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“Stanza?” His far away voice calls from my cell’s speaker. “You still there?”
I clear my throat and return the phone to my ear. “Yep, dad, I’m here. Happy for you. Really. Stoked. Cool. Great. I gotta go. I’ve got a ... a thing.”
I flop back into my clothes-covered bed unblinking and unable to get my brain to assimilate what the hell I’ve just been told.
My dad’s in love. He’s coming off the road. For good. I focus on the ceiling fan and it’s lazy whirring. Is it possible for your world to actually be tilted off kilter? I feel like I’ve just been told that music is not the answer.
I need a drink.
My body vibrates with the thumping bass line, my hips swaying as I lift my hands above my head and sing along with the vocals about one kiss being all it takes to fall in love. I may not agree with the singer, but I can’t fault her singing. Or this remix. This is exactly what I needed.
The Beach Hut, it turns out, is full of surprises.
The lights have been dimmed, a strobe slicing through the shadows, highlighting faces and bodies in a flashing millisecond of green clarity before flitting away again. The back of my neck tingles as I take in the dark beach beyond the terrace lit with its very own silver, starry light show. The juxtaposition is rich and heady but calming and soothing all at once.
Alcohol. Music. Dancing.
Sonnie still hadn’t been in when I left. Going by the disappointed pull in my chest, that’s probably a good thing. I glance over my shoulder to where the DJ is watching me. He’s not Sonnie-hot, but ... but maybe that’s a good thing too.
“Shots!!!”
I spin to my brand-new bestie for the night. The blonde yin to my yang, the Thelma to my Louise. My newest distraction from my distraction. Kenzie, the bartender I met the other night, has a night off, and she seems to be as keen to drink off her problems as I am.
We’ve bonded over tequila and dancing, and my sleeveless Nirvana T-shirt.
I take the shot glass with a wiggle and hold it up to clink against hers.
“The DJ is hot for youuuuuuuuuu.” She downs the golden liquid then shimmies, her long, blonde hair falling over her face, the white of her sleeveless T-Shirt dress bright against her tan skin. “He’s not stopped staring all night.”
My head spins pleasantly as I knock back my own shot then hold the glass above my head to sing along to the music. Maybe one kiss from the DJ would be all it would take to get rid of that stupid little pull of disappointment. I scan the bar again for my absent neighbor like I’ve been doing most of the night.
Maybe he’s found a new distraction too.
“Or are you holding out for a certain tattooed rocker?” She yells over the music.
I almost fall off my flip flops before I remember to shake my head. “That would be a definite no.” I tug her to me. “Why? What do you know?”
Zi stumbles slightly, but leans closer, her body still moving to the music. “Clua is smaaaaallll. You can’t go kissing in public and not expect it to be hot gossip. Especially not with Sonnie. I’m pretty sure half the women of Clua would die to be kissing Sonnie out in the open.”
I wince and release her elbow. “Please don’t tell me you’ve...” He warned me he was a player, but man. Zi’s cool. And I don’t want this to be weird. I hate weird.
She throws her head back and laughs dramatically. “One hundred percent no. Not ever. I’m more into emotionally unavailable ex Marines with arms the size of my thigh.” She balances on a wobbly leg and lifts the other to examine her thigh.
The relief that I’m not stepping on her toes has me giving into the thick beat once more and spinning myself around.
I fill my chest with tangy night air before I spin back to her.
This time I nearly do topple off my flip flops.
Zi is gone. In her place, the DJ. Two shots of what looks like tequila in his hands. Over his shoulder my now frenemy is shooting me a goofy thumbs up.
“Drink?” His dark eyes slide down my body, in his own not-so-sexy version of the way Sonnie looks at me.
He is hotter up close, though. And his hair has a messiness to it that would usually make me wonder what it would look like the morning after the night before. And his eyes have a cocky twinkle that would usually make my tummy flip.
Usually.
I try to force the feeling. Force myself to enjoy the way his stare is holding my own. Try to force my body to tingle with the promise of a new, fun distraction from myself and my over-crowded brain.
