Page 34 of Try Easy

“Go to the beach,” Lou said without hesitation.

“Sounds good to me,” Penny said. She pushed back from the table. “I’ll call Bones and tell him not to come today.”

“Really?” Lou asked, relieved.

“Yes, but only because I love you so much.”

Penny went inside, leaving Henry and Lou alone on the deck.

“Thank you for letting us stay here,” Lou said. “It really is beautiful.”

“It is,” Henry agreed. “I could never go back to Seattle after having lived here.”

Lou sipped her coffee and looked out at the view. She still had eleven days of vacation. She wouldn’t think about Seattle again until she had to.

Henry had warnedthem not to go past Diamond Head Beach when they got to the shore, but he hadn’t told them why. Unfortunately, Lou and Penny weren’t familiar enough with the beach that they could tell where one ended, and the next began.

Because of Penny’s fair skin, they walked until they found an area shady enough for her to lay her towel down under a grove of palms. Lou stretched out on the sand next to her.

Lou had some Native American Chinook blood in her somewhere down the line, and she tanned easily. After a few hours in the sun, Lou was already golden brown, while Penny still looked like she’d just stepped off the plane from Seattle.

The beach was narrow, but the sand was soft and white, and the water was warm and blue. It was a quiet beach. Only the occasional person walked along the shore toward the south.

“Henry sure is lucky to live so near to the beach,” Lou said.

She was lying on her stomach reading a magazine, hoping to get an even tan.

“Lou?” Penny said.

“What?”

“Do you notice anything funny about this beach?” she asked.

Lou turned over and looked around. The beach sloped into the turquoise water at a gradual angle. She could see all the way out to an island about 200 yards in the sea. It was an incredible sight.

“It’s kind of quiet,” she said. “I’m surprised there aren’t more people here.”

Penny was looking down the beach around the corner. “Look at that,” she said quietly.

Lou looked to where Penny nodded, and her jaw dropped. A man was walking toward them. He was tall and tanned with dark hair. Even from a distance, Lou could see he was completely naked.

“This is a nude beach,” Penny said.

They tried not to stare as the man walked by them, barely glancing in their direction. He walked with a casual, unselfconscious gait, humming a song to himself as he strode past.

“Isn’t he worried about getting burned?” Penny asked, craning her head to watch his naked ass go by.

They burst out laughing and then tried to regain control as another man came into sight from down the beach. He was also naked.

“This must have been what Henry was warning us about,” Lou said.

The second man walked by and nodded at them politely. He seemed unconcerned about his lack of clothing.

Penny reached back and unhooked her bikini top, then tossed it to the sand.

“What are you doing?” Lou asked.

“When in Rome…” she said. “Ah, it feels so good! I’ve never been topless in public before. You should try it,” Penny said.

Lou lay back in the sand and closed her eyes. A few minutes later, two more men walked by. They were holding hands and talking as they passed Penny and Lou. They were clearly a couple.

“Oh, my God,” Lou said, watching them go past. “This isn’t just a nude beach. This is a gay nude beach.”

They laughed until they cried.

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