Chapter 1 #2
The chatter was loud inside. Someone shouting orders at the pretty woman behind the bar, every kind of alcohol imaginable illuminated on the wall behind her.
The stools were all filled, and she gracefully maneuvered from one paying customer to the other.
The booths were strung along the walls, some of the red leather seats torn—but never enough to justify replacing them.
Most of them were full, but I spotted Anni and Iris in the one closest to the stage, set up on the left, opposite the large French doors leading to the patio and beach.
My gaze snapped back to my friends, their full attention on Chester, taking up the entire stage with his presence.
A maximum of ten grey hairs on his head, big nose, small glasses, wearing a flannel and shorts and birkenstocks, he spotted us in the door, and at eight thirty-three, his first Ooh!
barrelled through the bar’s speakers. The crowd went wild.
I was on my second margarita (frozen, watermelon) when I noticed Anni’s boyfriend was missing. He’d been a pleasant addition to our trips since last year, which meant he’d experienced a summer, winter and spring on Oakport and had become an official part of the group in March. Where’s Mike?
For a dreadful second, I feared they might’ve broken up.
Then thought, there’s no way Annika Schmidt would go through a crisis like that without altering the group chat.
The way she carelessly shook her head—a tipsy, endearing smile on her face—confirmed that, and threw the rest of my worries out the window.
Her lips pursed, she was probably about to say something like Late or Waiting at the house (becoming an official part of the group also meant knowing where the spare keys were hidden).
Instead, Iris leaned across the booth. Her arms sprawled over the table, fingers curling around the opposite side.
Mike! she drawled, then sipped on her fourth margarita.
It took her five tries to get that straw into her mouth before she distractedly went on: Even if we’d all been friends with him before, I might’ve still been fine with you two, you know?
Alfie, beside Iris on the other side, gasped. Despite the No-Fraternization-Rule? he whisper-shouted, and on the other side of Blitz someone howled the high-notes of My Heart Will Go On into the microphone.
Despite the No-Fraternization-Rule, she agreed. And despite the fact I’m not particularly fond of men right now.
The No-Fraternization-Rule.
Something that had started as somewhat of an inside joke four years ago and had turned into a solid ground-rule between all of us since.
We’d met through a happy coincidence called free booze at a freshers party and no one to share it with.
Around an illegal bonfire in somebody’s backyard, for the sake of keeping our conversation going, Iris talked—and cried and shouted to us—about the ugly breakup she’d been going through.
That she’d lost her entire friend group because it’d been his friends, too, and he must’ve been cooler, apparently, because they’d all stayed his friends and quite quickly—and unanimously—agreed not to give Iris the same courtesy.
She’d lost her boyfriend, her friends and her entire support system in the blink of an eye, and we’d been the strangers she could let it all out to.
We’d all grasped quite quickly that we wouldn’t stay strangers, though, and Iris had made it official thirty minutes later. She’d looked all of us in the eyes—Anni first, then Alfie, and I’d been last before she said:
No dating within this friend group.
We’ll only adopt new people into it if none of us want to sleep with them.
Four years later, it was still just us: something that would make it seem like we were a bunch of horny twenty-somethings, unable to find people we wanted to be our friends, without the desire to sleep with them coming up.
Not the case.
I’d had a handful of hookups since—something I had my physics major to thank for, among other things (I was much more likely to fuck up my sleep schedule with revisions than another person)—and exactly one of them had been memorable.
So the problem wasn’t having too much sex to find other friends.
The problem—and it wasn’t really one—was, simply put: we didn’t need anyone else.
Probably didn’t want anyone else.
So the No-Fraternization-Rule (NFR, for short) had never been a problem.
Anni started dating Mike—HBU’s soccer captain, very far removed from our social circle—and he started coming to Oakport as Anni’s plus-one a year later.
He seamlessly became a part of our Us because we really, truly loved him for her.
He also got us into great parties, invited us for pizza after games, snuck us alcohol when we’d still been underage, and was incredibly fun to be around (when the soccer team was doing well and none of his guys were getting into trouble).
The latter was rare, the former much less so.
Then there was the fact that my one memorable hook-up had been thanks to him—some guy on his team—which awarded Mike some more brownie points.
God, Iris, Anni gushed, endearingly rolling her eyes, smiling brightly.
Thank God we have your blessing! Then she looked back at me to answer the initial question.
He wouldn’t have made it here on time. Said that if he wouldn’t catch Chester’s performance, what’s the point, babe?
Her voice pitched three octaves lower when she imitated his voice impressively well. He’s waiting at home.
And the word brought that familiar, fuzzy warmth back into the pit of my stomach—the one I’d been searching for since I’d been a child. That made me feel safe and accepted and like I belonged. Home: a feeling, more so than a place.
So while Anni’s boyfriend waited for us to get home, we demolished a last round of margaritas—on the house, courtesy of Iris’ shrill, out of tune, but very passionate performance of What Makes You Beautiful.
At this point, Alfie struggled to get the straw into his mouth as well.
Iris was ready for another rendition of an iconic 2010’s song.
Anni kept her from going back up to the mic, almost falling out of the booth, laughing and squealing.
And all three of them had to keep me from texting my favorite Oakport-fling so I wouldn’t seem desperate, laughing and throwing my phone around the table, to keep it away from my very desperate hands.
I couldn’t have seen it coming: how big of a turn the night was about to take, the second I’d get home.