The breeze blows in my open windows as my tires crunch along the short gravel driveway. The Greene house is a gorgeous two-story home, bathed in shadow by thetowering pine trees that litter the front yard. Casey and I didn’t grow up together. We met in our early twenties, but I’ve spent enough weekends here to be jealous of a childhood spent on the water.
The front door is unlocked. I’m expecting to be greeted by music or the shuffling of Casey in the house, but it’s silent.
“Casey?” I call out when I enter the empty kitchen. There’s a mess of ingredients spilled across the counter. Casey’s semi-organized bar station is now a mess of squeezed limes, abandoned mint stems, wads of damp paper towels, and a sticky countertop covered in club soda. The bottle of rum is nowhere to be seen.
“Casey? Where are you?” I glance out my favorite feature of the house: the lake view. The back wall isn’t actually a wall, but is made entirely of floor-to-ceiling windows and overlooks the water down the incline. This view at sunset is a photographer’s wet dream.
I head downstairs and tug open the heavy sliding glass door that leads to the back patio. Her sandals sit haphazardly in front of a blue Adirondack chair. A highball glass with melting ice and clumped mint leaves sits on the side table next to Casey’s iPhone. A dry towel is strung across the back of the chair.
“Dakota!”
Casey’s voice is almost as bright as her smile. She’s down at the dock, previously hidden behind her family’s boat. She’s beaming as she jogs up the slope of grass from the lake shore up to the deck. She’s soaked head to toe from a dip in the shallow water. I grab her towel to hand her, but she ignores it and slams into me.
I “oof” on impact as she pulls me into a tight hug. She smells like summer, like sunscreen and lake water, and Idon’t hesitate to wrap my arms around her. I came prepared in my bathing suit with a tank top and denim shorts over top, so I don’t care that she’s getting me wet.
“About time you’re here!” She rocks me side to side in her tight embrace, and it occurs to me she’s had a lot to drink in the two hours since I last spoke to her. She releases me, but only to cup my face. “I’m so glad you came.”
While Casey is a tactile person by nature, drunk Casey is a whole other level of affectionate. It’s never bothered me, but it used to piss Nina off.
Casey pulls me toward her so she can rest her forehead against mine. Her breath reeks of rum. “You are an amazing woman. The most thoughtful and loyal friend. And you make the perfect girlfriend. She never deserved you.”
Andoh. “You saw?”
She nods, her forehead pressing against me before she wraps me in another suffocating embrace. I curl my arms around her and let my best friend hold me. Tears flood my eyes, and I have to let go before the comfort and warmth of her touch makes me break down into sobs. I haven’t cried about this stupid engagement yet, and I refuse to do it now.
“Can we not talk about it?” I wipe at my traitorous eyes.
“Come on.” She rubs my back and leads me toward the kitchen. “I’ll make us a fresh round of mojitos.”
Casey bustles around the kitchen. She works quickly preparing us fresh cocktails while venting some more about all the ways Marcus annoyed her in the not even twenty-four hours he was here. She asks if I’m hungry halfway through slicing limes so recklessly I take over before she hacks off a fingertip.
“Sure,” I say. “What’re you thinking?”
Casey throws open the freezer door. Her towel is slipping from its hold, wrapped around her slender waist. Shetaps her chin, surveying the selection. “Chicken tendies and fries?”
She holds up both bags in the air. Her towel drops to the floor, and she kicks it away; she uses way more force than necessary, loses her footing, and stumbles back. I lunge forward to catch her, but I’m several feet away. She catches herself on the closed fridge door then laughs loudly.
I point at the nearest barstool. “You need to sit your drunk ass down.”
“I’m fine!”
“Yeah, sure.” I grab the bags from her hand and pop chicken tenders and French fries into the double basket air fryer. “Sit.”
She rolls her eyes, but there’s no heat behind it. She instead leans forward to snatch her glass and downs it. Her phone lights up with a text. She glances at it then sighs with her entire body.
“Marcus?” I ask.
She slides her phone toward me. I take a large gulp of my mojito and brace myself.
Marcus:
Baby it was just a joke. Let me come back and I’ll make it up to you
I groan and hand her the phone back. “I don’t understand what you see in him.”
And I really don’t. Casey is amazing. A talented graphic designer with a successful career. A loyal friend who loves deeply. She’s an avid hiker who loves to explore new cities, but is always down for movie nights, eating pizza and drinking wine while wearing pajamas. Anyone would be so lucky to have her, so what is she doing with Marcus?
Casey rubs her temples, exasperated. “What can I say? The sex is great.”
