The music followed soon thereafter with a pre-recorded high hat and keyboard that played under intermittent rapping. It wasn’t great, but it also wasn’t terrible. They’d basically been begged to come listen to it and were given pretty fucking good drugs as a bribe, so they accepted it. They allowed themselves to move their shoulders in the water to the beat and lost themselves in the soothing flow of rhymes. One song bled into another, and Edie had no idea how much time passed when someone shouted over the music and the roar of the hot tub jets.
“Hey! Mind if I join you?”
Opening her eyes, she saw a heavily tattooed white woman throwing her leg over the side, the question clearly having been more of a courtesy than a genuine inquiry. Rose and Edie automatically moved closer to one another but said nothing to accept or object to the company. The woman appeared to be watching the bonfire from over her shoulder and hovered both arms out of the water to keep her phone dry.
Rose remembered the bottle of champagne and took another swig straight from it, passing it to Edie before relaxing back into the water and the music, ignoring the extra guest in their space.
Then the rapping ended suddenly, like he forgot the lyrics. Layers of the music fell away until what seemed like only pre-recorded filler remained. Then even that stopped. A murmur passed over the beach as conversations that no longer needed to be heard over music continued and a handful of people questioned the sudden end to the flow.
“Uh, apparently the party needs to end. Security is saying no more,” said the DJ over the speakers. The crowd booed, probably as an opportunity to scorn authority more than anything. “I know, I know. You think I should keep going?”
The crowd cheered for the DJ and against security. Edie and the other woman in the hot tub tried to get a look at the commotion at the DJ table. Two yellow-shirted figures with walkie talkies were talking to the musician. He brought the mic to his mouth again.
“They say no more or they’ll kick me off the island.”
The crowd booed again. Bottles were thrown and one of the security guards shouted something that Edie couldn’t hear over the jets.
“Now they’re going to throw everyone off the island,” the DJ laughed into the microphone. “Okay, thank you for coming everyone. Check me out on Facebook and Soundcloud. DJ Destino!”
The crowd shouted a mix of boos and cheers as Destino turned everything off with security watching. When they were satisfied that everything had come to an end, they escorted him away from the table.
Another white woman with a bunch of shit braided into her hair approached the tub to talk to the tattooed woman with the cellphone.
“What happened, Apricot?” the woman in the tub asked.
“Something about a noise ordinance. They said that he was disturbing the people in the villas.”
“I think the other people in the villas are all out here.”
Apricot laughed. “Yeah, I know.”
A thicker woman in a flowing black kimono approached, illuminating the boredom in her face with the pale blue light from her phone as she texted without looking up.
“This is dumb. I’m gonna go to Aaron’s room,” she said.
“Who’s Aaron?” the tattooed woman asked. The bored woman turned and pointed in the general direction of the bonfire, where six or seven guys were standing with their backs to the hot tubs and appearing as dark silhouettes.
“Who?” she asked again.
“We met him during the show, remember?” Black Kimono said.
“Uh, no, I have no idea who you’re talking about. Maybe we should go with you to see who this guy is,” the woman in the tub suggested, which produced a scoff from Black Kimono.
“Don’t be such a mom. Maybe you should try to find yourselves some guys to have fun with, too.”
The woman next to Edie looked out of the tub, towards the fire where dancing shadows congregated. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to happen, Daisy. I think I’ll stay over here.”
Daisy and Apricot turned to follow her gaze and scoffed.
“Of course that asshole is here,” Apricot said.
“Is that the guy who dumped sand on me?” Daisy asked.
“Someone dumped sand on you?” Edie asked. She hadn’t meant to say anything, but the drugs had gotten her too enraptured in their interaction. The other woman’s head whipped to look at Edie in surprise.
“Yeah, as some sort of prank. I guess that’s the shit he does for his YouTube channel that got him here.”
Daisy returned attention to her phone, illuminating her hands and face in a blue glow. “Anyhow, you have my number. See you bitches in the morning.”
