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“What?” Bodhi chuckles at me, taking a seat on the other side of Tess until Birdie and I are the only ones left standing around the table. “Did you honestly think something like money would work with her? I had to think outside the box. Or, inside that duffle bag you still haven’t unpacked in the hall closet of your cottage.”
Birdie laughs softly from the other side of the table, finally meeting my eyes. She’s standing right against the railing and right in front of the tiny sliver of sun just disappearing below the ocean’s surface far out in the distance behind her. She’s surrounded by a soft glow of orange, and with her halo of blonde hair and the short, white, flowy romper-thing, she looks like an angel.
An angel I want to defile a thousand different ways. Wow, I am going right to hell.
The corner of her soft pink lips is tipped up in a barely there smile as she continues to hold my eyes from where she’s standing. I see her wipe her hands down the side of her outfit and bite her bottom lip, and I hate that I’m still making her nervous. I don’t want her to be afraid of me. I want her to know I’m still the same person. I’m still the same best friend she can trust, and rely on, and talk to, and have fun with, and relax with, who’s just kind of always been in love with her. It’s totally fine! We can be chill. It doesn’t have to be awkward.
“I ate three pounds of mussels tonight. I’m gonna be shitting myself for a week.”
Everyone at the table looks up at me, and Birdie’s eyebrows rise just a little.
Awkward, party of one, your table is now available.
“Well, I was starving, but hey, thanks for bringing up your bowels.” Birdie breaks the silence a few seconds later by giving me a sarcastic smile and a thumbs up before pulling her chair out and finally sitting down. I can’t help but laugh right along with everyone else as I do the same, thankful at least that she doesn’t look like she wants to jump out of her skin being right across the table from me and we can joke around like we used to.
“Since I’ve ruined your appetite, can I interest you in some alcohol to also ruin your liver?” I ask, pulling the last bottle of beer out of the bucket of water and letting it drip out on the table as I hand it toward Birdie, our waitress magically coming back with a brand-new bucket filled with ice and six bottles.
Bodhi leans forward and takes it from my hand when Birdie winces and shakes her head back and forth.
“Alcohol and I are on a break right now.”
“Laura made us clean up the multicolored slush vomit we left in the parking lot at the last Sip and Bitch. I don’t know how I’m even drinking again right now,” Tess complains, scrunching up her nose as she looks at her beer then shrugging and taking a big sip.
Birdie’s eyes meet mine over the bucket in the middle of the table while Wren asks the waitress for a Coke, and I wonder if she even remembers what happened behind the Dip and Twist. I watch her tongue dart out to lick her lips, and when I swear her eyes flicker down to my mouth when I do the same after taking a drink of my beer and my dick starts to get hard, I realize maybe I’ve had too much to drink, since I’m now imagining things. I put the bottle down on the table.
Grabbing the waitress’s attention before she walks away, I quickly order Birdie’s favorite non-alcoholic drink, none other than an Arnold Palmer, of course, part iced tea and part lemonade, both of which Dockside Eddy’s makes homemade. The soft, sweet smile on Birdie’s face as she looks at me when I do something as simple as remember her favorite drink would have made my knees give out if my ass wasn’t already planted in a chair. I want her to keep looking at me like that, I want her to keep being comfortable with me, and I want her to remember all the thousands of other nights we’ve sat right out here in this very spot, enjoying the view, talking, and just being us. I need her to remember that no matter how much I might scare her with what I’m feeling for her, we’re still us.
Bodhi suddenly claps his hands, breaking the hold Birdie’s eyes have on me as we all look at him.
“All right, who wants to hear about the time Uncle Bodhi worked as a gravedigger in El Paso and got a coworker so high on mushrooms that we accidentally buried him alive a little?”
