Page 31 of Summer Ever After
The room was packed. I wove through the crowd, shimmying sideways as I tried to avoid full-body contact with sweaty strangers. Bon Jovi had been replaced with someone singing Shania Twain. Unlike the first guy, this singer was good. I stood on my tiptoes to catch a glimpse and recognized Jenny. Jessica was sitting at a table near the front. She looked in my direction and I stretched my arm to wave at her. She returned the wave and with a destination in sight, I changed course through the crowd, like a salmon swimming upstream.
“Hi,” I shouted overMan, I Feel Like a Woman.
Jessica patted the chair next to her. “Beer?” She held up a pitcher.
“Sure.” I settled in next to her.
She handed me a glass half filled with beer and topped with foam and topped up everyone else’s glasses at the table. “You know Ramona and Amanda.”
“Hey.” The two girls smiled and held up their glasses. “Our paddle machine has come to celebrate.”
My cheeks flushed. I tapped my glass to the other’s and made eye contact as we drank.
“Cute braids.” Jessica tugged on one. “What’s with the miner’s lamp?”
I touched the light that was stretched over my Brankmere Hall baseball cap. “I forgot that I was wearing this.” I laughed and took off the headlamp, zipping it into my crossbody bag. “I rode my bike.”
“No wonder you’re in such good shape.”
“We should’ve had her for the traditional triathlon.” The swimmer girl grinned. “Rosie can be our ringer.”
I laughed. “My bike is about forty years old and half of the gears don’t work.”
“How far did you ride to get here?” Jessica took a sip of her beer. “We could’ve had our driver come and get you.”
“Trey?” I asked. I glossed over Jessica’s question. It was fifteen miles from the end of Sunflower Lane to the downtown core of Windswan. I wasn’t sure how many miles it was from town to the Stone Oven.
“Yeah. My dad is so paranoid about us drinking and boating after that accident, Trey drives us everywhere.”
“He’s so cute.” Amanda grinned.
Jessica swatted her arm. “He’s too old for you.”
Amanda shrugged and pumped her eyebrows. “I didn’t say I wanted to fuck him, he’s just, you know, cute for an old guy.”
Jessica leaned in toward me. “He’s too good for her.”
“Hey.” Amanda tossed a piece of popcorn from the wicker basket in the center of the table. It felt like I was hanging out with regular girls, not daughters of billionaires. Easing into my chair, we all watched Jenny finish off the Shania song with a high kick.
“Woohoo.” Jessica was on her feet and her beer sloshed onto the table as she thrust it into the air. “You’re up next.” She tugged at my arm.
“Absolutely not.” I pulled my arm from hers. “I will paddle, row, swim, any day of the week, but you will not catch me doing that.”
Luckily, someone else was on the performance list, and over the evening Jessica lost interest in trying to drag me up to the stage. I didn’t drink very often, and after four glasses of watery draft beer, I was convinced to join the girls in a very terrible rendition ofRespectby Aretha Franklin. As the crowd cheered, we tumbled back into our seats.
A guy with a backward hat who looked like he’d just walked off a lacrosse field and was on his way to a frat party slung his arm over Ramona’s shoulder. “Can I buy you ladies a round?” he asked.
Ramona shrugged his arm off her shoulder. “Only if it’s a bottle of Cristal.”
The guy grinned. “I don’t think that they carry it here. It doesn’t pair well with popcorn.” As if to exemplify his point, he reached across the table and grabbed a handful of popcorn.
Jessica pulled the basket toward her. “Actually, it’s my favorite, so they stock it here. For me.”
The cockiness deflated from him like a freshly pricked balloon. “Oh.”
Ramona put her hand on the front of the guy’s t-shirt. “I was just joking. We’re drinking whatever this is on tap.” She held up the empty plastic jug. The guy took the jug from her. “I’ll be right back.”
Jessica shook her head. “What are you doing?”
