“Wouldn’t we have slept together by now if we wanted to?” Davi asked.
“I think you protest too much,” Laurel countered.
“I’m just saying,” Davi said. “Are you suddenly going to start dating Gabe?”
“No,” Laurel said. “That’s the whole point. This—” she waved a finger around at all of us “—is too important to me to risk even considering sleeping with Gabe.”
“Haveyou ever considered sleeping with Gabe?” Davi asked.
“Why does that matter?”
“I think we should get any past dalliances out in the open.”
“I was faithful to Zoey the whole time,” Gabe said, holding up his hands.
“We know, sweetie,” Laurel said. “And no, I haven’t. Fine, Davi. Anything anyone wants to get out in the open?”
My eye caught Everett’s for half a second. We were all looking at each other, like we expected someone to confess, so the moment between us went unnoticed as we communicated something across the circle. We weren’t going to tell anyone.
Davi was the one to break the silence. “I had a dream about Sutton once.”
I turned to him, nose wrinkling.
“What?” he said. “I’ve seen you every day for the past three years. I think it’s natural. It doesn’t mean I’m inlovewith you.”
I shoved off the hand he rubbed on top of my head, rolling my eyes.
“Aside from Davi’s sex dream about Sutton, have any of us ever, even once, done something that could compromise the friendship?” Laurel asked. “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”
Another glance at Everett. I wasn’t sure why, if it was the wine and whiskey or some other reason I couldn’t identify, but it seemed like the same thought passed between us, the same decision being made. That whatever had happened between us didn’t matter. That the us anyone would know about started now, this weekend, and it could be as simple as that.
“Fine, then,” Laurel said, lifting her glass toward the middle of the table so we could all cheers. She slung an arm around Gabe’s shoulders. “Then on this night, we make a pact that we are all off-limits. Friendship only.” She started to push herglass forward to clink it against everyone’s when she realized we were one short and glanced over her shoulder at Everett. He was sitting with his glass balanced on one knee, fingers settled lightly against its sides.
“You too, Bridges,” she said. “You’re a part of this now.”
“I don’t—” he said, almost hesitantly. “I’m just here for Gabe.”
“No,” Laurel said. “Sorry. You’re one of us. You’ve now promised your first week of June to us from here until forever, and you can’t sleep with a one of us.”
“Okay,” Everett said. He leaned forward and pressed his glass into our little cheers.
“To friendship!” Laurel said, squeezing her arm tighter around Gabe’s shoulders. “Fuck the rest.”
“Fuck the rest,” we all echoed, and sipped our whiskey. But Everett’s eyes met mine over the rim of his glass, and I felt it: We would be in on this secret together, forever.
After we made the pact, the only real goal of the week beyond cheering up Gabe was to enjoy this week like it was our last together.
We stayed up late and woke up late, drinking the coffee whoever got up first made on the back porch while we stretched off hangovers. Everett excepted, of course, who, beyond that first night, had a hard three-drink limit that he rarely reached. We declared everything a tradition to be re-created the next summer, and every summer thereafter, because time was endless then. There were no responsibilities we could fathom that could possibly keep us from this.
On our fifth and second-to-last night there, we all piled into Everett’s car and drove through Topanga Canyon to the nearest In-N-Out, Davi’s vacation playlist pumping throughthe speakers. He sat huddled on one side of Gabe in the back, Laurel on the other, and I had to pretend I’d never been in this passenger seat before.
Everett glanced at me as the three in the back sang along to “Sweet Disposition,” alarmingly off-key. “Are you having a good week?” he asked.
I looked over at him, offering up a smile. I’d been a little standoffish with him since the first day, when talking to him alone had been all I’d wanted. Whatever silent agreement we’d made stood: No one would know what had happened between us two months ago. Still, I was having a hard time pretending having him here was normal.
I was the only one, though. I could tell Gabe was thrilled to have his old friend back. It was obvious the two of them had been close when they were kids, sharing that kind of mutual language you only know when you’ve been young with someone. Davi, usually stingy with his affection but never one to be left out, quickly got over any lingering doubts he had about this new person. That, and he was obsessed with Everett’s car. Everett handed him the keys on our second morning there and Davi had a friend for life.
Laurel was, of course, Laurel about it. Her doubts were erased as soon as she saw Everett. Not that Laurel was altogether vain, not that LaurelwantedEverett, but a beautiful face could sway her. And Everett, I was discovering, was beautiful. I’d known it that first night, that morning I woke up in his room. But it was something else altogether to see him laughing as he hopped into his car with Gabe to go surfing, or as he paused on a hike high above the ocean to take a long drink from a water bottle, the ocean stretching blue behind him, or as he lay on the sand next to me, chest bare, eyes closed. Or as he glanced over at me again with one hand casually on the steering wheel,the other arm resting on his window, hair rustling in the breeze as the twilight cast everything in blue.
