Chapter 27
By the time the sun drops into Long Island Sound, Zola’s flitting across the beach, converting contacts to clients.
I, on the other hand, am still nursing my drink from the makeshift bar.
Someone’s got to make use of these rented boho beach cushions Zola maxed her credit cards out on—and Zo has no plans of getting off her feet and onto one.
She’s made that much clear. Firmly. A few times.
I’m scanning the beach, just taking in the view, like everyone else. But when Liv spears me with the base of a fallen tiki torch, I know I’m caught.
“Why don’t you just text him?”
“Who?” I ask, pretending not to be startled by her presence.
When I last saw Liv, she was mid-water fight with her motley crew at the shoreline. I was so busy not watching the entrance, I hadn’t noticed she’d made her way inland.
“Whoever’s got you glaring holes through Zola’s welcome signs,” she says, dropping onto the cushion beside me.
Liv adjusts the cutout of her one-piece so there’s more Liv peeking out from the cut. Against her skin, kissed golden by the sun, and her hair creeping closer to platinum as we reach the height of the season, Liv’s green eyes glow neon. “You think once he gets here, we can start having fun?”
“I am having fun,” I insist.
But her eyes flashing LIAR leave me more exposed than the slinky string bikini under this cover-up.
“Fine,” I say, relenting. “But I’m only checking for him because he doesn’t know anybody here. I’m being a good hostess per Zola’s threateningly specific orders.”
“While I’d love to hear more about your hosting prowess at a party you’ve yet to speak to anyone at,” Liv says, rising from our sandy love seat, “seems like our guest of honor is making his way over.”
My head whips around just in time to catch Ro’s entrance.
His tongue wets his lips when he sees me, and despite the cool ocean breeze, my skin sizzles.
Ro’s white beach shirt catches the wind as he elbows the guy at his right, exposing the tan shorts slung low across his hips.
They both do that little head nod in my direction.
“Quick,” I say to Liv. “Gimme the tiki so I don’t look like an outcast at my own party.”
“Not a chance,” she says, yanking the torch out of reach. “But I promise not to tell him you’ve been stalking the—”
“Hey!” I say, cutting Liv off as Ro crosses the torched perimeter. “You found us.”
“Yeah,” he says, reaching around my waist for a hug that’s over as soon as it starts. “This place is hard to miss.”
He looks back toward the borrowed beach house where a steady stream of waitstaff exit, hoisting themed hors d’oeuvres overhead.
“If this is Zola’s idea of a start-up launch, I need to pick her brain more than I have.”
“She roped our mom into sponsoring a good chunk of it,” I tell him. “And convinced Liv’s dad to let her use his beach house.”
“Well, my dad loves you guys,” Liv says, turning to Ro for the rest. “And if you’ve ever met Zola, you wouldn’t have expected anything less. I’m Liv by the way.” She extends a hand to shake Ro’s. “I didn’t even realize we were waiting on anyone else to join us.”
She raises an eyebrow at me to say, I couldn’t help myself, and I show her the full whites of my eyes, so she knows better than to play with me right now.
Oblivious to our silent battle, Ro shakes Liv’s hand.
“Ro,” he says, smiling. “And yes, I’ve met Zola, so I’m not surprised.
But I am impressed.” Ro puts a hand on his friend’s shoulders, bringing him closer to our little group until his arm and mine are touching.
“This is my boy Matt. I promised him an open bar and at least one phone number tonight in exchange for padding the guest list.”
We all laugh, but my smile falls a bit when I see the way Matt’s watching me.
“I think we can make good on both of those,” I say, my eyes shifting from Matt back to Ro. I tilt my plastic cup toward the bar. “Should we start with the easy one?”
Liv shakes the ice in her mostly empty cup. “To the bar?”
Ro holds his arm out for Liv to lead the way. “To the bar.”
—
With the fire raging in the background, Liv and I sit huddled under a blanket, while Ro and Matt stand, staring off at the ocean. Liv empties her drink first and heads off to get another round.
She’s only gone a few feet before Ro starts moving in her direction. “I’ll see if she needs hands on the way back.”
I watch Ro jog after her till Matt’s voice calls for my attention. “I was wondering how long that’d take.”
“How long what would take?” I ask, wrapping the blanket tighter to block out the slight chill wafting in off the water.
“Ro figuring out how to give us a minute alone,” he says, before draining his cup.
The idea of Ro strategizing his exit makes me want to vomit all over a tiki.
“Oh, no,” I say, careful to keep the bite from my tone. “I think he’s just being nice.”
I do a quick once-over of the beach, hoping, for the first time, that Travis will appear to join us.
Or join Liv, rather, forcing Ro to make his return.
But the darkened beach is so crowded now that it’s impossible to make out anyone who’s not immediately beside a torch or lit by the bistro lights overhead.
Except Zola. I’ve been watching her little clipboard flashlight buzzing around all night.
Someday when Forbes calls me for a quote about the early days of XO by Zo, I’ll think back on how my sister single-handedly saw this night through from conception to execution. And how she did it all with pregnancy-induced sciatica.
I smile at the thought until Zola’s tiny light disappears into another crowd of prospective clients. I’m about to suggest Matt and I relocate to the bar, too, when he joins me on my cushion.
“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” he says, without explaining how he did mean it. “Man, it’s such a nice night. A little chilly though.” He eyes the side of the blanket Liv left abandoned. “You mind if I steal some?”
“Go for it,” I tell him. “This thing’s huge.”
At least when I was under here with Liv it had seemed huge. With Matt beside me, it’s like trying to share a hand towel with a giant. A handsome giant, with natural, lived-in balayage, but a giant nonetheless.
Objectively speaking, Matt’s working that L.A.
, white boy, skater vibe, but I’d still very much like him to get his Avril Lavigne ass out of my bubble.
Respectfully. The last thing I need tonight is another random guy spitting mediocre game my way.
And even on the off chance his game is superb, I’m still too focused on reading Ro’s lips from across the beach to notice.
“Ro thought it would be good for us to get to know each other.” He says it casually, like that sentence isn’t a punch to the gut.
“Oh?”
I’m afraid if I say anything more, disappointment would literally drip from my words onto the sand.
“Yeah,” Matt says, smiling now. “Sounds like we have a lot in common.”
The plot twist I hadn’t seen coming: Ro brought me a date.
I tell myself the bile rising in my throat is just annoyance at yet another person meddling in my life, but when acid hits the back of my tongue, I know it’s more than that.
“What the fuck is taking so long with the drinks?” I say, yanking off the blanket that’s suddenly suffocating me.
Matt’s eyes widen briefly at my abruptness, but he’s quick on the recovery.
“This place is packed,” he says, stating the obvious. “Bar’s gotta be slammed.”
“Yes, I know how bars work,” I say, relieved to finally see Travis and Evan a couple hundred yards out.
Even if Evan hasn’t spoken two words to me all night, and Travis hasn’t stopped complaining about the lack of vegan options among all the free food, right now, I’d still prefer their company to Matt’s.
Travis yells a single word I can’t make out, which Liv responds to immediately.
She leans into Ro, smiling, before running to Travis and jumping into his arms. I watch to see if Ro has any reaction to their dramatic embrace, but he just laughs and loads the four drinks into his hands.
He turns to me, still smiling, but his brows crease when he sees my face. I must not wear betrayal well.
I’m standing now, so when Matt uhhh’s to my insult about the bar, it doesn’t help that I’m also physically looking down on him.
He stands to his full height. “So, like I was saying, Ro thought we should talk.”
This time, though, before I can tell him that yes, Matt, I got that!, he continues.
“I was over at Winston Prep for a couple years after graduation, but ended up leaving pretty quick. I loved the kids, but teaching wasn’t really for me. Ro said you might be in a similar spot?”
Ro’s still stalking toward us, brows furrowed in question, but I finally break eye contact with him to look back toward Matt.
“Wait, what?” I start, tripping over myself to catch up. “You came to give me career advice? I thought you were trying to hook up.”
“Wait, what?” Matt echoes.
Just as Ro reaches us.
His eyes ping-pong between us. Matt’s do the same with me and Ro, and mine with Ro and Matt. So now we’re all just looking at one another, waiting for someone to make sense of something.
Finally, Ro says, “I see you two are getting along,” and he holds up the cocktails he apparently had to ferment at the bar himself. “Drinks?”
—
Even with legs nearly twice as long as mine, Ro struggles to keep up as an inexplicable rage fuels my march down the beach.
“Hold up,” he calls from just behind me. “I don’t get why you’re mad. What’d I do?”
He jogs in front of me to block my path. His face is awash with concern and something bordering on panic. If his body hadn’t just physically stopped me in my tracks, that look might’ve done it.
Ro’s hands are still holding my arms in place, and without registering it, I’ve let myself just barely lean into his touch. I’m quick to right my posture before attempting an explanation I don’t have yet.
“Well, first you basically go ghost—”
“You think I ghosted you?”