Page 42 of The Other Side of Paradise
She laughed, winking and blowing me a kiss, and I felt my stomach drop out. “Have fun, Allison.”
Oh, god. I was going to go masturbate in my car after all. Otherwise I’d be aching for Stella the whole rest of the evening. “Uh. Yep. Yeah.”
Jesus, I didn’t know what had become of me. All I knew was that even the cold shower at the top of the beach to wash the sand off me and out of my swimsuit didn’t take the edge off, and I’d barely gotten into the car—turning the lights off and reclining under the cover of my jacket, like I was just taking a nap in mycar at the shaded corner of the lot—before I slipped my hand down the front of my bathing suit, and I whispered out to the emptiness of the car, “Stella…”
I was so gone.
Chapter 13
Stella
I was having fun. More than I’d expected on a beach trip slash potential hookup expedition where I got rejected. I was still holding the half-finished daiquiri when I dropped down on the towel next to Ryan’s, tapping my cup against hers.
“Cheers,” I said, settling in under the soft warmth of the setting sun.
“Cheers,” she echoed, sipping the remnants of her drink from among the ice cubes. She looked like she was in a good mood… I guess that just about figured. I’d caught her hanging out with Brooklyn earlier, up at the bar overlooking the beach, and she’d said how she and Brooklyn were ducking out for a bit for some last-minute work that had come up. I didn’t know why Brooklyn was enabling that kind of thing, but I guess it was just like Ryan that the thing to pick up her spirits the most on a beach vacation was, like,ooh, surprise bonus work!I didn’t know how we were related.
But we were. And despite the obsession with work, I still liked her enough, I guess, to stick up for her, going with her on this trip when my whole family wanted to flay me alive for it. I didn’t regret a thing—felt nice being on the right side of things.
I guess I could see why she didn’t want me making a scene with the family with her around, like she’d told me off for earlier. I’d kind of bristled at it because I would rather pull my teeth out than admit I was wrong, but now that I was here, it was pretty plain to see she’d really had enough of fighting for it and just wanted a peaceful minute on the beach.
And to work. But whatever. Nobody was perfect.
“Are you holding up okay?” I said, and she shrugged.
“I actually don’t think I was that happy with Shane, either.”
That was candid. Maybe she did know how to speak her mind. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Even without the cheating. We just… never really had much going for us.”
I sighed, staring out over the water, settling back against the towel, scrunching on the sand. “Dating is hard,” I said finally. “Men suck.”
She changed tack with a bright tone in her voice. “How was your and Allison’s mission? Find any cute… insurance policies in case Jacob doesn’t work out? Any cute girls for her?”
I snorted, elbowing her side. “If you hadn’t been gone for random work so long, you’d have seen,” I said. “Jacob was here. I got to say hello, chat a little bit. I would have introduced you.”
She laughed a little, eyes sparkling. “Ooh. You got to flirt with your hunky dreamboat man?” she said. “You didn’t want to run away with him?”
He didn’t want me, turned out. I was gladsomebodyhere thought I was pretty, but it would be weird to thank Allison for that. I wasn’t going on the pity parade with Ryan, though. “I feltmarginallybad ditching Allison in the water and running,” I said, and I whirled on her. “Maybe I could have if you two had been back! What work were you even doing that you had to interrupt a beach trip for it?”
She spoke breezily, not looking at me. “I’d been waiting to hear back from a potential contributor to go ahead with something urgent, and it had finally come through. So? Did you and Jacob schedule a date or anything?”
Ugh, hitting hard. I scowled. “He didn’t ask, and I didn’t want to have to be the one to ask. Like, it feels weird being the one to ask, I’m a girl and he’s a guy.”
She gave me a look. “Okay, cool to know you and Grandma are on the same page.”
“Don’t say that,” I laughed. “You don’t think so? Like, you’d be comfortable asking a guy out?”
“I have before,” she said, shrugging like I was the weird one. “It had never even crossed my mind once that it could be weird.”
“Pfft.” First getting dragged by Allison and then by Ryan. I just needed Brooklyn to complete the set. She’d gone off swimming, though, down where Allison had come back from whatever she’d been doing in the car and had gone straight to the water without so much as a look my way. Off to find her swimmer girlfriend, probably. I pulled my mind back to Ryan. “Well, okay. Not all of us are as good feminists as you are. It just feels weird to me asking a guy! All my friends had their boyfriends ask them out, so it feels like I’m cheating the system or something if I ask first.”
“Didn’t realize you were looking for Jacob to be your boyfriend…”
“It’s the principle of the thing. Ugh, forget it.” I took a long sip of my drink, nearly finishing it off, and I put it down before I said, “Allison’s a little cagey.”
“Around girls, yeah, absolutely.”
