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Rory stepped up to join me at the cooler. He shook his head ruefully, “I think I’m goin’ to hell for standing here wanting to know what she looks like out of that suit.”
I nodded in agreement. About that time Darren came up from the cabin with the Bluetooth speaker he’d been looking for. At the top of the steps, I saw him catch sight of Julie laid out on the deck. His mouth fell open a little and he dropped the speaker.
Rory and I cracked up. Kendall even looked up from her phone and snorted. “I said get the speaker, not break it,” she said. Darren tried to shake it off as he retrieved the speaker and checked to see if it was in one piece before handing it to our sister.
It wasn’t like Darren to be so flustered, but Julie was clearly something special. Or at least something delicious sent to torture the three of us into madness.
9
RORY
After a sun-baked day out on the water, we decided to head to shore and grab dinner. The basket full of treats was long gone. When we reached the marina, the lights strung from pole to pole were gleaming a warm white glow as the evening darkened around us. I held out my hand to help Julie step off the boat. When she grabbed my hand, I gave an involuntary gasp. The jolt of electricity I felt at her touch was not something I could ignore and play it cool. I looked up at her as she stepped down to join me, and I saw her flinch slightly. That was the only evidence that she felt the attraction as well—and that she was a much cooler customer than I was.
We jostled each other and each stole looks at Julie. Kendall announced that she wanted her friend to try Larkin’s, a seafood joint popular with the locals that boasted tables right out on the sand. We were all in favor of it and piled into the car. There was already a line out front when we parked. I groaned, my stomach growling.
“I’m starving.”
“Give me three minutes,” Kendall said and left us standing on the sidewalk.
In less time than that, she swanned back over and hooked her arm through Julie’s. “Right this way,” she said, and we followed in her wake. Julie’s red sundress was strapless, held up by some stretchy elastic gathering at the top. Her bare shoulders were striped with a tan line from the narrow straps of her swimsuit. A few red curls were escaping from her topknot, and when she leaned in to laugh with my sister, I saw the breeze lift another curl loose.
My sister breezed past the dozens of people in line for a table and we trailed after her. A tattooed woman at the hostess stand led us straight through the crowded restaurant to a little screened-in porch at the back with a round table, twinkle lights, and a screen door right out to the sand. We took our seats and I gave a low whistle.
“Did you pay her off to get the table?”
“I’m a promoter in Manhattan. I can get her into any club. She’s going to visit some friends there next weekend, and they’ll be on the VIP list at both the places she named with a bottle of champagne waiting for them,” Kendall said nonchalantly.
“Nice,” Jeremy said. “I guess if that failed I could’ve stepped up and offered her legal representation if she has any outstanding warrants.”
“Come on, don’t waste your best pickup line on getting a table at a seafood place,” I ribbed him. Everybody laughed at that one.
“Thanks for getting us a table, Kendall,” Darren said. “Rory was going to die of hunger after swimming the entire English Channel today.”
“Anytime, bro,” she said, passing menus around like she owned the place.
We talked about what we’d tried before, what was new, what sounded good. A waiter took our drink orders and came back with two pitchers of beer and a plate of lobster rolls compliments of the house. That hostess was excited to go clubbing in NYC. We all toasted Kendall and her connections before we dove at the lobster rolls like a swarm of locusts. We talked and laughed, and Jeremy complained he had a sunburn on the back of his neck.
“Your idea to take the boat out. Didn’t know we needed Mom to pack you some sunblock, boy,” I said.
Jeremy shook his head. “I spend most of my days at the office and the gym. I forgot.”
“I have aloe in my bag,” Julie offered.
“I think you have an entire bodega in that bag,” Kendall said. “It’s huge. I could have loaned you a beach bag, you know.”
“What? And if I needed something from my bodega it would be back at the house,” she giggled. “See? Deodorant, lip balm, aloe, eye drops, sunblock, detangling comb…” she lined the items up on the table as she went good-humoredly.
