Page 27 of Flawless

“I might. It was suggested that everyone might be going.”

Nodding, I say, “Give me a sec?”

“Okay,” he says, closing the door.

I go through my bags and pull out three swimsuits and four bikinis. Taking my turn with each, I settle on a burnt orange two-piece. I’m frowning at myself when he knocks once more.

“Come in,” I call out.

“You ready?”

“I don’t know. I can’t find anything that looks good on me.”

Inhaling deeply, he glances at his watch and says, “Dani, you look great, as always.”

I turn to look in the mirror again and say, “I look frumpy.”

“Are you fucking kidding me right now? Your body is beautiful, Dani. It always has been. Women work out excessively, go on diets, pay surgeons, and get implants to have a body like yours. The curves of your body and your beauty are all-natural. You haven’t had to pay a dime for any of it. It’s who you are. You’re flawless.”

Rolling my eyes, I mutter, “I’ve heard that more times than I care to hear.”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing,” I say, shaking my head.

“Let’s go,” he suggests lightly, but I know that he’s getting irritated.

“Okay,” I reply, grabbing my sunglasses and a large floppy hat.

When we arrive at the beach, there are ten other people down there. I make up the fourth female, and the rest are guys, including Zenon. Everyone seems excited to see him, especially a brown-skinned woman with long, brown and blonde braids.

The woman grabs his hand and tugs him into a chair that she’s reserved for him. Some guy hands him a beer, and then another one hands one to me, but I shake my head.

“I’m good.”

“You sure.”

“Yeah, I’ve got water,” I say, removing a bottle of water from my bag.

Zenon introduces me.

“Guys, this is my friend, Dani. Dani...this is everyone.”

Laughing, they all take turns introducing themselves by name; Cady, Amaris, Allyson, Tobias, Jeremiah, Mike, Steve, and Leo.

They all sit around and talk for a while about the upcoming July Fourth holiday, and what their plans are and then launch into talk about their kids and marriage.

Cady and Jeremiah are married to each other, and Allyson is married to Tobias. Amaris, Mike, Steve, and Leo are single.

Eventually, someone breaks out the music on their phone, and people start dancing.

I pull out my phone, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, and take a selfie with nothing but a midnight blue blanket of stars behind me as my backdrop, flowing into the inky black ocean.

When I finish, I post it to all my social media accounts with the caption:

Need a break from life, guys. So, I’m taking a hiatus.

Nica

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