The sand was cool under her feet.
She hadn't thought to bring shoes — had simply pushed open the floor-to-ceiling doors and stepped out, drawn by the particular restlessness of someone who had been lying in the dark for an hour pretending to be the kind of person who could simply stop thinking and close their eyes and surrender to sleep. The pajamas were warm enough. The breeze off the water was mild, carrying salt and something green from the trees behind the house.
She hadn't expected anyone to be out here.
He was lying on the sand maybe twenty meters from her door, close to the waterline where the sand was darker and packed flat by the tide. Shoes gone, jacket gone, the tuxedo shirt untucked and the bow tie missing, replaced by the particular looseness of a man who had stopped performing for the day. One arm behind his head. Phone held above his face, the screen's light catching the underside of his jaw, casting the rest of him in the ambient glow of a sky full of stars.
