment has just introduced herself to Jake. Lady Fortune, be a mistress of the sea.

  “Actually, we’ve met,” Jake says, sounding exhausted. He shakes Amy’s hand. “I was on the other side of Olivia at that Yankees game. It’s been a while.”

  “Of course! This is your husband.” Her eyes narrow in thought. “My assistant mentioned something about . . .” Amy leans toward Jake. “Now I remember! According to Olivia, I should quit my job and knit mittens in Siberia if I don’t make a lunch date with you to hear about your projects.”

  “My projects?” Jake shoots me a shocked look that gives me chills. So I sent one innocent email to one powerful woman’s assistant. Why is he making this so hard? He’s got the goods. He just needs exposure.

  “Amy heard about the taco traffic jam,” I say. “I . . . mentioned it to her.”

  “Her assistant,” Jake says.

  “Who mentioned something about a viral TikTok, was it?” Amy says. “All those tacos on the street. Insanity!”

  “It was just a traffic jam,” Jake says, shutting me down just when things were looking up. “Not exactly a passion project.”

  “But it could be!” I say. “Things develop that way, sometimes. Organically?”

  “I don’t understand what’s happening here,” Jake says, as politely as is possible through gritted teeth. “But I’m sure Amy’s very busy.”

  “You could just have lunch,” I say, catching a knowing nod from Amy.

  “Don’t worry, Jake.” She winks at me and says, “I got my husband his start, too. This is what we modern breadwinners do.”

  I don’t know where Jake’s blood has gone, but it’s not in his face. I’ve got to save this. Now.

  “Look at this,” I say to Amy, grabbing a martini off a passing tray to blunt the memory of what I’m about to do. Then I pull up the video—the one of Jake, with the megaphone, in the palm tree. It has half a million views.

  “Get out of here,” Amy says, truly engrossed. “Jake, you’re a hero!”

  And then we all watch the caption show up on the screen. Expectant Father Saves the Day!

  “Oh my, are you expecting?” Amy asks, hand over her mouth as her eyes probe my body.

  “Oh God no!” I say, almost spitting out my drink. I’d forgotten about that caption. “Someone assumed from the way Jake was acting, like such a hero, I mean. But we—the two of us!—are definitely not . . . no babies . . . no way!” I say and laugh. Which makes Amy laugh. Which makes us look at Jake.

  Who does not laugh. He plants Gram Parsons in my arms, and says, “I think I’ll go get another drink.”

  “Jake!” I call out as he disappears into a sea of gilded guests dancing before a DJ on the deck.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “It’s fine,” Jake says as he sets down our suitcase in the Bethany Glen room at the Wrigley Mansion. Nestled in the hills of Catalina Island, the gum magnate’s summer “cottage” is Prohibition-glam, with dark green shutters and wraparound porches. Succulents frame views of the beach town of Avalon below. It would be the perfect place to spend a night with Jake, if I hadn’t just betrayed him like a rum-drunk pirate on the sea.

  “It’s not fine,” I say, taking a long swig of coconut water from Aurora’s giant hospitality basket. I pass the bottle to Jake, who guzzles it. My martini and his second double scotch weren’t the sanest of ideas.

  “I get it. She’s your boss, and getting pregnant isn’t in your character’s narrative arc.”

  Jake’s giving me cover, and a wise woman would take it. But I didn’t laugh when Amy asked about children so I can keep my stupid job. I laughed because the idea is preposterous. Maybe not to the Olivia and Jake who are actually married, but to me—the pop-up wife. The pretender. The woman whose longest, most intimate relationship is . . . these past six days with Jake.

  As is evident by the yacht ride over here, I can’t even pull off playing at marriage. I wouldn’t dare play at motherhood.

  I unhook Gram Parson’s leash and flop onto bed beside him, watching the Pacific meet the afternoon sky. Jake stands at the window and looks down at the sailboats bobbing in the harbor. Asshole boats with their obnoxious anchors. I used to have anchors, in my Real Life. Mom and Masha kept me bobbing where I was supposed to be. In the High Life I’m the Star of Scotland, a shipwreck generating sustenance and low entertainment. I don’t do well shipwrecked. It leaves me vulnerable to dive-bys from the likes of Amy Reisenbach.

  How did the version of me who married Jake survive this long without Masha and my mom? I’ve been here a week and I’m struggling, not to mention failing at the one good thing I have going here—my marriage.

  A week ago, when I’d first awoken in the High Life, all I wanted was the familiarity of a blowout fight with Glasswell. Now that he’s Jake—now that we’re us—I can’t bear to have hurt him. I can’t bear it, because . . .

  Because I think I’m falling for him. This him, in this world. Which I’ve got to leave.

  Falling for him is the only explanation for my tenacious insanity on the yacht—for the physical need I felt for someone to recognize how magical Jake is. I know there’s a world where Amy sees it. Where Michael Jinx sees it. Where damn near everyone sees it. I thought I could make it happen again. I thought it would be easy for Jake to get what he deserves. Then he could have something beyond me, and I wouldn’t have to worry about not being enough.

  This is a mindfuck on so many levels. I know Jake and I need to talk, but I don’t know what to say. I can’t go near the future children he wants to make with me. Jake and I have been playing house this week, but starting a family is too real, too big for me to pretend I know what I’m talking about.

  Which is why my apologies this afternoon have been insufficient. Which is how we made it all the way to the hotel without having quite made up.

  I want to make up. Because when things are good with Jake and me, they’re really good. And when things are rough—as I’ve seen for the first time in the past hour—it paints a stark picture of the rest of my life here.

  If I don’t have Jake, I don’t have anything.

  “Are you going to lie there all day?” he says, picking up an envelope tucked in Aurora’s hospitality basket. “Or are you going to read about the mandatory fun we’re about to have?”

  Is this how married people fight? They go at it for a while, then change the subject, knowing they can always resume the dispute when the mood strikes—because where are they going to go? They’re together till death does them part.

  “What should I do?” I ask Gram Parsons, whose kiss recommends fun.

  I rise from bed and go to Jake, but he doesn’t put his arms around me the way I’ve gotten used to this week. And though I’m desperate to feel our easy intimacy, though I crave the warmth of his skin where I put my cheek against his neck, I’m not confident enough to make a move. Instead, we stand chastely beside each other, reading the calligraphed schedule.