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BEAU
“I’m willing to do almost anything, but geez, you’re going to split me in half.” She squeals as her legs spread wider.
“Squeeze baby, squeeze,” I say, unable to keep a straight face. Our friends burst out laughing as Vanessa tries to pull herself forward too hard, leaving slack in the rope and face plants on the water.
Maverick cuts the engine, and I jump off the back of the boat. It was funny but she could be hurt. I swear her face skid across the water and the skis crossed. I take long fast strokes as I see her spitting out water.
“Whew! That was fun.” A belly laugh snakes up her core. “Did you tell Maverick to speed up?”
I take her arms and wrap them around my neck. “No. I told you to squeeze. I know you know how…. you almost squeezed the life out of me last night.”
“You loved it.” She winks, and the false eyelash she wears so she doesn’t have to wear mascara gets stuck in her hair.
Plucking the lash from one of her corkscrew tendrils, I hold it in front of her face. “I did. And I love every crazy thing you do. I loved you when you didn’t wear any makeup and had a mouth full of braces, so you don’t need fake eyelashes for me to see how beautiful you are.”
We kiss a few minutes before the boat drives up beside us. I remove her skis and she climbs up the ladder first and I follow.
“Girls, can you please tell Beau why women wear makeup? And who are we dressing to impress?” she asks Jessie, and Ali.
They say in unison, “Women.”
Maverick, and Axel look as perplexed as I do. “What?”
Vanessa saddles up beside me and says, “We want other women to think we’re cute.”
“Why?”
“Well, you know how you like to talk about sports teams, investment strategies, and working out. We…” She stops and points to Jessie and Ali. “We like to talk about makeup, fashion and some other things.”
I pull her down onto my lap. “What other things?”
Ali moves into the center, twerking and says, “Sex.”
“Twerking got you in trouble not that long ago,” Axel says smiling.
Maverick slaps his leg. “I was there the night you dragged Ali out of the Brown Jug. It was my first time out since I’d moved back to Kissing Springs.”
“He saved me,” Ali says, puckering up, waiting for a smack of the lips.
“Aww,” filters from our friends, and I watch Wynter as she’s eyeballing Scotty and his new girlfriend. If she would have just taken the leap a month ago, they would be together now. Unfortunately, she dissects their relationship like she’s still in sophomore science class.
I can’t believe we’re waterskiing at the end of October. The entire south is having a hot spell, hitting temperatures in the upper eighties three days in a row.
Maverick bought a boat at the end of the summer and wanted to use it one more time before storing it in his barn during the winter.
Jessie looks off into the distance. I tap her leg and ask, “Hey, are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m just thankful that my new friends and old friends are now in the same friend group. We’re blessed,” Jessie reels off. “After we check on Mr. and Mrs. B., you should come back over and we’ll cookout.”
Maverick guides the Mastercraft boat up next to his dock and ties it to the cleat hitch.
I step off the boat, helping Vanessa to the dock. “We can’t tonight. Nessa and I are having dinner with her dad and Vanessa’s new stepmom.”
She slaps my arm. “Not yet. One more day.”
“Carlotta is living with her dad, and she’s teaching Vanessa how to cook,” Beau says, laughing like it will never happen.
Vanessa “Stop it. I can cook Ramen and scrambled eggs.” She pauses before continuing. “It’s weird that this woman comes from nowhere and is more like a mom to me than my anti-mom, who I hope goes to jail.”
