“Don’t get used to it.” Yasmin laughs.
Blythe raises an eyebrow. “The champagne? Darling, I never drink anything else. You know that.”
“I meant the weather.” Yasmin puts a proprietorial arm through Rhys’s, her bracelets pinching his skin. “When we were first married, Rhys dragged me to North Wales each summer and it rained every bloody time.”
“It didn’t.”
“It did!”
“Another toast!” Rhys says.
Blythe laughs. “What’s left to toast? We’ve done The Shore, andus, and you boys have done each other—”
“God, darling!” Jonty says. “There must be a better way of putting it than that.”
“We should be toasting too,” Tabby calls. “It’s bad luck otherwise.” The twins are on the sun loungers, their lime-green bikinis contrasting sharply with the tans they presumably stole from Yasmin’s bathroom, judging by the shouting match that took place before they left London. Rhys feels the familiar combination of pride and fear peculiar to fathers of teenage girls.
“Nice try, Tabitha Lloyd,” Yasmin says. “You’re not having champagne.”
Next to her, Felicia rolls onto her stomach and props herself on her elbows. “It’s true. Isn’t it, Blythe? It’s bad juju.”
Rhys clears his throat. “Please raise your glasses to two people without whom The Shore would never have happened.” Realizing they’ve lost, the twins flop back onto their loungers. “Our beautiful, talented wives.”
“Oh, nowthisis a toast I fully agree with!” Blythe clinks her glass against Yasmin’s. “To us!” The two women embrace. Yasmin’s wearing a floaty wraparound number over her swimsuit, and for a second, Blythe all but disappears in it.
“To the little women,” Jonty says.
“I’m owning this one.” Yasmin holds up her glass. “If I hadn’t gone to one of Blythe’s yoga sessions—”
“If I’d never mentioned Jonty was looking for investment opportunities—”
“And I’d never told you Rhys was trying to get a development off the ground—”
“We, of course,” Jonty says archly, “did nothing.” He looks at Rhys for solidarity, his eyes flicking to what he insists on calling Rhys’sdad shorts. Despite the heat, Jonty has opted for an open-necked shirt with washed-out blue jeans and designer flip-flops, and Rhys wonders if he should change before anyone arrives. The new owners are expected at one p.m. and it is already past noon.
“I must show you what I’ve done in our bedroom,” Yasmin says, draining her champagne.
Jonty gives a dirty laugh. “Ding dong.”
“The lodges are identical, darling,” Rhys says. “I hardly think the Charltons need to see—”
“Identical?” Blythe laughs. “They couldn’t be more different!”
Yasmin shakes her head, exasperated. “We went for Shadow White in our bedroom, darling. Jonty and Blythe have School House White.”
“And our accent color is lemon,” Blythe says as though explaining to a small child.
“And ours is citron.”
The men traipse after their wives through the Charltons’ lodge to admire Blythe’s cushions, then down the drive toward the Lloyds’.
“Is that someone arriving already?” Jonty says.
Through the trees, Rhys catches a glimpse of a dirty white Fiat with pink lettering, bouncing across the drive leading up to The Shore. “It’s just Mia, the cleaner.” Once The Shore is finished, it will have its own housekeeping team—smartly dressed and properly trained—but for now they’re making do with the local girl. “I’ll have a quick word.”
The others continue walking to number five. Music plays loudly through the open windows of the Fiat as Mia the cleaner reverses into a visitor bay. She waits for the track to finish before getting out and taking a long, flirtatious look at Rhys. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Ysgol Crafnant’s head boy.”
Rhys was never head boy—he doesn’t even think the school went in for that sort of thing—but he dips his head in acknowledgment of what he supposes is a compliment of sorts. Schools like to claim ownership of alumni successes. One summer, fifteen or sixteen years ago, the teachers had persuaded Rhys back to run a music camp at the school. By that time, he already had six albums and a tour under his belt, but the guilt trip—and the grant from the Welsh Arts Council—had dragged him back.