Chapter 5
Five
Five minutes bleed into ten. Ten into twenty. Now, over thirty have passed, and I’m yet to make a real dirty martini. Not because I can’t. Please. My cocktail game is strong.
The reason behind my lackluster bartending is the tattooed menace posted up across the island.
“No more,” he groans. “I can’t die yet. What’ll the ladies do without me?”
Aspen’s right in a way; he is a flirt. But there’s definitely nothing dirty about his smirk. The twist of his lips harbours perfect placement, balancing out the tough-guy combo of a military buzzcut and an inked sleeve.
“For fuck’s sake, make that the last one then,” he demands, seeing us mix another.
I can’t tell if it’s my laugh or Aspen’s that cracks first, but when we glance at each other, the same wicked glint is reflected.
Ever since he swaggered through the door and insulted Aspen’s swamp-water martinis, he’s been on taste-testing duty.
Every reaction’s been so over-the-top that we’ve been doubled over with laughter, and it seems we’re both getting a twisted buzz from it. So the last four drinks? Totally sabotaged.
“You gotta stop adding in that cloudy shit. Pretty sure that’s the shit that’s making it taste like the bottom of a sewer.”
“Excuse you. The vermouth is the soul of the drink.”
“Nah.” He tilts his chin to Aspen. “Ask her. She doesn’t even like any of this crap.”
Her wide-eyed, deer-in-headlights look says it all.
“Wait—” I blink at her. “Have you ever had a dirty martini before tonight?”
She winces. “…No.”
“Then why the sudden urge? It’s definitely an acquired taste.”
“She loves olives.” Reese is so matter-of-fact. “Doesn’t drink much either, but it’s the start of summer and she’s on her hot girl shit”—his eyes dance with memory as they fix on hers— “so she figured olives might make vodka more appealing. No? Am I off?”
“Hot girl summer,” Aspen corrects softly. “And I guess not. I just want to have some fun. It’s been a long year.”
And I just want to forget.
Sounds like the makings of a perfect alliance.
“Well, lucky you,” I say, raising the shaker with a grin. “That’s exactly what I’m here for.”
“Good luck,” Reese teases. “Girls from Merrin always love to get wild.”
I roll my eyes.
He’s gearing up for round two—I see it, Aspen sees it.
“Please don’t,” she pipes up.
Ever since he learned I’m from Merrin—about an hour and a half from Briar, where they’re all from—it’s been nonstop. Story after story, each one louder and messier than the last.
And the look in his eyes… it’s like he knows exactly what Aspen and I have been up to, and now he’s just trying to even the score.
Before he can launch into whatever’s next, Aspen’s phone lights up.
Saved by the ring.
Reese follows her until she’s out of sight, then turns back to me.
“Not happening,” I shoot him down before he can even make his play. He’s already tried once, but I won’t budge. If he wants to know what tagline Aspen slapped on him, he can take it up with her.
“Come on,” he raps tattooed knuckles against the counter, “not even after I’ve sacrificed my taste buds on your swamp water six times?”
“Nope. You can’t get me to spill.”
He studies me, a half-smirk tugging at his lips.
“You’re gonna be trouble, huh? That zero-fucks energy. I dig it.”
If only that were true. The truth is far messier. Beneath all this numbness, I care. So much that I have to detach from my own mind just to survive it.
Of course, I don’t say any of that. It’s uncharted territory—volatile, no-man’s-land. I just shrug instead, echoing Aspen, “I just wanna have fun.”
“Stick around us, and you will.”
A look can say a thousand words, and Reese reads every single one in the side-eye I throw toward the back deck.
His chuckle lands square in the martini I hand him.
“What? You don’t trust my boys?” He lifts it, grinning. “Relax. They can loosen up. They just need to stop working so damn hard. Carson especially.”
Another sip. He squints. “Honestly, I think you scorched my taste buds, because this… actually tastes borderline decent.”
I didn’t burn anything. I just dialled back a bit on the hazing.
“Really? I added less brine.”
“Yeah.” He holds the drink up to my face like an offering. “Try it.”
I roll my eyes but lean in anyway. Salt hits my tongue the exact moment the sliding doors open, accommodating a shirtless figure. Grey catches my brown. Only for a second, no more, but in that blink I feel it. Like I’ve been weighed, shelved, and filed away in a single glance.
“Don’t mind me.” His voice is so dry the martini dampening my throat can’t even combat it.
I pull back as he yanks a shirt from the arm of the couch. Cotton stretches across his frame, and lean muscle fills it with ease. No tattoos. No stories sketched in ink. Just clean, unmarked skin. It’s the complete opposite of Reese, and even Dylan, who had what looked like scripture across a pec.
Heat presses at my back as he brushes past, close enough to feel deliberate. It probably isn’t, but it lingers, and I find myself extending an olive branch.
“You want to try one?”
He doesn’t slow. “No.”
The delivery is clipped, and Reese glances at Carson, then back to me, catching it too.
“He doesn’t drink,” he tells me. “But don’t worry, it doesn’t take from what I said. He is capable of some fun.”
I throw Reese a look, but I can practically feel Carson drilling one into me just as hard. He’s probably reconstructing this whole scene in his head, me badmouthing him at the epicenter of it.
“Anything made yet?” Reese asks, blissfully unaware of what he’s done. “I’m starving, and these martinis are sitting all wrong in my stomach.”
No reply, but Carson must nod because he’s up in a flash.
“Thank fuck. I’ll see you out there, darling. You were close on this one, just a few more tries. Ask Penny.”
Then he’s gone. Leaving just me, Carson, and the chance to right a wrong.
A crinkle of plastic turns my head. Carson takes a pull from a sports drink, but his bottomless eyes hold mine the whole time.
My smile flickers, small. Testing.
“You don’t drink?”
His lashes drop toward the cluttered counter in a deliberate sweep.
“That’s what he just said, didn’t he?”
He could’ve just called me a dumb blonde outright, the way his cadence rolls around the syllables.
Granite digs into my back as I track his movements across the kitchen.
“About last night,” I pause, testing for a reaction. He doesn’t give one, just rifles through a drawer like whatever he’s looking for matters more than this. “I’m sorry for how it played out. I didn’t mean to waste your time. Or interrupt your swim. You looked… focused.”
Still nothing. Only the scrape of clutter, the clank of metal. Like he’s forgotten I’m here. Until, suddenly, he hasn’t.
“Don’t worry about it.”
I can’t really take it at face value when his tone says do.
“You sure? I just don’t want there to be this… weird tension between us.”
That gets his full attention.
“There isn’t. There’s nothing between us.” He spins, expression cold enough to freeze fire. “And there never will be.”
It takes a second, but when the insinuation hits, it’s like a bad punchline. He… thought I was coming onto him?
Like a lock clicking open, it all slots into place.
Of course he did. How could he not when I was basically stripping in front of him?
“Carson… I’m so sorry.” Guilt makes my voice raspier. “Last night, I didn’t mean to… it wasn’t my intention at all to make you uncomfortable. I wasn’t thinking, my head gone quite literally, and I know that’s no excuse but I’m really sorry. Truly.”
Somewhere between the apology and the bout of word vomit, his expression shutters entirely. It only confirms it. He did think I was making a pass at him.
The silence is unbearable, pressing the guilt higher until it spills.
“You’re not my type.”
As soon as it’s out, I cringe. Why did I say that? It’s more lie than truth, and honestly a poor attempt to make clear that last night wasn’t what he thinks.
The truth is, I don’t even have a type. No past to shape it—just an ex I never loved—but the whole idea of a “type” feels too boxed in anyway. I like who I like, that’s it. And with my headspace right now, I don’t think anyone will fit that for a long time.
The unreadable edge dissolves into something flatter. Indifference.
“Good to know.”
That gives me pause. Not because it’s sarcasm, but because it isn’t. How many times have I been met with a sneer for saying something similar? A you’re an uptight bitch or the classic you’re ugly anyway.
But not Carson. He’s a picture of composure, radiating surety in his skin. By the time he turns away, without sparing a backward glance, I’m left dangling, unsure where we stand.
Friends? Foes?
Or something messier in between?