LAUREN
I leaned back in one of the wobbly plastic lawn chairs that I’d dragged outside onto our small lanai, where I balanced my laptop on my knees. I’d gotten up early to enjoy the peace and quiet of the morning. We might only have a semi-view of the beach, but I was seriously getting used to the sounds and the smells that came from living this close to the water. I wondered how I would ever go back to living inland again.
This was the one perk of calling it an early night—no hangover when I’d rolled out of bed at the crack of dawn. Although it was maybe the only perk, because I was pretty sure I’d missed the party to end all parties.
I never did find Em when I’d decided to leave, not that I’d tried all that hard. I’d made my way home by myself, and by the time I had, the festivities had stretched all the way to our end of the beach. I’d been propositioned and catcalled all the way back. Once I’d locked myself inside, the sounds of the party raging out on the sand had continued late into the night.
I must’ve been dead to the world by the time Em came home, because I never even heard her sneak in.
My coffee was starting to get cold, but I sipped it anyway, too lazy to get up and top it off.
I heard the slider over at Lucas’s place scrape on its tracks. His patio was impossible to miss, littered with an array of surfboards and beach towels left hanging in the sun to dry. There were beach chairs and candles and High Surf Advisory and Clothing Optional Beyond This Point signs that looked so real enough he must have stolen them. In the dark last night, I’d used the colorful string lights he’d hung in crisscrossing patterns as a beacon to pick out my place from the rest.
I totally didn’t want to be that annoying nosy neighbor in everyone’s business, so when I heard the door rasping closed again, followed by shuffling footsteps, I tried to peek around the small wooden wall that served as a divider between our patios, without actually moving my head.
But it was no use. The wall wasn’t see-through enough.
After a few more steps the footsteps froze.
“Um . . . I . . . Hey, you . . .”
I didn’t have to see the person sneaking out of Lucas’s place to know who it was; her drawl was thicker in the morning. No wonder I hadn’t heard her come in last night.
“Oh. My. God!” I gave Emerson my best holier-than-thou once-over. “Are you doing the walk of shame right now?”
Her hair was a cloud of frizz, looking like blonde cotton candy. Her face was still creased from the sheets, and her clothes were rumpled as she clutched her sandals to her chest. Her grin went from sheepish to brazen as she realized there was no point denying it. “Since when do I have any shame?”
“Where’s . . .” I nodded toward the house next door. “You know who?”
She chewed her lip. “Still in bed. I think I might’ve killed him.”
I took another sip of my cold coffee and passed it to her. “That sounds about right.”
She dropped her sandals and settled onto the tile patio beside my chair, sitting cross-legged. She took a drink of my coffee, not complaining that it was pretty gross by now—caffeine was caffeine.
We watched a couple of seagulls fight over a cigarette butt, before one of them realized it wasn’t food and flew away, giving the other full access.
Emerson finally said, “Sorry about last night. You mad at me?”
“For what?”
“Ditching you.” She turned and squinted up at me. “I . . .” She shrugged. “Lucas and me . . . you know.”
“Gross. Spare me the details.” I reached for the cup. “But it’s fine, really. Besides, I’m pretty sure I ditched you first.”
“You mean . . . you and what’s-his-name?” When she said what’s-his-name she wasn’t messing with me, she really didn’t remember Noah’s name.
“No. Nothing like that. I came home by myself.”
“Aw. That makes me sad.” She made a pouty face for my benefit and then took the coffee again. “So, you never found him?”
“No, I did.” I thought of Will then, and how, for a second there, when he’d first sneaked up on me, I actually believed maybe there’d been some sort of shift between us. Some change. That maybe . . .
Maybe, what? I asked myself. Maybe I’d misjudged him?
Hardly. Not after the blowup I’d witnessed between him and his girlfriend.
But even if she had cheated on him, he must’ve had some role in it, right? Done something to push her into another man’s arms?
I wondered what had happened after they’d taken off. Had Will gone after her so they could make up? Or had that been the final straw? The end of them?
What was wrong with me? Why did I even care?
“But I got . . .” I tried to decide how to explain my craptastic night. “. . . sidetracked.”
Emerson nodded, as if I’d just offered a perfectly reasonable explanation. Then she hopped up. “Hey, what are your plans for the day? Wanna go shopping?”
“Can’t,” I said, grateful to have an excuse. I wasn’t like Emerson, who considered shopping a sport. I nodded toward the computer, still perched on my lap. “I’ve got a date.”