that it had been hot. So hot everyone had stripped down to their bathing suits, and both Will and Coop’s date—he’d dated so many women over the years that Fran couldn’t remember this one’s name or even what she’d looked like—had drifted off, lulled to sleep by the combination of sun, alcohol, and the gentle rocking of the boat.
While the others napped, Fran and Coop hung out in the stern of the boat, chatting lazily. Fran could still remember that she’d been wearing a turquoise bikini—this was back in the pre-child days, when she’d had the figure to carry off a two-piece—and her long, curly hair was loose around her shoulders. Coop had suddenly leaned over and fingered one of her corkscrew ringlets, drawing it out and then letting it spring back. It usually annoyed her when anyone did that, but Coop’s touch had been incredibly erotic. Fran—who had never once considered cheating on Will—suddenly found herself holding her breath, hoping beyond hope that Coop would move even closer, that he would lean forward, that his lips would touch against hers.…
But instead, Coop sat back and gazed at her with knowing gray-blue eyes. Coop’s features, taken apart, were all wrong—the planes of his cheeks were too sharp, the jaw was too prominent, the nose was too long, the lips too thin. But put together, it all worked.
It was the sort of face you never tired of looking at, Fran thought.
“It’s too bad Will met you first,” Coop said quietly. “You’re really more my type than his.”
Despite the skittering leap her heart took at those words, Fran had laughed. “I didn’t know you had a type. There seems to be quite a bit of variety in the women you date.”
“True. But I’ve always had a soft spot for smart asses. And for women with blue eyes and dark hair. Especially long, curly hair,” Coop said softly.
Fran’s smile slipped away, and the joke she would usually have made stuck in her throat. Her hair, which she’d always considered one of the great annoyances of her life, with its unruly curls that never looked good in a ponytail, suddenly made her feel beautiful. Sexy. Desirable. She and Coop just sat there, gazing at each other, possibility humming between them.
Will had woken up then, stretching and sighing. And just like that, the spell was broken. Coop leaned back on his elbows, away from Fran.
Will sat up, blinking in the sunlight. “Anyone want to go for a swim?” he called out.
Fran watched as Will and Coop jumped overboard together, plunging into the aquamarine water and bobbing up a few moments later. They’d called to her to join them, along with the nameless girlfriend, who had also woken up by then, but both women had demurred. The girlfriend said she wanted to work on her tan, while Fran knew that the salt water would cause her mascara to run and her hair to puff and frizz. She didn’t want Coop to see her looking waterlogged, her nose red, her hair bedraggled. She wanted him to think of her as the sexy girl in the blue bikini, the girl with the blue eyes and dark curls.
Nothing ever happened again between them. Fran had both hoped and feared that it would, had even wondered for a time if she’d made a mistake marrying Will. But Coop went back to treating her with a teasing affection that, while yes, was definitely flirtatious, never crossed any lines. And after a while, Fran began to wonder if she’d imagined the whole thing, that it was just some harmless flirting on a warm summer’s day.
And now, Fran thought, after fourteen years and two children, all traces of that girl in the blue bikini had disappeared. She wondered what Coop thought of her now that she was forty with tired eyes and a body that had never bounced back from childbirth, before realizing that of course he wouldn’t think of her. At some point, somewhere along the way to middle age, Fran had become invisible.
“DO YOU NEED HELP bringing in the groceries?” Mark asked. He sat at the kitchen table, one leg thrown casually over the other, iPhone in hand.
“No, this is the last of it,” Jaime said, as she heaved a green recyclable grocery bag up onto the Carrara marble countertop. “Where are the kids?”
“Playroom,” Mark said, his eyes on his phone.
Jaime could hear the distant sound of a Thomas the Train DVD. She pressed her lips together. Their children—Logan, three, and