The View Was Exhausting by Mikaella Clements

Chapter Thirteen

They were unfailingly polite to one another for several days after that.

They shared the house like distant roommates. Win wasn’t icy when he saw her, just absent, treating him with the same diffident civility as she did journalists.

Most of his time was spent with Pritha, as she was the only real living thing in the house for him to interact with. The cat was no good. Leo didn’t mind cats, but this one had decided to hate him since he interrupted its nap, and now it hissed and put its back up whenever he came near it. He got Win’s first actual smile when he walked past it sitting on one of the kitchen barstools. As he put his hand out to pet it, the cat turned its head, lightning fast, and nipped at his fingers.

“Ow, Jesus!”

“Ha!” Win said, so unexpected and genuine that he stared at her. She rubbed her nose. “She’s shy.”

“Is she,” Leo said, and Win drifted out of the room again.

Leo’s days took on a new routine. He would go out in the morning, taking a car with the windows down and drawing the paparazzi away so that Win and Pritha could slip out an hour later for hospital appointments. Sometimes Win would come with him, and they would sit in a cleared-out restaurant, ignoring each other in favor of their phones.

He went back to the house after lunch, where if she hadn’t come with him, Win would be waiting out by the gates as though to welcome him home, nestling in against his side and then breaking apart the moment they were through the door. Sometimes she said, “Thank you,” and Leo ran his hand over the back of his neck, and they slipped away into separate rooms. Once she said, “Marie said I should put something online,” so Leo pretended to cook, scraping onions into a cold cast-iron pot, and Win posted it with the caption what’s cookin good lookin. Comments flooded through, endless heart-eye emojis and #relationshipgoals.

He spent the afternoons crashed on the couch with Pritha watching Indian soap operas or cooking shows or interminable BBC period dramas that Pritha scoffed at to hide her clear devotion. Pritha complained for a few days about the pain in her lower back—she was too weak to exercise and her muscles were aching—until Leo spent an afternoon clicking through online shops and reading reviews out loud. Pritha pursed her lips and seemed unconvinced, but she allowed him to order her an ergonomic pillow. “Not bad,” she said when it arrived, and nothing else, but after a few days Leo noticed her carrying it from room to room, propping herself up on the couch or slipping it behind her on the kitchen chairs.

He knew he and Pritha weren’t friends—she didn’t like him enough for that—but she was entertaining. On the days she was perkier, when there was good news from the doctor and the chemo was showing results, she interrogated him relentlessly about the fact that he’d never had a job, or what he wanted to do with his life. Leo surprised himself by enjoying it; it didn’t feel vicious and pointed, like Win’s accusations. Instead Pritha was utterly bemused by him, and wondered aloud what unfortunate combination of breeding and indolence and global economic forces ever led to people like Leo, strong and intelligent people who never worked and did not suffer for it.

“Your parents must be so ashamed,” she said to him one day. “All that time spent raising and educating you. All those expensive schools.”

“Well, sometimes I help my dad. He runs a hotel chain and I pick out art for some of the more upmarket ones.”

Pritha looked incredibly unimpressed. “So you buy things for a living.”

“It’s not really a living,” Leo said. “I mean, uh, I don’t need to do it. And I’ve always been into art, it was my best subject in school.”

“In school?” Pritha pulled herself up from the sofa, scowling at Leo when he motioned as if to help her. She shuffled over to the cupboard and then returned with a pen and notepad. “Show me something, then. Draw…” She cast about for inspiration. “Draw Whitman.”

Her expression was blank, but he could see disapproval lurking. Something caught in Leo’s chest; she reminded him of Win in her iciest moods, already sure of her disappointment and just waiting to be proved right. He didn’t need Win in front of him to draw her. She was burned into his brain now, as if her dark, furious gaze followed him even when she wasn’t there. But without really meaning to, he sketched her like he’d seen her in France, leaning on the balcony of her suite, one hand leafing through her hair, her mouth half caught in a smile as she turned and spotted him.

Pritha took the sketch and looked at it in silence. Leo’s face went hot; he could feel himself getting angry again without knowing why.

“Not bad,” Pritha said at last. “There are careers that involve art. Maybe you could be a graphic designer.”

Leo laughed and relaxed back into the couch. “Maybe,” he said, and turned the volume up.

Most of the time she was too exhausted to push him further, and they sat in silence on the couch, taking turns channel surfing. Once they hit on a Western, sweeping panoramic shots of red canyons and grassland, a slight, dark figure limping away on a horse. The camera swung around to the hero’s face. Somehow it took Leo almost twenty seconds to realize it was Win.

“Oh,” Pritha said, and they sat frozen in front of the screen. Leo’s heart was thumping in his chest like he was doing something illegal. It didn’t make sense; he’d seen this one. He’d seen all of Win’s movies, either as her date to the premiere or just so he could call her afterward. But watching her now, while the real Win was so determined to avoid him, felt strange and invasive for no real reason. He was almost ill with anxiety. The moment when he’d finally realized it was her on-screen kept replaying in his head.

The cowgirl had a low, Texan drawl and a way of holding her mouth like she was ready to spit out teeth. Her laugh was low and wheezing, a chortle that was nothing like Win’s own laugh, which was full-bodied and startled and pleased. But even as Leo listed the differences, there was still something else he couldn’t touch, like Win’s very energy changed when she was playing a role. It was like a stranger was wearing Win’s face, or like Win had stepped aside and revealed herself to have been the stranger all along.

“She should have won the Oscar for this,” Leo said. His voice sounded strange, like it was coming from far away. He was worried Win was going to walk in on them and catch them, but he didn’t move, and Pritha didn’t change the channel. “She got the nomination. I can’t remember who won instead.”

Pritha’s mouth was close and tight. She was silent, watching Win. After a moment she said, “Yes. She was always like that. Of course, she has got better. But when Jotish and I went to see her first play, it was this little group of schoolchildren doing their best and…her.” She paused. “We didn’t know. Jotish thought it would be a good after-school activity, especially because she was a little shy, she had trouble making friends, we thought it would break her out of her shell. We didn’t know it would be like this.”

Leo turned toward her. “Were you pleased?”

“I don’t know,” Pritha said. “I can’t remember. I know we were very proud. Jotish thought everyone had one thing they were meant to be. He believed in vocations. He always thought he was meant to teach. I enjoy my work but I don’t think it defines me. I didn’t want Whitman to feel that there was only one choice for her. But it’s hard to argue with…”

She gestured loosely at the screen, the raw slide of a fiddle, the way Win leaned down over her horse and murmured something in its ear and then shot across the plains.

“And of course,” Pritha said, “Whitman did not become famous until after Jotish…It was always the thing they did together. I wonder sometimes what he would have thought of all this. I didn’t want to interfere in something that had been so important to the two of them.”

“That makes sense,” Leo said, but if it did it was in a kaleidoscopic way, blurring images he couldn’t entirely comprehend yet. He remembered attending one of Win’s London premieres and asking why her mother hadn’t come. Oh, she doesn’t really get acting, Win had said, she thinks I picked a weird career, and changed the subject. Another premiere, years later: She doesn’t like crowds. After that he stopped asking.

Pritha looked annoyed with herself. “Anyway,” she said, searching for an out.

Leo gave it to her. “I’m actually pretty sure I visited her when she filmed this. She had an afternoon off, we went riding. It was a nice set.”

Leo hadn’t been riding since school, but he’d settled into it pretty well, and Win laughed at him, called him a rich kid, and raced him across the scrappy ground. Despite her skill on horseback she’d been taught only recently, and when they stopped for lunch, she slung her legs up over his lap and groaned with relief as he dug his fingers into her hamstrings. They stayed up late drinking bourbon on the steps of her trailer. Win had a scene the next day where she lassoed an escaping oil tycoon, and Leo had stood patiently in the moonlight while she practiced tossing the rope over and over, slinging it over his head until it caught around his waist.

“Was it a nice set?” Pritha asked, giving him a strange look. “I thought the director was rude. She got in all that trouble after.”

Leo blinked. “What trouble?”

“When they didn’t win the Oscar,” Pritha said. “There were some other nominations, too, but it didn’t win anything. And the director was very angry and said the film was too anachronistic for audiences to accept and he’d been forced to water his story down for…” She waved her hand vaguely. “Political reasons. Representation.”

“She didn’t tell me any of this,” Leo said, shocked. “What an asshole. She shouldn’t work with him again.”

“Well, she says he wouldn’t cast her again after she responded, in any case. Everyone was very cross with her when she said she didn’t know why her involvement automatically ruined a film. They said she was deliberately ignoring the point.”

“What?” Leo stared. “Why didn’t she tell me any of this?”

Pritha gave him a puzzled look. “She said it wasn’t a big deal. These things happen all the time. I think she and Marie fixed it.”

“Right,” Leo said. He had a faint, fleeting memory of being involved in a burst of publicity not long after those Oscars. He vaguely remembered the old bubbling spring of rumors starting up again that Win was too difficult, that she had a victim complex and a problem with men. He’d flown out to LA and they’d gone to a series of industry parties together, Win laughing and happy on his arm, Leo chummy with the other guys there. Just be your friendly self, Marie had said wryly.

Asshole, he’d always said when he heard these stories, what an asshole, what a jerk, and he wondered suddenly what you did when so many people you met and worked with were assholes: whether it still felt like just a few bad guys, or if instead it felt huge and all-encompassing, impossible to stop.

Echoing through the house, the front door opened. Leo and Pritha both jumped, and Pritha switched the channel to a game show. They exchanged wide-eyed, guilty looks, like small children in trouble.

*  *  *

At night he left Pritha and Win to their weird, uneasy dinners and ate in his room. After he’d been in the house for three weeks, he called Lila.

“My absent husband,” she said when she picked up, her voice dry. “Baby, it’s like you went to war.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Leo said. “It’s kind of intense here, I haven’t had a lot of time.”

“I know, I saw on Twitter.” She sounded sour under the cheer, like she knew he was lying. “Everyone thinks you’ve saved her life.”

“Everyone?”

“Well, the internet.”

“Yeah. I know it’s weird.”

“It’s only as weird as when you were flitting around the Mediterranean with her,” Lila said. “And at least now you don’t look like such a dick. You can have your mopey English holiday, no judgment. Are you at least having fun?”

“It’s pretty much the exact opposite of fun,” Leo said. He didn’t like lying, and he spent all his time pretending with Win. “She’s still pissed. We don’t really speak.”

Lila cackled with laughter. “You dick.”

“It’s not my fault,” Leo said, grinning. It was nice to hear her laughter, to turn this awful month into a sly anecdote. “I’ve told her about my secret wife. I don’t know what she’s mad about now.”

“She should get over it,” Lila agreed. “She kind of comes across like a control freak.”

“No, because she doesn’t think about it as control. She thinks it’s just pragmatic. Like if she just follows all the right steps she won’t have to really confront anything. She does it to her mum, too, like you can cure cancer with scheduling.”

Lila squawked. “You’re such a dick,” she said. “That is a dick thing to say.”

Leo could hear the warm affection in her voice. He and Lila had always understood each other; it had been part of the pleasure of her company, that they worked and thought in the same way, had the same easy, uncomplicated approach to life and fun and relationships. The only thing Lila had never fully understood was Win. For a minute he was back with Lila in LA, forgetting to rub the sleep from his eyes, chilled with a guilt he couldn’t name.

He hung up an hour later and wandered around the house, stir-crazy. None of the clocks had been wound back for daylight savings, so he hunted them through the rooms, fixing the wall clock in the entranceway and the digital timer on the fridge. He followed the noise of the television into the lounge room, but it wasn’t Pritha watching shitty game shows; it was Win, a glass of wine in her hand and a bottle to her right.

“Oh,” Leo said, startled and nervous, like she might have heard everything he was saying, like she knew he’d been talking to Lila. “Sorry, I thought you were—your mum.”

Win looked over at him, and Leo had an odd shock: in the blue light of the television, she looked awful, with deep shadows under her eyes that must have been there for days but only properly stood out now. He didn’t think she was wearing any makeup. Her hair was scraped back, and she was wearing an old, soft shirt with a neckline that hung low over her collarbone. He stretched out his hands, let them curl in again.

“Sorry to disappoint,” she said. “I know you’re great pals.”

Leo set his jaw. “I just meant—”

“I know,” she said, tired, and then repeated, “no, I’m sorry. Whatever. She’s gone to bed.”

“Okay,” Leo said, and had the ghost of an old instinct to cross the floor to her. He wanted to touch her hair. She looked so weightless, like he could scoop her up with one arm and heft her off to bed. He looked at the ceiling instead. “Everything okay?”

“Just fine,” Win said. Her eyes went back to the TV, worn. She took another sip of her wine. Leo let her be.

He’d never seen her like this. He wondered how many people ever had. Win had played vulnerable for the cameras once before in her life, and even that had been for him, giving that interview about her father. When Leo had watched it, sick with relief and gratitude, he’d thought that it would be obvious to everyone how much she hated it, her whole body rigid with tension. But everyone just talked about how sad and lovely she was, like a drooping, delicate flower that had to be nurtured back to health.

The show’s host had asked her how she’d managed after her father’s death. “My mum is a very strong woman,” Win said. “I followed her example. I looked ahead.”

At the time he’d admired the idea without being able to picture it. Now, looking around the bleak, impersonal house, Leo realized that he’d been looking for loving memorials to Win’s father, imprints of his life, traces of grief. He’d thought he couldn’t find it, but it was here; it was all around him. Pritha and Win were still swamped in it. They could barely see each other through the fog.

*  *  *

Win announced coldly that Leo had not proved himself to be the right kind of distraction at the last Chanel shoot, and she took Emil to the next one instead. Emil flew in on a red-eye and made a brief, bleary appearance at the house to drop off a box of files and scripts and a jar of sea urchin roe from Palermo. Leo and Pritha gamely tried it, dipping in their pinky fingers and bringing them, flinching, up to taste. Emil and Win had a brief, whispered conversation before they left, which made Emil cast disappointed looks at Leo, like Leo was a racehorse who had let him down at the last hurdle. He wished Emil would laugh in the next room, that it would be the familiar dynamic of Win and Emil fondly rolling their eyes at him, but instead Emil was serious and professional, and he and Win left without looking back.

Resigning himself to boredom, Leo startled when he came across Pritha on the back porch, half-hidden in the gray morning, staring out at the high hedge and the waves breaking beyond. She was such a lost, lonely figure that Leo demanded, without thinking, “Where is everyone?”

Pritha blinked at him.

“If my mum was sick, we’d need a bouncer on the door,” he said, throwing a hand out to encompass the huge, empty house. “We’d have about fifty cousins round and Thea’s artist friends would be burning sage in the kitchen and me and Gum and Hannah would probably have to share a camp bed to make room. Where are your people?”

“I have a book club,” Pritha said mildly, “but we’re reading Infinite Jest, so we’re skipping a month to give everyone time.”

Leo pushed a hand over his hair, bristling prickly against his palm. “I’m sorry. That was rude. I know it’s different, I know—obviously you’re out here, and my family’s in London and I have siblings, it’s a totally different situation. Sorry.”

Pritha didn’t say anything, but there was something about the straight line of her eyebrows that made Leo think she was trying not to laugh. He wished she would, but she just kept peering at him, as if waiting for him to continue. Eventually he said, “You’re reading Infinite Jest?”

“We wanted to see what all the fuss was about,” Pritha said, and after a moment Leo dropped onto the wooden bench next to her.

“Well, let me know.” He dragged his palm over his face. He imagined Win at the Chanel shoot, in an empty swimming pool, green-lit and red-mouthed. He could see her turning slowly in the vacant space, high vaulted ceilings, one foot curling dangerously over the other.

“My sister lives in Birmingham,” Pritha said, perfectly naturally, as though Leo had just been making polite small talk. “She visits when she can, but she has four children, and two of them are still small. Besides, she’s ten years younger than me, and we’ve never really been that close.”

“Oh.” Leo swallowed. “Me and my siblings were all born within four years of each other,” he offered. “We think our parents had kids just for something to talk about.”

“Jotish and I had some trouble conceiving,” Pritha said. “We discussed having more children, but it took a long time, it was hard, even after Win was born and they thought it might be easier. By the time she was six…I thought the age difference would be more trouble than it was worth.”

Leo waited. He kept himself still, not wanting to spook her.

“Jotish was one of eight siblings,” Pritha said. “He always wanted more room and attention to himself. He wouldn’t admit it, but I think he quite liked the idea of having an only child who he could spoil.” She paused to reach for the tea at her side. “But most of his family stayed in India. When he died, they wanted me and Win to move to Kolkata, to be closer to them. I thought it would be a bad idea, to lose her father and pull her out of school and away from her best friend and—even acting, I wondered, I wasn’t sure whether the transition would be too hard, and she didn’t speak the language well enough. So I said no, they kept pushing and…” She grimaced. “I was not particularly polite. Occasionally I lose my temper,” she added, and Leo thought of Win and almost laughed. Her narrowed eyes and snarl, her tendency to leap straight to shouting when she was angry—clearly a family inheritance. “I lost touch with his family. We never got back in contact.”

“Right,” Leo said. He paused, thinking. “And your parents died a long time ago, you said.”

Pritha nodded.

“So it’s just been you and Whitman?” Leo said. “For…ten years?”

“Fourteen,” Pritha said. “So actually, everyone is here. She came back.”

Leo stared at her, but Pritha didn’t seem lonely or sentimental or regretful, just matter-of-fact. Her and her daughter, and the old cat, and the big house, and Leo: everyone.

Any last vestiges of guilt about talking to Lila again disappeared a week later, when he walked into the kitchen while Win was making a video call. He took a step back, said, “Hey, sorry,” and then did a double take.

“Oh, right,” Nathan Spencer said, voice tinny over the connection. He was wearing a jaunty polka-dot tie with a thin knot. “I forgot you were there.”

Win looked at Leo over her mug of tea. She was perched on one of the kitchen barstools, ankles hooked underneath her, and there was some quirk of amusement in the corner of her mouth.

“Nathan was just telling me about the guests he’s got lined up for his show this week,” she said. “It’s a reality TV special. Maybe you and Ma can watch it together.”

“I don’t care for reality TV,” Leo said. “You guys have fun.” He gave the screen finger guns as he left the room.

An hour later, Win drifted across his path in the living room, though Leo doubted it was an accident. He looked up at her. “I didn’t know you were still in contact with that asshole.”

“He called me when he found out about my mum. We’ve decided to be friends.”

“Oh, great idea. He was an awesome friend to you this summer.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Who gives a shit when it was?” Leo said. “He made racist jokes about your mum!”

“You don’t have to tell me when people are being racist, Leo,” Win said, voice low and thrumming with anger. “I’m actually pretty good at noticing that for myself.”

“I—yeah, I know,” Leo said. He pushed two knuckles against his eyebrow. “I get that you can’t call him out, but do you have to be nice to him?”

“I don’t like wild cards,” Win said. “If he’s not angry with me, he’s not going to go to the press.”

“So that’s what it is? Making sure he’s still obedient?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly it. Thanks for reminding me I’m a psychopath, once again.”

“It’d be harder to do if you didn’t treat everyone like they’re a liability.”

“Nathan knows things about me, and I don’t want him to hate me. That’s common sense.” Her voice was still cool and aloof, but her chin was tilted up, and Leo narrowed his eyes. He knew what Win looked like when she was spoiling for a fight. Part of him had been waiting for another break in the tension; he was surprised it had taken this long. He sprawled his legs out across the living room floor.

“Sure,” he drawled. “I guess that does make sense. Anyway, it must be tricky to find new people to talk to without Marie here to vet everyone.”

“Marie’s vetting system isn’t perfect,” Win said. “It turns out you never know what people are hiding.”

“Oh, Whitman,” Leo said. “I thought we were friends again.”

Win rolled her eyes, turned, and walked away. “Say hi to your wife for me,” she said as she ducked out of the room, and Leo lost his temper. He jumped off the couch and swung into the hallway.

“You’re allowed to talk to Nathan but I’m not allowed to talk to Lila?”

“Get out of my way, Leo.”

“She didn’t do anything to you,” Leo said. “Nathan, on the other hand—”

“It’s none of your business who I talk to,” Win said. “And I haven’t told you not to—”

“Oh, and a little dig like that doesn’t mean anything?”

Win raised her eyebrows. “You had a go at me first.”

“That’s mature,” Leo said.

“I don’t have time for this,” Win said. For a moment she was all warmth and breath against his side, and then she slipped past him and walked off down the hallway. “I’m going for a run.”

“You’re always running away from me!”

Win looked over her shoulder. “Don’t be dramatic.”

“I’m not,” Leo said. “I barely see you. I know you’re mad, but Christ, Whitman, you can’t just keep walking out of rooms when I walk in—”

“We’re basically living together. I see you all the time.”

“We used to be friends.”

“I’m not the one who fucked that up,” Win said, low and furious, stepping back toward him. “I’m not the one who lied. I trusted you, and you—”

“I know,” Leo said, and felt ruined. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been trying to show you.”

“I don’t care. It doesn’t—it doesn’t matter—”

“It does.” They were nearly nose to nose, staring at each other. Win was almost breathless with anger, her eyes dark. When Leo reached out, she caught his wrist, so all he could feel was the cool loop of her hand on his skin, the pads of her fingers cupping his wrist bone. She’d done that a lot, in Saint-Tropez, taking quiet, possessive hold of him. He stared at her.

Win blinked, shook her head, and let go of his wrist. “Fine. Go put your running shoes on.”

“What?”

“You wanna hang out? I’m going for a run. Go get changed. I’ll wait five minutes.”

Leo glared. “I don’t like being told what to do.”

“Imagine my surprise,” Win said, and checked her watch.

Leo made an awful face and stormed out of the room. When he got to his bedroom, he hesitated, then pulled out his sweatpants.

Win ran every day. If it weren’t for the height Leo had on her, he might have had some trouble keeping up. His heart was still hammering from the fight, his breath coming hard.

But he wasn’t going to show it, with Win loping along by his side. They ran out the back and through the shady wooded paths that trailed down toward the sea. It was a cold, blue-dark afternoon, the sun already setting, a thin layer of fog around their ankles. Win took the inner path, and Leo kept pace next to her through the sludge of fallen leaves, slipping on the corners.

They ran downhill, which gave Leo enough of a start to bound ahead for a few meters as they came out of the undergrowth. He looked over his shoulder. “Keeping up, Tagore?”

Win’s face tightened and Leo laughed, narrowly avoiding running into a tree. Then Win sped up, until she was jostling at his shoulder, and Leo started running harder, too, going all out, heart pounding and chest tight, breath coming ragged. His vision swam. He kept on, with Win furious at his side.

They ran down an empty road and over the bridge. The trees were bare and stark against the gray sky. He could hear the waves. Everything looked bleak and awful, and Leo was still angry. Win slammed her shoulder against his, and he jostled back against her. A couple of meters back, Win’s security team’s SUV was crawling along, keeping them in sight.

“I go left here,” Win panted. Leo ignored her, heading straight for the sea. Win spat a curse and ran after him, overtaking so Leo had a view of her ponytail bouncing and flashes of her long shins. He put his head down and sped up.

They came surging over the bank of the empty beach together, pebbles spilling underfoot, and tumbled down the slope, nearly falling. Leo couldn’t pull himself up until he was at the water, and then he stopped, gasping for breath, and Win toppled right into him.

Leo grabbed her forearms hard. They nearly fell, both of them stumbling about, red-faced and panting.

“You’re such a show-off.”

“What? You said you wanted to go running.” Leo swiped his wrist over his sweaty brow and tried to affect nonchalance. It would have been more impressive if he weren’t still breathless. “Jesus, it’s hot.”

“It’s not.”

She was right: it was dismal, close to winter.

“It’s a really warm day,” Leo said, and jerked his shirt over his head. He put his hands on his knees, head reeling, and when he looked up, Win was smirking again, and Leo’s eyes narrowed. He toed off his sneakers.

“What are you doing,” Win said, sounding very unimpressed.

“Cooling off.” Leo shoved his sweatpants down, hopping out of them where they tangled around his ankles. Win’s mouth was a tight, disapproving line. Leo stretched in his briefs, and turned toward the ocean.

“Don’t be stupid. It’s November.”

“Thanks, most of the time I can remember what month it is,” Leo said, and headed into the water. “Anyway, you can do what you like. No shame if you can’t handle it.”

“Oh, come on,” Win said as the first waves lapped around his ankles. Leo froze, hunched his shoulders, then kept going. “Leo.”

“Whitman,” Leo mocked.

Win cursed and Leo heard a rustle of clothing but didn’t dare turn around. He edged farther into the icy water. It left pinpricks of pain everywhere it touched. He gritted his teeth, trudging deeper until it was freezing all around his knees, his feet aching like the sea had taken a hammer to them. “Christ,” he mumbled, mostly to himself.

There was a determined splashing sound, and Leo turned around just in time to see Win in—Christ—her sports bra and underwear, charging past him and into the waves.

Startled out of his annoyance, he said, “You’re so competitive,” and Win dove. Her body made a low, close curve against the ocean, and then the waves swallowed her up.

“We’ve made a bad decision,” Leo said to no one, and followed her in.

He came up gasping and shaking his head, his whole body simultaneously on fire and trying to shudder out of its skin. Win was bobbing a little way away from him, her eyes huge, teeth chattering. Every joint in his body was stinging in protest.

“Oh my god,” Leo said.

“You’re so fucking stupid,” Win said.

“I know that now,” Leo said, and dove in the vague hope that he might get used to the cold if it submerged him. He didn’t, and in the freezing dark he dove too far and scraped his knee against the rocks on the bottom and swallowed a mouthful of seawater in surprise. He came up spluttering and choking.

“You’re bad at this,” Win said.

“I can still outrun you, though.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Win said, and launched herself at him, clinging to his back and trying to push his head underwater. Leo fought back with interest. They shoved each other around, ducking under the waves, coming up gasping and fighting to get their hands back on each other.

“You are such a prick,” Win said.

“It drives me crazy when you won’t talk to me,” Leo said, and pushed her underwater. Win stayed under, grabbed his ankles, dragged him down. He caught his shin on another sharp rock.

When they came up again, he was cursing, and Win was coughing like the salt water was in her lungs. She spat, a line of spittle connecting her and the ocean.

“You drive me crazy,” she said. “You’re always there. I can’t get away from you.”

“I barely see you!”

“You’ve got a very loud presence!”

They stared at each other.

“I don’t think that’s a thing,” Leo said.

“I’m so fucking cold,” Win said.

Leo yanked her ponytail, but gently. “Is that you giving in and getting out first?”

Win sank down until the water was up to her chin.

“Fine,” Leo said. “But only because I’m a gentleman.”

“And a baby,” she said, but he’d already turned and was wading back to the shore, his limbs shaking. He folded his arms over his chest.

Win came stumbling out a second later, tripping and catching his arm. She was freezing against him. They held on to each other almost by habit, her hand tight on his forearm, his arm around her waist, and then Leo remembered that they weren’t playing for an audience and there were no paparazzi, and he froze. There was nobody to see them on the beach. Win’s eyes were wild. Leo’s teeth started to chatter.

“We don’t have any towels,” he said.

“I hate you,” Win said, but she didn’t look like she meant it.