Page 14 of Starfish and Coffee
Matt gave him a look. “Why would I warn you if I didn’t mean it? I knew it made me a stuck-up prick to take the bet.”
Already irritated he was letting this upset him as much as it had, Alex turned to stomp bare-assed toward the ocean without responding.
The girls squealed in surprise as Alex walked past them. Holly let out a wolf whistle once they got over the shock. Their giggles followed him all the way to the shoreline, but Alex didn’t bother to look back.
“I’m in,” Melissa announced behind him. “Skinny-dipping. I dare you.”
“Oh, hell, yeah,” Holly agreed.
Alex wasn’t surprised when Holly jumped on him a few minutes later. Her bikini was obviously abandoned somewhere on the sand. There was nothing but warm, sandy skin against his as she wrapped her legs around him and clung to his neck. He caressed her thigh, needing the comfort as he waded into the ocean.
The tide was high, and they dropped when they hit one of the tide pools, putting Alex into the water up to his waist. He ran one hand through his hair to push it away from his face while still holding on to Holly. He was drunk enough to make swimming dangerous, especially with Holly on him, but he still went for it.
He dived in, knowing Holly would expect it before he did it. The salt water stung his eyes, the surf was rough, but the ocean was his home. He swam out far enough to feel safe in the sea, alone with only Holly for company. Then his feet touched the sandy bottom, and he turned around, looking back at the shore, seeing that Matt had followed Alex’s lead by walking to the ocean—naked.
“Motherfucker.” Alex growled in annoyance.
Melissa had lingered near the shore, now as naked as the rest of them. She was saying something to Matt and even from a distance, Alex could see her eyeing him. He wasn’t at all surprised when she jumped on Matt the same as Holly had done to Alex.
“Posers,” Alex said bitterly.
“Hmm,” Holly agreed, still wrapped around him like a second skin. She stroked his wet hair from his face. “It’s a nice sight, though. You see what I see. It’s big enough to spy from a distance.”
Alex noticed, but all he said was, “Whatever.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Alex sighed because he didn’t want Holly to hurt like he hurt. He didn’t want her to feel like dirt on the shoes of the upper crust that used Mirabella Island like their playground and stepped on all the people who worked to make it such a beautiful place to live. “I think I’m turning into Will.”
Holly giggled. “You like girls now?”
“No, I just hate assholes like Matt Tarrington.”
“That’s too bad,” Holly said, her voice singsong in a way that made it obvious she was very drunk. “’Cause you may not be interested in what the full package looked like, but he sure was.”
“What?” Alex asked, turning his head to try and meet her gaze.
Holly giggled again and pressed her face into the curve of his neck as she said with stark amusement, “He was checking you out.”
“Bullshit.”
“I saw it, Alex, and he wasn’t even subtle about it.” Holly laughed harder. “Too bad you hate him now.”
Chapter Five
Matt had gone to class plenty of times still drunk after a night of partying, but he had never worked in a restaurant on a Sunday when the air-conditioning was as good as broken. By nine o’ clock the temperature gauge on the kitchen wall said it was ninety degrees, and Matt knew from yesterday it only got hotter as the day went on.
He could actually smell the beer bleeding from his pores, and he was reminded once again why partying was starting to get old. He should be in bed, not sweating his ass off in this kitchen. The food cooking just made him more nauseated. The coffee he kept drinking to keep him from dropping where he stood felt like acid in his stomach.
“You gotta eat, man,” Alex announced as he turned from the grill and put a plate on the deck next to Matt. “You look like you’re gonna puke all over these orders.”
Matt really wanted to tell Alex to stop talking about puking, because it wasn’t helping his problem. Instead he just grabbed the English muffin out of the four-slice toaster he’d stolen off his mother’s kitchen counter when he’d stopped by her place at four-thirty this morning before work. His mother was probably freaking out, thinking she’d been robbed by a very selective thief, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. At least the toast wasn’t fucking burned.
He tossed it on the plate and put it up with the other orders. Then he hit the bell without checking the orders. He could barely decipher the tickets sober. Melissa appeared within a minute, looking as exhausted and hungover as Matt and Alex.
“Gimme.” Melissa grabbed the ticket and blinked at it and then looked at the plates. “This is supposed to be whole wheat, not English muffin.”
Matt groaned. “Shit.”
