That makes me laugh as I take another sip of my drink. I’m more than a little drunk, and everything has gone soft and hazy. Jake made us daiquiris, but they’re not the kind I’m used to—those bright pink frozen concoctions that came out of machines at the Haleakala. This is just fresh lime juice, some sugar, and really good rum, not a strawberry in sight. I’m on my third, and my face is starting to feel a little numb, but I can’t seem to stop. The more I drink, the further away this afternoon feels. Like it happened to someone else.
Nico laughs at something Jake says, and I look over at him, warmth spreading in my chest that has nothing to do with the booze.
I’m so glad he brought us here. I’m so glad we met Brittany and Amma and Eliza and Jake. I’m—
“Alright, petal, your eyes are crossing,” Jake says, leaning forward to take the half-empty glass from my hand. I surrender it without a fight, grinning at him.
“Did you just call me petal?”
“He calls every woman that,” Eliza says, lightly pinching Jake’s knee. “He thinks it’s charming and, annoyingly, he’s right.”
“It is charming,” I agree. “I mean, usually when dudes call me sweetie or babe or something, I hate it.”
“I call you babe,” Nico objects, and I wave a hand at him.
“I mean dudes I’m not dating. Random dudes.”
Jakes raises his eyebrows. “Am I random?”
I’m probably too drunk to be having this conversation, my words pinging all over the place, and I shake my head. “No, we’re friends now. I think,” I say, and from behind me, Brittany chuckles.
“You are so wasted, Lux.”
I really am. I haven’t gotten drunk like this in a long time. Haven’t really felt safe enough. When grief is still raw, drinking and drugs are a double-edged sword. They can numb you, make you feel the pain less, but they can also crack you wide open, leaving you vulnerable for a flood to come rushing back in when you least expect it. I’d learned that lesson the hard way in the months after Mom, when a couple of vodka and sodas in my apartment turned into four, turned into six, and next thing I knew, I was sick and crying on the bathroom floor.
There’s no flood now. Instead, I look around at my new friends and wish my mom could’ve met them. Wish she could’ve seen this place, this slice of paradise that feels like something out of a dream.
“There,” Brittany says from behind me, patting my hair. “All fixed and beautiful.”
I reach back, and my hair actually feels smooth under my fingertips for the first time in forever, twisted in a low knot at the back of my neck.
“All gussied up and nowhere to show it off,” Eliza says, smiling, and reaches for her phone.
“I can take a picture at least,” she says. “Not that I can share it until we’re back in civilization.”
Jake tilts his beer bottle in her direction. “Alright, now here’s a thought for you—is the place where things like Instagram and Twitter exist more or less civilized than this, God’s own masterpiece of nature, hmm?”
“Ohhh,” Brittany says, coming around from behind me to flop onto the deck. “You’re one of those types. Too good for a well-chosen filter.”
“Nah, he’s just old,” Eliza says, wrapping an arm around Jake’s shin and looking up at him. “Turned thirty last month, now pretends he’s never used an emoji in his life.”
“I haven’t,” Jake insists, and Eliza rolls her eyes.
“Do you know,” she goes on, lifting one finger in the air, “that this boat actually came with some ludicrously expensive Wi-Fi situation, and Jacob Arthur Kelly here had it ripped the fuck out? That is how committed this motherfucker is to being off the grid.”
“I’m spending weeks in paradise with my lady, I cannot have her checking her Twitter or reading celebrity gossip,” Jake replies, then he leans down to kiss Eliza’s forehead. “That’s not being thirty, that’s just good sense.”
They’re so cute together, so perfectly matched, and suddenly I wish I was sitting next to Nico, that we could drape ourselves over each other with that same ease and comfort.
But it would look awkward now, trying to clamber over to him, like I was trying to prove something. And besides, Amma is already sitting there. They’re not touching, they’re not even all that close together, but I still get that same knot in my stomach, that same little burst of jealousy.