Page 17 of The Hampton Beach Café 2
“Where are we going!?” she shouted.
“The little island!”
Frances squeezed her eyes shut and prayed silently. She was going to die, die because she was too polite to tell her friends to stick their jet skis where––
“AH!” she slapped at her leg where something had just landed on it.
“Ouch!” Lucinda said. “Will you chill? We're here.”
“Oh...”
She looked around. It was actually quite a nice little island. It curved around slightly so the water had stopped rocking them so hard.
“Less intense than the Shoals,” Alex said, pulling his jet ski up onto the beach. “Much closer too, but not really big enough to do anything with, so it's escaped development.”
He splashed through the water to help her off the jet ski.
“How come I never knew about this place?” she asked as he grasped her hand.
She kicked her leg over and felt herself slipping, but before she could call out, Alex had wrapped his arm around her waist and had pulled her tight against him. Stepping backward, she was intently aware of exactly how much of her body was touching his as he gently lowered her down. The water was startlingly cool when it splashed onto her legs.
“It was never popular with teenage ne'er do wells because it was always too hard to get out here at night,” he said, smirking at her. “This little string of three islands is only about a half mile long.”
“Were you the ne'er do well, or was I?” she asked jokingly.
“Hah!” Lucinda barked. “You a teenage rebel?”
She laughed, and Alex followed suit, but his delay caught her attention, and as she looked at him quizzically, she saw that he actually looked rather sad.
Lucinda dismounted the jet ski like she'd been doing it all her life and strode up the beach, leaving Alex to pull theirs up onto the beach as well. When he was done, he flopped down on the sand next to them, taking off his waterproof backpack as he did so. Unrolling to the top, he produced boxes of snacks and several tightly sealed plastic bags with cans inside.
“Here…” he said, “…virgin raspberry fruit punch, tropical kick mocktail, and a non-alcoholic gin and tonic.”
He handed the last one directly to Frances. She smiled both at him and the eye roll from Lucinda.
“Ugh, you said you were bringing cocktails!” Lucinda said, but the annoyance was a show.
“Yeah, sure did, but we're driving home, so zero percent alcohol it is,” he replied.
Lucinda pouted and cracked open the can, taking a sip instead of replying.
“Okay, but this is actually delicious. Where do you get these?” she asked.
Leaning back on his elbow, Alex laughed and shook his head. Stretched out like that, she took in how tall he really was. Frances couldn't help but notice how toned his arms were.
All that because of hauling jet ski's about,she supposed.
“They're local, about to launch,” he said. “Thinking about stocking them at the shop for outings.”
Lucinda tapped her shoulder, breaking the spell that seemed to have settled on her.
“Huh?”
“I said, sounds like a good idea––we should have these in the bar at the café!”
Frances tried to catch up on the non-alcoholic cans.
“Hmm...” she said, thinking about it seriously, “…maybe we should. That certainly would make Miss Kennedy Pine happy. You know, even when we are serving alcohol, we are equally promoting a non-alcoholic version. Locally sourced too.”
