Chapter Five #3
“Nope. You’re our favorite tender-hearted masc.” Justine smiled at her with clear fondness in her expression. “There are no wimps here.” She sipped her rum and Coke and then added, “Except Claire.”
Claire gasped, her face registering exaggerated shock and horror. “How dare you? I am no wimp.”
Justine tipped her head, looked around the table, and simply said, “And go.”
“The tiny spider in the canoe that you said was a tarantula,” Lizzie said.
“That spider was not tiny,” Claire said in her own defense.
“Your shrieking like a little girl when we went to see Scream V,” Evie said.
“That movie was terrifying.” Claire’s eyes were wide.
“Shrieking,” Evie emphasized to the rest of the table. “Like, people were staring. The couple in our row a few seats down moved. I almost moved.”
“What about the ‘bear in the woods’ when we went camping last year?” Becca said.
“Oh, the one that turned out to be a guy and his dog walking by?” Jazzy asked.
“Yes, the guy and his dachshund,” Becca said, and Lizzie barked a laugh.
“You are all so mean,” Claire said, folding her arms and pouting. Evie bumped her with a shoulder, and Claire grinned, knowing her friends were teasing her.
Rowan, meanwhile, sat through the entire conversation and recalled none of those occurrences.
The spider story was vaguely familiar, but she wasn’t sure if it was because she’d been there or because somebody had already told her about it.
She simply sat quietly and listened, sipping her soda.
More than once, Evie met her eyes from across the table—because Claire had made sure once again that they didn’t sit next to each other—and smiled at her.
When that happened, something low in Rowan’s body, just below her belly button, fluttered pleasantly.
She looked down at her glass and heard Stevie say, quietly enough for only Rowan to hear it, “Careful there.”
It was helpful advice, even if Rowan didn’t want it.
Their orders came, and that was the end of worrying about it because they were all busy oohing and aahing over one another’s dishes.
“I love going out to eat with Justine,” Stevie pointed out. “She’s never a dick about it if she doesn’t like something, but you can always tell whether she does or not.”
“Agreed,” Lizzie agreed, pointing a fork with a French fry on it at her wife. “Especially in a group. If she says nothing at all about the food, she’s not impressed.”
Justine snapped the fry off the fork with her teeth, chewed, then said, “These fries are cooked to perfection.”
“See? The fries are a hit.” Laughter and nods of agreement went around before they all got busy on their meals.
Being like this with her closest friends—it was more about the feeling for Rowan than specific memories.
Sure, she had some. Not recent ones, but she had older memories because most of them had been friends for years.
It was the feeling of being with them, being around them, the feeling of safety and security and trust. She knew these women.
Even the ones she didn’t know or were new to her—Claire, because she hadn’t always been a part of their group but more of an extra on occasion, and Jazzy because she was new—still made her feel comfortable about being there.
Issues with Claire notwithstanding, of course.
It was something her therapist had coached her to expect—that even though her brain might not remember a person, her body might, and she should pay attention to those signals it gave off, the actual feeling of being around them.
And for her, for right now, safety was key.
They took their time with dinner and drinks, and by the time they got back to the house, it was dusk.
Stevie headed down to get the fire going while everybody else took their purchases to their rooms, changed clothes, got more drinks, grabbed the s’mores ingredients, and soon, they were all sitting around the fire.
The s’mores served as dessert for many of them. Rowan passed, but her marshmallow-toasting skills were requested more than once, so she spun puffed white sugar on a stick over flames several times for people until they were all sitting quietly, staring into the fire.
“We are a talkative bunch tonight,” Justine said with a soft chuckle. “Did we run through everything we wanted to say at dinner?”
“Actually,” Becca said, “I’m sitting here thinking about how we’ve got a fire going while it’s still nearly eighty degrees and I might just go jump in that lake.” She sat forward in her chair so everybody could see her face as she added, “Naked.”
Claire gasped softly. “Skinny-dipping? I’m in.” The two of them jumped up. “Who’s with us? Come on!”
“Fuck it.” Stevie stood. “I’m in.”
“Same.” Lizzie was up.
Becca looked at Jasmine and raised her eyebrows expectantly.
“Are you kidding me?” Jasmine said, eyes wide. “It’s dark and I don’t know what’s down in those depths. Nope, my Black ass will be staying on the dock, thank you. I’m happy to watch you all and hope you don’t get eaten by a Loch Ness monster or something.”
“I’m afraid I’m with Jazzy,” Rowan said with a grin as she looked at her. “I mean, somebody has to be able to call 9-1-1, right?”
“Exactly,” Jazzy said, pointing a finger at her.
Justine and Evie both stood, agreeing to go in together, albeit grudgingly, and Jazzy ran up to the house to grab towels. Then the whole group of them headed to the water.