FOR A GOOD TIME CALL - VI KEELAND & PENELOPE WARDNine Years AgoLolaSUMMER HELD UP her margarita. “To another month of sun, sand, and sex.”
Charlie and I raised our glasses, and the three of us clinked.
I sighed. “Two out of three isn’t so bad, right?”
Summer smirked. “Maybe next time a guy on the beach with an eight-pack asks you what you do for a living, and you say you’re a cosmologist, when he thinks you do hair and makeup, you should just nod and twirl your hair. It might make you sound more interesting.”
My jaw dropped. Before I could respond, Charlie pointed to my mouth and nodded.
“Yup, that’ll work too. Nice and wide, Lo. You’ll be getting some action by the end of the night.”
I squinted and stuck my tongue out at both of them.
“Seriously, Lo.” Charlie set down her drink. “This summer is supposed to be about having a good time. Half the time when we go out, you have your nose stuck in a book and don’t come. How is that having a good time?”
“I like to read!”
Summer sipped her margarita. “You can read in September, when you’re back in school working on your PhD with your geek friends. But right now we’re living in a beach house on Fire Island for the summer. The only reading you should be doing is the drink menu.”
“Actually,” Charlie piped in. “You should probably also read the sign on the bathroom door. Summer has walked into the men’s room at the bar down the road twice already.”
Summer winked. “And the first time it was a mistake. ”
We all laughed. Sadly, though, my friends weren’t wrong. While I’d been relaxing a lot since we got here six weeks ago, a part of me did feel like I wasn’t living it up the way I should be.
Using my finger, I swiped a line of salt from the rim of my margarita glass and brought it to my mouth to suck off. “If I tell you guys something, you have to promise you won’t tease me.”
My best friends smiled and spoke in unison. “Tease? Us?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Summer, Charlie, and I had been the Three Musketeers since elementary school. If one of us wasn’t teasing, there was a problem.
I was pretty sure I was going to regret admitting this, but I decided to spill my guts anyway. “I think I forgot how to have a good time.”
Instead of laughing, my friends frowned. Summer reached across the table and took my hand. She squeezed. “Oh, honey. You didn’t forget. That dull bore Nathan sucked the life out of you a little at a time over the last five years.”
I chuckled. “Maybe. But however I lost my fun, I’m not sure how to get it back.”
“Well, for starters,” Charlie said. “You need to stop overthinking everything.”
“I don’t overthink everything.”
Charlie quirked a brow. “What did you say when I asked you if you wanted to have margaritas or daiquiris tonight?”
I thought back. “I said margaritas have a lot of salt. Which I love, but makes me retain water. It also causes high blood pressure. But daiquiris have a lot of sugar. And I’m trying to cut down on my sugars because my dad was a diabetic.”
My friends just stared at me.
“What?”
“Which do you like better, Lo? Which tastes better? Which makes you want to raise your hands in the air and dance like no one’s watching?”
I slumped. “Oh. I guess you have a point.”
“Not everything needs to be a logical choice,” Summer said. “It’s okay to just do something simply because it’s fun once in a while.”
Charlie wiggled her brows. “Like that guy with the big shoulders I did last week. He was a lot of fun.”
Summer waved at the bartender. “Hey, Eddie!”
“Yeah, Red?”
“Do you have a pen I can borrow?”
Eddie walked over to the cash register and opened the drawer. He plucked out a pen and slid it over to the other side of the bar.
“You finally giving me your phone number, Red?”
Summer batted her eyelashes. “You know you’re too young for me, Eddie.”
Eddie Edwards was the owner of Salty’s, the little bar closest to our rental house. It wasn’t the most popular place, but we often came here before going to the busier bars in town. Eddie was probably in his mid-sixties, always bartended shirtless and barefoot, and sold handmade surfboards out of a shack located next to the bar. He was also a shameless flirt, the same as Summer, so the two of them hit it off on the very first night we’d arrived. After he walked away, Summer stole a napkin from the holder on the bar and clicked the pen top.
“Okay. We’re going to fix this the same way we did when we were kids and one of us had a problem…with a pact.”