Eyes widen and mouths gape on my phone screen. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Marcus breathes. “Your ex booked yourhoneymoonat aswingers’ resort?”
“Yup. Sure did,” I assure him.
Lane shakes his head, lips turning up into a sneer. “That’s some next level fuckery right there.” He chuckles. “Not that I wouldn’t trade places with you in a heartbeat. Unlike you, I’m not opposed to group activities.”
Marcus strokes his stubble thoughtfully. “Has anyone recognized you? Because I’m not sure how this would play out in the press.”
“I think a few people have, but only one guy has come right out and asked me. I don’t think it will be a problem because everyone here seems pretty chill.” I shrug. “It’s like they respect other people’s privacy like they want theirs respected.”
“I can see that,” Lane muses. “If they blab that you’re there, they have to admit that they went to an adult resort as well.”
“So I’m assuming you’re not… participating?” Marcus asks.
“I’m not.”
My friends eye each other. “He hesitated,” Lane points out.
“I did not hesitate,” I insist.
They ignore me. “I definitely sensed some hesitation there,” Marcus notes.
“Uh-huh. It was likepause - I’m not.”
Their gazes return to me, and I roll my eyes. “Fine. There’s a woman here that’s caught my interest.”
They lean forward, faces as eager as junior high girls at a sleepover. “Tell us.”
Rubbing a hand over my still damp hair, I say, “Her name is Juliette, and she looks like a fucking Barbie doll.” Lane rolls his hand to indicatethat I should continue. “She’s pretty amazing. She has this personality that’s so sweet and funny.”
“And what are you going to do about it?” Marcus asks with a smirk.
“We hung out yesterday and made out for a while. I thought things were going great—headed in a certain direction, you know—but we had a… disagreement or something when we got back to her cottage.” I scrub at my temple with my fingertips. “Fuck, I don’t even know what went wrong, and now I can’t get her off my mind.”
Lane’s forehead creases. “What kind of disagreement?”
I walk them through our conversation, and the furrows in Lane’s face grow deeper. “Let me get this right. You actually told this Juliette chick if it wasn’t for her lifestyle, you’d be interested in having something with her after your vacation?”
“Well, yeah. I was trying to be up front with her so she didn’t have any expectations, and she said she didn’t want anything serious either. She seemed to want me as much as I wanted her. And then…” I shrug because I’m still a bit perplexed by her reaction.
My buddies share another look before turning back to me. Marcus smirks. “Dude, you know you’re not supposed to chew all the gummies at once, right?”
Lane smacks him in the chest with the back of his hand. “You idiot, he’s on an island. He’s obviously smoking the wacky weed, not eating it.”
“I’m not on any mind-altering substances,” I grind out. “What the fuck are you two talking about?”
Marcus nods at Lane to take over, and he does. “You went too far, see? You should have made it clear that you wanted a vacation fling and not a relationship.Then you shut your mouth.Where you fucked up was bringing her lifestyle into the mix.”
“Agreed,” my other friend says. “It comes across as judgy, which we all know you’re not. People get insulted when you criticize their choices.”
“I wasn’t criticizing,”I protest.
“We know,” Marcus soothes, “but it probably came across asI would totally like you enough to pursue something if it wasn’t for this flaw.”
My frustrated grumble vibrates my chest. “That’s not what the fuck I was trying to do. I was trying to explain why we had to be temporary without hurting her feelings. I wanted her to understand she’s, you know, beautiful and sweet and worthy, but I guess I ended up doing the opposite.” I tug at the back of my neck.
“You were doing the right thing,” Lane says quietly. “You just went about it wrong.”
I clench my molars until the grinding becomes audible. I hate myself for hurting Juliette’s feelings.
