Tina

The night of the party rolled around and I felt absolutely no different. I stayed away from the house and helped Brady prepare the bonfires that would be roaring on all the beaches on the island, and then I helped Spencer to spear the two pigs that would be roasting on spits for the guests to feast on. Brit was in charge of importing all the side dishes and drinks, Kevin was tasked with “decorating”-- which really just included sticking tiki torches all along the house and making sure the D.J. was set up properly-- and my job was to make sure things went smoothly until the guests started to arrive.

But really, all I did was bounce around and try to help.

Even though I graduated with all of them at the same time, I was the youngest of the group. I graduated high school when I was 15 and kept myself behind in order to graduate from college with my friends when I was 19, but had I not done that I could’ve been finished in two years. I never told them that-- that I held myself back in my studies to stay with them-- but then again, I never felt a reason to. I was the baby of the group and they never let me forget it, and it was in moments like these where I was thankful that no one felt the need to disturb me.

The party for the evening was a beach theme, so the roaring bonfires and the tiki torches made sense. Was it campy and cheesy? Yeah. Was anyone gonna care once they got to drinking Brady’s drinks? Not really. People would get enough food and booze in their systems to get them to open up, and pretty sure they’d be grinding on people who were not their dates before dragging them off for threesomes and hook ups in one of the many rooms that peppered the massive house we built on this island.

Well, the massive house they built on my island.

Around 8 o’clock that evening, people began disembarking from boats. Some traveled with their own private yachts and docked at the many docks we had built on the island, some flew in and landed their small personal planes on the short runway we had paved, and some even landed their private helicopters on the helipad on the top of the vacation house in order to get to the party that way. And, while we sent out 150 invitations, we knew there would easily be 400 people there. You know, friends bring friends and married men bring their mistresses, and whatever happened on the island stayed on the island and all that nonsense.

Women disembarked with flattering bikinis and sheer fabric dresses and men came wearing those tacky hawaiian shirts and their socks paired with sandals. Some men came with more fashion sense-- and by fashion sense I mean they came shirtless and showing off their rippling muscles-- and some even arrived at the island with raging boners all locked, loaded, and ready to go.

Food was served at 8:30, the D.J. started dropping the real music by 9, and by the time 10 that night rolled around everyone was doing exactly what I thought: grinding on dates that weren’t theirs, pulling people into the house for orgies, and puking into the ocean because they’d already had too much to drink.

I decided to wrap myself in a wrap and cover up my bikini-clad body and take a walk down to the beach. I stayed away from the beaches roasting the last of the pork and I ventured to the south-end of the island. A raging bonfire was going on and I’d already passed three couples ass-naked on the beach bucking into each other like wet baby seals, and I knew our water bill would be through the roof this time around with people trying to shower off and dig sand out of their ass cracks and pussy holes.

Honestly, I was looking for Kevin. While I hadn’t been keeping an eye out on him for the party, it was arriving at that time where Brady and Spencer usually started looking for their latest conquest, and a part of me wondered if Kevin was drunk enough to throw caution to the wind again. Yes, I knew it wasn’t a masquerade party so yes, everyone would probably know we hooked up. But, the wine was getting to me and the food was heightening my senses, and my brain shut itself off while my pelvis apparently went in search of his dick.

I heard familiar voices laughing on the edge of the beach, and when I found Kevin it wasn’t a shocker when he was standing with Brady and Spencer. They were surrounded by beautiful, shapely women who were laughing at their stupid jokes, and I was about to go insert myself into the conversation.

Until I saw one of the women put their hand onto Kevin’s arm.

I watched him turn to her and smile, enjoying whatever conversation it was they were having, and a part of me locked up. I saw the glimmer in his eye and I recognized it from our college days. He used to look at me with that same kind of glimmer. The kind that stated his predatory intentions while still making you feel as if he was paying attention to you. He did it all the time when I caught him staring at my tits in class, and after class was dismissed I always had him on his knees while I ground my pussy lips down into his face.

He’d always been so eager to please, and it looked as if that part of him hadn’t changed.

She smiled brightly at him and all of them began to laugh, but then his eyes raised and connected with him and I was suddenly ripped from my past thoughts and memories. I watched his body straighten before everyone else turned and looked in my direction, and suddenly none of this had been a good idea.

I had been a shit idea to come after Kevin and it had been a shit idea to sleep with him at the first party and it had been a shit idea to think that anything could have ever happened between us on-- or after-- this bullshit vacation.

Fuck.

I turned my back and started back for the house, but when I heard Kevin call out my name I took off down the beach. I ran as fast as my legs would take me, but no matter how quickly I ran away from the situation, Kevin’s voice calling my name didn’t recede into the distance.

Jesus Christ, he was running after me, and I felt tears rise to my eyes yet again before I darted through the thick brush of the island.

I was heading for the west part of the island, the part of the island where no one liked to go. There wasn’t a lot of sun on that part of the island and there wasn’t much sand and beach to lay out on, but I’d found a beautiful little gazebo I’d fixed up over the course of the first few vacation we had taken here. I’d come and bring my books or some work I promised I wouldn’t bring on the trip, and the scenery over the ocean was always so breathtaking from the inside of that little slice of heaven.

And I was running right for it, hoping to lose Kevin in the brush.

“Tina!” he roared.

I carried myself faster and faster, hoping to God he would give up and go back to whatever bimbo he was gonna nail that night, but just as the gazebo came into view I felt something warm grasp my arm. I was stopped in my tracks and I was ripped around on my feet, and when I stumbled, I fell into the arms of someone who was holding me up.

“Jesus, Tina,” Kevin breathed. I was heaving in his arms, my lungs burning from the exertion of running, and I suddenly felt like jello as I collapsed into his arms. His strong frame picked me up and walked me the rest of the way to the gazebo, and when he sat me down he knelt in front of me and brushed my hair from my face.

“The fuck are you doing, Tina?” he breathed. “Why didn’t you stop?”

“Looked like you were having fun,” I deadpanned.

“Running is never fun! I don’t run!” he exclaimed.

“I meant with them.”

I watched recognition rush over his face, and for the first time in years I couldn’t read the expression on his face. He got up and sat beside me while we both looked out of the water, and before I could open my mouth he began the conversation for me.

“The masquerade party was mind blowing,” he commented.

“Thank you,” I nodded.

“But that’s what happens at these parties, right? What happens here stays here?”

“Is that what you want?” I asked.

“Have you ever wanted anything else than that?” he quipped.

“You remember college?”

“I remember being randomly dumped in a coffee shop by a woman who told me it just ‘felt like the right time to end things’,” he mocked.

“I asked your opinion that day, Kevin.”

“No. What you did was you gave me yours and asked if I had a rebuttal.”

“That’s what that was!” I shrieked.

“It wasn’t a mock debate, Tina! It was our relationship!” Kevin roared.

“And that was important to me!” I yelled at him.

“Then why the hell did you break up with me!?” he yelled back.

“Because there wasn’t a point to it!”

“The fuck kind of sense does that make, Tee, huh!?” I watched him stand and I saw the fury etched onto his face. I didn’t know how to explain it to him. I didn’t know how to articulate that I felt the relationship had stagnated despite the fact that I’d fallen in love with him. Everything has a logical pattern: you go to school, you enroll into college, you get your degree, you find a job, and you work your way up. It’s the same way with anyone’s love life: you meet someone, you date, you fall in love, you get engaged, you get married, you build a life.

That’s the order of things. That’s what happens.

“You’re misunderstanding me. There was a point, it was just a stagnated-”

“Jesus, here we go with the ‘logical order of things’ spiel again,” Kevin groaned.

“And what’s wrong with that speech, huh!? What’s wrong with wanting order and logic in life!?”

“You don’t always have to live your life that way, Tina!”

“Well, I didn’t at the masquerade party!” I argued.

“Yes, you did! You picked the one person out of the entire crowd who you knew what it was like to sleep with, and you slept with him! You took the safe route! The guaranteed route! THE LOGICAL ROUTE!”

I gawked at him underneath that gazebo while tears rose to my eyes, and it finally dawned on me that he was right. I had chosen him because he was comfortable and I had chosen him because I knew what was coming. He was familiar, he had a pattern, and I knew his pattern inside and out: from the way he filled me with his dick to the way he kissed me on my neck.

And it killed me inside that that wasn’t good enough.

“I’m sorry,” I breathed.

“You fucking should be,” he murmured. He ran his hands through his hair and turned to gaze back out at the ocean, and suddenly I felt even more out of place than I did when I saw him on that beach with those women.

Those women who would’ve treated him better than me.

“You might as well get back to your party,” I beckoned. “They’re probably back there waiting for you.”

“You, too,” he breathed.

But all I did was shrug.

I watched him walk out of the gazebo and silent tears began to stream down my cheeks. My entire soul cried out for him. My body buzzed a tune that was looking for the harmony it could provide. I’d rationalized to myself every single reason why I should’ve approached him tonight to talk and had bullet-pointed arguments as to why we should’ve given this a second shot. We were older, we were wiser, we were financially stable, and we had done some growing up. We’d experienced life and lived it without one another, and when we all came together on this island for three weeks out of the year, I knew he couldn’t deny that it just felt right.

But, listening to him walk away told a completely different story.

I felt sick to my stomach and I closed my eyes. I buried my face into my hands and slumped my shoulders, and suddenly the beach felt very dark. The moonlight felt as if it was being dragged over to where the entertainment was, and it really was a funny idea.

Not even the moon wanted to be around me.

I stood to my feet and rolled my shoulders back and figured I’d make my way back to the house. I could schedule for a boat to come get me in the early hours of the morning so no one would protest when they realized I was leaving the house, and I could go somewhere where I was needed. I could go back to Washington and clean up people’s lives and jump whenever they called because at least they called.

At least someone, somewhere, enjoyed my rationality and logic.

But, before I could take a step out of the gazebo, Kevin rushed into my vision and grasped my cheeks within the palms of his hands.

And then he thrust his lips upon mine in a desperate, wanton kiss.