Page 48 of Summertime Friends

“Let’s go to the beach-each, let’s go get a wave. They say what they gonna say have a drink, clink, found the Bud Light. Bad bitches like me—” She points to herself and then toward us to finish the Nicki Minaj lyric as we walk up to her.

“Not that hard to come by,” George changes the lyric and throws an arm around her.

The two of them walk out of the hotel, singing and dancing to the rest of the song together. I don’t even feel jealous that hisarm is around her, touching the bare skin of her back. What I am feeling is more of an unknown territory. Should it feel right that she’s getting along with my friends this well?

***

The four of us head down to Praia do Camilo. At the top of the stairs leading down to the beach, I offer my hand to her. To my surprise, she takes it, letting me guide her down the stairs.

“Is everything in Portugal made of hills and stairs? I swear everywhere I turn, there is some damn incline.” She tries to laugh, but it comes out as a strained pant.

“It is,” I reply to her.

“Want me to carry you?” George says at the same time. Tossing us a smirk over his shoulder.

“Two perfectly good legs. I think I can handle it,” Emerson jokes back, and I like it. I like her a lot.

We find a space on the beach several meters away from the water.

Immediately, Callum and George take off their shirts and launch themselves into the water. Emerson is making camp for us. In the bag she brought are four towels, I assume from the hotel. Emerson lays two out on the sand, tossing a third to me. She lays hers out and uses her bag and a book to hold down opposite corners. I walk around the other towels and lay mine down next to hers, closer than it needs to be.

“You should go join them.” She peers up at me from the towel she is sitting cross-legged on.

“You sure?” She nods.

Reaching behind me, I grab my shirt collar, pull it over my head, and drop it on the towel. Walking toward the water to meet my mates, I feel something hot on my back—Emerson’s gawking at me again. It makes me smile.

She enjoys watching people. What her intention is of it, I don’t know. At first, it made me feel special, but I realized she does it to everyone, everywhere—granted, I don’t know if she’s trying to undress them in her head as her eyes do me. She doesn’t make it strange either. Her soft eyes help that. Not in the soft, bunny-like way. They’re gentle and warm, a welcoming contrast to her rather sometimes inhospitable exterior. Maybe that’s why it’s not weird or why I never want her eyes to leave me.

Once my skin is pruney and I’ve swallowed at least a liter of salt water, thanks to boys being boys, I peek back at the beach to where our towels are, wanting to check in on Emerson. But she’s not there. A momentary freakout rushes over me that something happened to her. It goes away quicker than it arrives when I find her down the shore walking.

“Emerson is fucking fit,” I hear George say behind me. The three of us all stand waist-deep in the ocean, watching her.

Whack. Callum playfully hits George upside the head. “Shit man. What was that for?”

“Be polite. He asked us to be nice,” Callum says.

“I am being nice! We always talk about each other’s girls,” George barks back. “Don’t act like you don’t have eyes, Callum, or forget that you were talking about how gorgeous her ti—”

Whack. Callum hits George again.

“Liam doesn’t even appear to care.”

Whack. This time, it’s me who hits George. I do care. I care more than I should for only knowing her this short of a time.

“Reminder! We have rules,” George says to us. “Till you sleep with her, she isn’t yours.”

Callum rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “George, when was the last time we followed the rules?”

“School,” I respond.

“So two years ago,” Callum concurs.

Back at university, we made this rule,stupid rule, when all three of us liked the same girl—word of advice for anyone, never go forthe same girl as your friends. The rule eventually applied to any girl. Whoever slept with her first, well, she was their girl then.

SLEPT! Who does that? We did.

Unfortunately for Callum and I, George was the biggest player on campus. If we discovered a girl, he’d probably already have been with her by the time we met her. During our third year, the female population caught on. We thought we were screwed, but that’s when the real games began, and we really got screwed.

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