It’s our last night in this gorgeous house that I would buy in a heartbeat if I had a dime. We decide to have dinner in town. As soon as we walk in, I see Zeke sitting at the bar by himself.
“My savior!” I say, loud enough that he turns but hopefully not attract everyone in the joint.
His responding smile is infectious and I walk up to him and give him a hug. He’s a little taken aback but he rolls with it.
“Wow, good to see ya, love. Didn’t catch more in the water today, though, eh? I was hoping to seeing you back out there coming out on top.”
He winks and that’s when Fox wraps an arm around my shoulders. “Hey, how are ya?” he says. “I’m Fox and this is Jonah and Rae.” He throws a thumb over his shoulder at our friends.
“Pleasure’s mine,” Zeke says, his accent particularly thick. It makes me smile. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Fox eyeballing me.
“Zeke is the guy who pulled me out of the water after my spill today,” I explain to Jonah and Rae. “I thought we might run into each other some more at Willow Creek, but here we are.” I turn back to Zeke. “You should join us.”
I lightly elbow Fox in the ribs.
Fox coughs and chimes in, “Yeah, definitely.”
Zeke looks between the two of us quickly and then nods. “Sure. Sure, that’d be great.”
On the way over to our table, Fox and I have an under-breath growly argument, which basically consists of me telling him to “be nice” and him playing stupid. I ask why he’s acting jealous, but we run out of time and privacy.
“So where ya from, mate?” Fox asks, leaning back on our side of the booth. Yeah, he scooted me in first. Zeke takes the chair on the end of the booth. I look at Fox like he’s crazy.
“What?” he asks, oblivious.
“Oh, nothing,” I say, making it absolutely clear to anyone paying attention that it’s more than nothing. Well, nothing I’m going to say out loud, anyway. Later, I’ll tell him how idiotic it was that he adopted a bit of an Aussie accent. Fucker grew up primarily in California. His mom, Roz, is from New Zealand.
It’s pretty awkward for a few beats longer. Finally, Zeke stops watching us like a tennis match and answers.
“Brisbane, originally,” he says. “But I moved to the Gold Coast after university. Met a woman, had a good time, thought we were in love, all that. Follow her back to Los Angeles only to find out she’s married.”
The entire table erupts in an off-key chorus of outrage. We’re legitimately aggrieved on his behalf, but he waves us off. It’s impressive how good-natured he is about it, though I suppose initially he’d have been hella pissed.
“That’s fucked up. So she was married the whole time she was in Oz?” I ask.
“Yup! It was her… shit, what did she call it?” he interrupts himself, trying to dig up the phrase, which Fox is all too keen to supply.
“Hall pass.” He nods knowingly. I literally want to elbow him in the junk.
“That’s it! Thank you. Anyway, she was a professor on holiday—em, a sabbatical, I guess. I don’t think she thought I’d really follow her.” He shakes his head and takes a long draw off his beer. “I don’t know how acting like we were something serious played into that, but I fell for it. Is what it is, I s’pose.”
Rae leans toward him and says, “I’m sorry, dude. She sounds like she was a real cunt.”
The waiter has just walked up and everyone stares at him in both horror and glee. Rae cracks a smile.
“I don’t know if you heard the story, but if you did, you’d know I’m absolutely correct in my evaluation,” she says.
Once we get our drinks, the awkwardness seems to dissipate. Conversation flows more naturally. Zeke relaxes and Fox stops interrogating. They even swap some Gold Coast surf stories, which pulls in Jonah and Rae. I smile. Had I met Zeke before the baby-making situation rolled out, things might be different. I immediately feel guilty for thinking it. I shouldn’t, but I do. The conflict makes me anxious and I feel my face get hot. I quickly excuse myself and run to the ladies’ room. There, I splash a little water on my cheeks and gladly acknowledge that I have some nice color from the sun today. Not as much as Jonah, though. His normally freckly nose is straight-up fuchsia. Rae is constantly telling him he’s too white to skip the sunblock. Kind of like Cameron. He lobsters if he doesn’t wear 70 SPF. I wonder how we could possibly have the same parents.
Feeling less odd, I exit the bathroom only to be pushed back in by Fox. He locks the door behind us and charges for me. I hold a hand out, pushing against his chest.
“First of all, what the fuck are you doing? Second, what if there was someone in here?”
His eyes go wide, his expression turning sheepish. “Hello?” he calls before turning to notice the three stalls are all, in fact, empty and open. “See? It’s fine.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I say, maintaining my distance—or his, since he’s backed me up against the wall. “Question one! Why do you think I want to have sex in a bathroom right now?”
More sheepishness. “Don’t you?” His expression is hilariously hopeful in that faux innocent way.
I chitter and immediately school my expression. “No. What did you tell people at the table? Don’t you think they might suspect something if we come back at the same time?”
“Who cares?”
“Fox.”
“What?” He’s either genuinely ignorant or willfully so.
“You’re not jealous of Zeke, are you?
“Why would I be jealous? He’s not, um, that is, he’s no reason for me to be jealous.”
“Okay,” I say, nodding. But then I raise one eyebrow, basically indicating that I think he’s full of it. “You think he’s hitting on me or something, don’t you?”
“That’s ridiculous. Why would he do that when you’re clearly with me?” he blurts.
Our eyes simultaneously go wide as the door clangs. Someone knocks on it. I blink a couple of times and move around him to open the door.
“Sorry,” I say to the woman who glares at me as she walks in. Her attitude pisses me off. “We were just having sex. Good luck avoiding the sink I got nailed on.”
I walk out, but Fox follows me quickly. I can hear his stuttering mirth behind me. We arrive back at the table at the same time. No one seems to think much of it, thankfully, but Fox makes a stupid comment because he’s an ass.
“Someone was having sex in the women’s bathroom.”
I don’t even bother to glare at him. I think he knows I’m doing it in spirit.
After dinner, we collectively invite Zeke back to the surf cottage, as we’ve started calling it. When we get there, Fox and Jonah practically fall all over themselves to get to the fire pit and show him how huge they built the bonfire last night. Together, the three of them try to recreate the eighth wonder of the Pacific coastline.
Rae and I gather beer and waters from inside and drag those provisions including blankets back out to the circle of lounge chairs around the already burning fire. We get comfortable on our own separate loungers and kick back to watch testosterone at work.
An hour later, three drunk boys run around the flames like Lords of the Goddamn Horseflies. It’s hilarious. I take a lot of pictures and maybe a video or two, and post almost all of it on social media before anyone sobers up. I avoid drinking too much, trying to keep in the “get preggers” mentality. Rae high-fives me after I show her the video I posted. Jonah and Fox try to perform their own version of a haka, a Maori war dance. It’s sloppy and probably far from accurate. He does have Maori heritage on his mom’s side, even if he looks more Swedish like his dad. His favorite tattoo is the Maori symbol on his back, but that’s not to say he remembers enough of anything he learned on trips to New Zealand with his mom. In any case, the two of them mean well. They just look like spazzes. Zeke refuses to join in, mouthing something hilarious and raunchy, judging by the gestures he makes, in the background. We all decide we’re taking him back to Bodhi with us.
We kick back, and before I know it, I’ve passed out. Fox wakes me up in the wee hours. Zeke’s gone, but Fox promises he called him a cab back to his hotel. Since we discovered Zeke is living in Santa Barbara, Fox says he made sure he knew he was welcome to join us all at the monthly gatherings at his house. I smile and move to get up.
“No, baby,” he says.
The word “baby” stops me. “Did you wake me up for sex? Again?” I wink, but any humor dies in my throat when he nods. “Are you pissed you didn’t get to have sex in a restaurant bathroom?”
He shakes his head.
“Are you sure?”
He nods again. The wind and waves are the only noises besides that of a dying fire.
“Are you going to speak?”
Slowly, he leans in and kisses me softly. “The only things I’m going to say from here on out are going to be seriously filthy.”
Scratch the “dying fire” remark. I can’t stop the smile on my face. “Oh? Why’s that?” I say, purely goading.
“I happened to notice you like it when I talk dirty.”