“I’ll just jump in the shower, and then we can go,” he yells.
“I know you didn’t get much sleep last night,” I call out, smoothing down the lavender skirt he’s already seen three times in the last two weeks. I wish I weren’t bothered by wearing this again, but I’d feel so much more confident in something new. “You really don’t have to come with me if you’d rather take a nap.”
I listen for his response, venturing out of the bathroom when none comes. He’s leaning against the counter, staring at the couch. His gaze shifts toward me as my heels click against the hardwood floor.
“Simone talked you out of it then,” he says with a pained smile. It’s such an unnatural expression on him, I want to kiss it away. “I was worried she might.”
“Of course she didn’t.” I stop a few feet away from him, my guilt preventing me from getting too close.
“She tried, though,” Deiss says.
“She thinks you’ll get tired of me.”
“I won’t,” he says firmly. “It’s been eleven years and I haven’t yet, have I?”
I smile, and he reaches for me, pulling me into his arms and pressing a kiss against my mouth.
“You look beautiful,” he says, releasing me. “Give me five minutes and we’ll get on the road.”
I nod, staring after him as he disappears into his bedroom. My mother is going to love him. She’s going to take one look at him and be utterly charmed. Blue eyes have always been her weakness.
I wish I didn’t suspect I’m about to bring another man into her life who won’t be coming back.
THEN
The three of us girls were propped up on loungers, the glittering infinity pool stretched out in front of us. Fruity daiquiris that we were finally old enough to order crowded the tiny tables. Mac and Deiss had taken the chairs that bookended us and were tossing a little squeeze ball back and forth over the top of us. Droplets of water flew off of it as it passed, hitting my legs and skidding across the bronzing oil. The coldness of it felt good against my hot skin, but I joined in with the other girls’ protests and attempts to slap it out of the air, knowing we were just making the guys want to do it more.
“I’m just saying it’s weird,” Mac insisted. “If chicken nuggets are just mushed-up chicken parts formed into a nugget, why wouldn’t they shape it like a chicken?”
“Because nobody wants to look at a chicken’s face while they’re eating its corpse,” Phoebe said.
“Sure we do,” Mac said. “We’re savage creatures. Haven’t you ever watched a kid eat an animal cookie? They start with the head, every time.”
“He has a point,” Deiss said, popping the ball up over his head before swinging it back toward Mac.
“Does he, though?” Simone shifted her sunglasses, causing her bikini top to slip a little lower. She’d untied the straps, supposedly to prevent tan lines. As she was reaching down to prevent her breast from fully popping out, her hand froze.
“Crap,” she muttered.
“What?” Mac looked around like a dog shaking off a bath.
“Hi, Simone,” two girls said in unison, sauntering up in bikinis paired with three-inch wedges.
“Happy birthday,” the taller one said in a sickly sweet voice. “It looks like you’re having fun.”
“Which is so nice,” the other one continued, “because everyone at the sorority house was really sad for you that you had to do something with your mother instead of celebrating with us.”
“Yeah.” If she was ruffled, Simone did a remarkable job of hiding it. “It kind of sucks, but things ended early with my mom because she had to go to the doctor. She’s worried one of her breast implants might’ve slipped. I don’t want to be mean, but it looks like the left one got hungry and ate the right one.”
I squinted at her because I knew for a fact that Simone’s mother had been happily traipsing around Geneva for the last month.
“Really?” The tall one looked delighted by the gossip. “That’s awful.”
“So gross,” the other one said with a gleeful grin.
Deiss chucked the ball over their heads and into the pool, causing Mac to yelp with confusion.
“Beat you to it,” Deiss said.
Without hesitation, Mac lunged up and toward the pool. Deiss did the same, turning at the edge and winking at Simone before cannonballing into the water. A wave exploded over the edge, causing the girls to shriek and scurry out of the line of fire.