Page 31 of The Vacation Mix-Up
I want to tell him he didn’t, that I did. But I honestly couldn’t give a shit. He can try his luck; little good it’ll do him.
Trying my damn hardest to be welcoming, I manage to lift one side of my face when spidey woman sidles up to me and shouts, “Hi there!”
I shout back, “Hey!”
Ben frowns for the slightest of seconds but then turns to her friend, his face once again opportunistic. “Hey, princess.”
The friend all but goes cross-eyed. “Heyyy.”
“Can I get you a drink?” he shouts.
She holds up her cocktail. “Already got one.”
“Want another?”
“No, thanks.” She dips her head and sips from her straw, looking everywhere else but at him.
“I didn’t see you by the pool,” Spidey tells me.
“I didn’t have time for a swim,” I reply with a shrug.
She pouts.
“I’m Riley, by the way,” I say, offering her my hand, because I’m polite like that.
“Brittany.”
We shake, and she sips her drink again, her colorful cocktail disappearing as she seductively sucks it down her throat.
“Want another?” Ben asks her.
She looks at him, then at me. “Sure.”
“What are you drinking?” he shouts as the music gets loud again.
“Something fruity,” she yells back.
All the hollering is giving me a headache.
“And how ’bout you, beautiful?” he asks her friend.
“Already got one, remember?”
Brittany glares at the other woman, and the friend glares back before sighing and calling out, “Whatever she’s having.”
Ben beams. “Comin’ right up.”
I internally celebrate his small victory, when Brittany asks me something I can’t hear over the music.
I raise my hand to my ear. “What?”
She leans in, pressing her chest to my arm. “I said, where are you from?”
“Oh. Philly.”
“Cool! We’re from Florida.”
I nod.
