Page 71 of The Bridges I've Burned

That dinner had been a special sort of hell.

Marin and Macon had been elated to have the four of us all under one roof.

Elena? Not so much.

She pretended like I didn’t exist.

I pretended like it didn’t bother me.

We’d kept up this ruse ever since.

“Let me introduce you to some people,” Macon suggested.

We dropped our towels on top of a large stack, and Hendrix reluctantly let go of his snacks.

“This is Billy.” Macon gestured to the man in the chair on the other side of Marin.

I recognized him from the engagement party. He reminded me of a lumberjack with wide shoulders and plaid-print swim trunks. His dark brown hair was a bit overgrown, like his beard. He had a kind smile and immediately held out his hand to greet us.

“Thanks for showing up and relieving me of best-man duties.” He used his other hand to block out the glare from the water, resting it just above his brow as he glanced up at us.

“I feel like kind of an asshole, coming in at the last minute when you’ve already done everything.”

“No, it’s all good. Besides, Eli is the one who’s done most of it anyway,” he said, turning an adoring gaze to the man sitting next to him. “I was just planning on taking the credit for it all.”

“Isn’t that what you always do?” The man sitting next to him, presumably Eli, was about as far from a lumberjack as I could be. With olive skin and the trim body of a swimmer, he had a regal quality to him that screamed sophistication.

“Hey, you knew what you were getting involved with when you married me.”

“Mmm, yes, I did.”

They smiled and stared at each other so intensely that I had to turn away.

God, married people are gross.

Macon motioned toward Eli. “That’s Billy’s husband. They’re newlyweds. And a nightmare to live next to right now.”

“Oh, puh-lease,” Billy objected. “At least we keep it inside. On the patio furniture, Macon? Really? You don’t even have a fence.”

I heard a choking sound and turned to find Marin sputtering soda and doing a piss-poor job of trying to cover it with her hand.

“I could have gone my whole damn life without hearing your dirty talk,” Eli added.

I’m gonna go drown myself in the Atlantic now…

“A lot of good keeping it inside does when you don’t close your cur—” He paused. “You know what? Never mind.”

“So, where’s Elena?” Dear God, can we change the subject?

“Oh, she went to cool off. She doesn’t handle heat well,” Marin answered, having recovered from her Coke incident.

She wore a bright pink bikini and was sitting cross-legged, munching on a bag of caramel corn that was wedged between her legs. Macon, who sat back down next to her, reached out and snatched a handful. She smacked his hand, and he laughed.

“She’ll bounce back and forth between here and the water until we leave.”

My eyes tracked the coastline, trying to spot her, but all I saw were half a dozen kids on boogie boards and one very disturbing group of teens trying to record some sort of synchronized dance on their phone.

“You can take the two chairs at the end.” Macon gestured with his hand.

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