Chapter 16
Chapter sixteen
Clay
I knew this was a bad idea. The dread that settled in the pit of my stomach at Benji’s text deepens into despair as I stand on the dock and lift my mirrored sunglasses to stare at the horror dead-on. “I’m not getting on a forty-year-old floating living room.”
“It’s a pontoon,” Gina says, handing a large cooler to a shirtless Benji, who is already on board. “And Cheryl bought it new about twenty years ago. It was nice of her to let us take it out today.”
“That shade of orange only ever existed in one decade, and that decade wasn’t twenty years ago.” It’s a deep, weathered ochre. The creamy-colored vinyl seats look old, but they’re clean, which I guess is a plus. “And why is there carpet on a boat?”
“It’s not the carpet you’d put in a house,” Gina says. The sheer number of bags she’s handing to Benji has me concerned that this is more than a couple of hours on the lake. “It’s for traction, and so you don’t damage fishing poles.”
This keeps getting worse. “There’s fish slime on the carpet?”
Louisa laughs as she walks down the dock, and even though I’ve already seen her—hell, I drove her here—I still stare.
Solid red halter bikini top, white shorts with a high waist, and flip flops.
Her hair is up in a claw clip, sunglasses hiding her eyes.
“Did you see the upside-down pineapple decals? Fish slime is the least concerning fluid you might find on board.”
“Those aren’t pineapples,” Gina says with a frown. “Just fancy filigree.”
Benji jumps the railing to land on the dock and wraps an arm around Gina, pulling her in for a kiss. “Those are pineapples.”
Briar spins in the chair she’s commandeered at the front of the boat and laughs despite sitting on a potential biohazard.
Gina continues to look at the pineapple decals, somewhat flummoxed. Clearly, she gets that the pineapple is in reference to swingers, but maybe she’s having trouble imagining the bubbly redheaded grocery store cashier engaging in the activity. Nothing surprises me anymore.
Except this thing with Louisa.
Benji takes Gina’s hand and helps her aboard—a chivalrous but wholly unnecessary touch. If anyone could jump over the railing the way he did, it would be tall, athletic Gina.
“Come on,” Louisa says, giving me a playful pat on the ass before she steps on board. “You’re already wearing third-hand shorts and gas station flip flops, and you haven’t broken out in hives. You can get on an orange party boat.”
It’s the pat on the ass and the memory of her finger inside that propels me to step onto the boat after her. Lord knows it isn’t common sense. I’ve been out on yachts a few times, but I’m not a boat person. And this one is so…outdoors. And orange.
“Do I need to put my keys in a fishbowl or something?” I ask Gina as I walk past her, following Louisa to the bench seat in the back. Gina doesn’t answer, but the look her husband gives me is a warning.
“Third-hand shorts?” I ask Louisa when she doesn’t scoot behind the table to make room for me.
The sand-colored shorts are cheaply made and clearly fast-fashion, but since Benji and I are close enough in size, it made sense to borrow from him rather than wear any of my nicer pants or my jeans out onto the lake.
With my thinnest white dress shirt—sleeves rolled up and front unbuttoned over a white t-shirt—I am as mismatched as this group of people.
Louisa smiles. “Benji gets his clothes from the thrift shop and Happy Lake’s lost and found.”
I shudder and once again wonder why I agreed to this.
Benji has found a captain’s hat somewhere and is grinning boyishly as Gina adjusts it on his head.
Briar has her feet up on the railing, staring out at the lake, looking moody.
Milo is back on shore somewhere. If I must endure this group outing, I might as well get some enjoyment out of it, so despite the abundance of other seating options, I wait until Louisa finally scoots over so I can sit next to her.
“What are we doing here?” I ask Louisa in a low voice.
She leans in and says conspiratorially, “I’m spending a day out on the lake with my friends. What are you doing?”
I don’t know. I should be back at the bar. There’s more than enough to do, and I don’t like leaving all that money sitting around while I’m doing something unimportant.
I lean back and turn my attention away from her without answering.
We both know I’m not here to spend time with friends.
Benji and Briar are, at best, a former coworker and a current employee, respectively.
Gina and the lumberjack are barely associates.
I’m here because the idea of staying behind was intolerable, and the reason for that is smirking at me like she fucking knows it.
Milo finally walks out onto the dock, another larger cooler in hand, making the muscles in his arms bulge. He steps onto what I heard Gina call the sundeck and leans over the railing to set the cooler by Briar.
It’s weird to see him in a t-shirt and shorts, a baseball cap hiding his man-bun. Beat-up tennis shoes have replaced work boots. No socks, because he’s a monster. He doesn’t look like a lumberjack. He looks like any other backwoods guy, but with well-defined muscles.
“Push us off?” Gina asks. He hops back off the pontoon, quickly unmooring the vessel. Or whatever boat people do to boats.
Benji drops into the driver’s seat, with Gina standing behind him.
Milo moves to the still-open door, grabbing the rail on either side and walking the boat along the dock.
When there’s no more dock, he jumps aboard.
The pontoon rocks under his weight, the momentum carrying us back as Benji turns the wheel like Gina instructs, backing us out.
“We’re clear of the weeds,” she says. “Start it up.”
The motor jumps to life, the smell of gasoline and lake mingling in the air as water churns behind us.
And then we’re moving forward, slowly at first, then faster until we’re going along at a steady clip.
Benji pulls Gina onto his lap, and she says something in his ear that makes him laugh. They look so sickeningly happy.
Milo and Briar, on the other hand, have angled their swiveling seats in the front away from each other, which is amusing.
She got on well with everyone at the club, and she’s been friendly with the locals here.
What did he do to piss her off? Surely this isn’t fallout from picking on Benji last month.
I glance over at Louisa. She’s shifted to sit in the corner, her bare feet up on the seat next to me, as she ties a scarf over her hair, 1960s movie starlet style.
Her sunglasses hide her eyes, but her red lips turn up slightly, and I know she’s looking at me, seeing her reflection in my mirrored shades. “Are we having fun yet?” I ask.
Her smile widens, and under the cover of the noisy motor behind us, she says, “Oh yeah.” She presses her toes against my thigh. “Aren’t you?”
I press my lips together and turn to face the front, feeling the wind in my hair and the warm sun on my face.
I can see the appeal if I conveniently forget about fish slime and pineapples.
And if we conveniently left Benji, Gina, Milo, and Briar behind.
And if the boat were a yacht on the French Riviera, and Louisa were sunning topless.
The lake stretches on. Every time we round a corner, a new bay comes into sight, or an island.
The water is a deep blue, the sky cloudless, and civilization merely a handful of stately log cabins and smaller houses scattered widely along the shore, all with protruding docks and a variety of watercraft.
A speedboat zips by, not getting too close, with a water skier behind.
Gina waves like she knows them. Louisa doesn’t, though she looks.
There are other boats on the water—some fishing along the shoreline, others coming or going or just enjoying the day—but the lake isn’t busy, and Gina guides Benji into a secluded bay, no cabins or houses or boats in sight.
We come to a stop in the middle. Milo gets up, stepping over the rail onto the sundeck, hefting an anchor and dropping it over, lowering it slowly, hand over hand, for what feels like forever.
“Haven Lake is sixty feet deep here,” Gina says, getting up from Benji’s lap. “It’s a perfect swimming hole.” She pauses, then looks to Briar, then at me. “Can you two swim? I should’ve asked before we left. There are life jackets under the bench seats.”
“I was captain of my high school swim team,” I say. “But—”
“Private schools have those?” Benji asks in surprise.
“Yes.” How did he know I went to private school?
I don’t think I’ve ever told him that. Except, maybe I did, somewhere on the flat, boring stretch of South Dakota highway on the way here.
A lapse of judgment. “Surely your high school would’ve occasionally played a private school in one sport or another. ”
“I didn’t play any sports. I danced, but with a studio.”
Lucky him. “Anyway, I’m not swimming in a lake.”
Gina gives me a look like “why wouldn’t you want to swim in a lake,” as if she isn’t aware that it’s full of fish spawning and dying, duck shit, and god knows what else.
It’s bad enough that the shorts I’m wearing have soaked up the ball sweat of an untold number of wearers. I have limits, and I’ve hit one.
“Well, have fun sitting by yourself,” Briar says, standing up. She pulls her t-shirt over her head. A certain lumberjack is very quick to look away, swiveling his chair and bending over to rummage through a cooler, like he has more than two options—cheap beer or bottled water.
Briar kicks off her shoes and shimmies out of her shorts, and oh, is she diabolical.
She’s wearing a white triangle bikini, and while I can admit she’s attractive, the lumberjack pretending he doesn’t have a massive crush on her is going to have a heart attack when he finally looks up from the cooler.
Louisa punches me in the arm.
“What was that for?” I hiss, rubbing it.
She gives me a look. A slightly pissed-off, disappointed, and jealous look that I rather like on her.
As tempting as it is to leave her to stew in it, I lean close enough to whisper, “Wait for it.”
Understanding crosses Louisa’s face, and she sighs. “You live for drama, don’t you?”
“Says the drama queen.”
“How am I a drama queen?”
“Please. Everything you do is a performance.”
“No, that’s you.”
I swat her arm as Milo finally pulls out a beer, cracking it open. He must be so deep in his head that he doesn’t notice us watching. He brings it to his lips, takes a long pull, and slowly turns.
There’s a split second when his eyes go wide, and then the shit hits the fan. Or rather, the beer hits Briar. He sprays her like an out-of-control garden hose.
My laugh doesn’t make it past my lips because Louisa clamps a hand over my mouth, and suddenly she’s straddling me. Autopilot kicks in, my hands going to her hips. Her skin is so warm. Soft. For a moment I picture her naked and it takes every ounce of my control not to pull her tight against me.
“Don’t you fucking make this worse for him,” she hisses, but her lips are twitching.
And then she’s off my lap, shedding her scarf and sunglasses, her white shorts and flip flops.
She stops to squeeze Milo’s arm—he’s slumped in his seat, looking like he’d welcome death at this point—then walks out onto the deck, gracefully diving off the end to join Briar in the water.
Gina secures a ladder off the side of the deck and dives in, too.
Benji glances at me, but I haven’t moved beyond stretching my arms across the sun-warmed vinyl of the backseat. Instead of diving in, he sits on the railing next to Milo and helps himself to a beer.
Benji gives him the pep talk Milo clearly doesn’t want, before finally taking the hint and joining the women in the lake.
Now that the coast is clear, I get up and help myself to a beer. Milo winces, as if he expects a barrage of encouragement, but I raise my beer in his direction and go back to my seat.