As if I hadn’t already been charmed enough by Sterling, he replies with, “My twin brother works down the street, if that’ll do.” He’s totally teasing her, but she’s eating it up and blushing like aschoolgirl.
“Twins? Like . . . there’s two of you? How is that possible?” shegiggles.
Sterling looks at me with a raised brow . . . no smile, but his dimples, oh those are ever so present. “So, you see . . . when a woman has two eggs in her uterus—” hebegins.
“I know what twins are,” Jade snaps out of her delirium. “What’shisname?”
“Cleary,” he says before looking over his shoulder at a shouted request for hisservices.
“Well, I’d love to get a clearer look at him,” Jade jests, nudging me in the shoulder to make sure I picked up on herlamejoke.
“Jade—” Icounter.
“Can I get you two anything else?” Sterling interrupts. The voice calling for a waiter grows louder andangrier.
“I think we’re good,” I tell him, peering over at the angry man flailing his arm in the air as if he wereonfire.
Sterling walks away, leaving a spell-bound Jade in his dust. “Earth to you,” I tell her. “What iswrong?”
“He’s fucking hot as hell. Holy shit. This is going to be a good summer.” Thinking back over the past few hours on my self-loathing pity party for one, Jade obviously has a different idea about how this summer is going to go. I suppose if I were to spend a little more time with Sterling, my summer might be salvaged, but it all depends on Liam’s behavior, and the child I haven’t met yet. The way everyone seems to be tiptoeing around the topic has me more than a little nervous about tomorrow. “Okay, you get him, and I get his twin. Then, we’ll get married, and we’ll live happily ever after, and you know whathappensthen?”
“I know, Jade, we’ll finally be sisters,right?”
“Yes,” she squeals. “All of our dreams willcometrue!”
I twist around in my seat to face her profile. Taking her arm off the bar, I force her to turn towardme. “Jade.”
She wriggles from my grip and places her hands on my cheeks. “Jules.No.”
“Jade,” Irepeat.
She whines and drops her hands. “Whatttt?”
The bartender interrupts what I was about to lecture her about. “Can I get you ladies something todrink?”
“Two Sexy beaches,” Jade says without looking awayfromme.
I snort at Jade’s request. “I think it’s Sex on the Beach,” Itellher.
“No, it’s not,” she argues. “Trust me, you’ll like it.” She slaps her hand down on my shoulder andlaughs.
“So, here’s a fun fact,” the bartender says to Jade. “Your friend is right. The real name of the drink is Sex on the Beach, but you know what, it’s totally cool because you two are definitely a couple of ‘sexybeaches.’
My cheeks burn at the not-so-subtle compliment, but Jade gets fired up in a different way. “What did you just call me?” she argues. The bartender cocks his head to the side with a raised brow and turns for the liquor bottles. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I made up that drink name about three weeks ago because it’s more fun than actually having sex on the beach.” The bartender returns to hear her serious reasoning behind the new drink name and seems entertained by the explanation. Most peopleareentertained by her flamboyantly ditzy ways. Funny enough, Jade is highly intelligent and smarter than I am in most subjects, but she enjoys the attention, so this is who she pretends to be. It almost always lands us in a fit of laughter, so I just chalk it up to herpersonality.
“Oh,” Jade responds. “Well, you’re welcome. It should be a new drink special here, don’t you think?” She winks at the guy, but he’s already making the drink and not paying much attention to her flirtatiousattempts.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” he says, placing one glass down on a coaster. “I don’t think the sound of a dirty beach will appeal to too many people in this town. Other than yourself, ofcourse.”
Jade rolls her eyes. “You just don’t know what you’re talking about.” She takes the glass, pinches the straw between her fingers, and takes a long sip through hersmilinglips.
The bartender hands me mine and I follow suit, trying out this dirty beach drink. It really does sound horrific. However, it is delicious at the same time. “It’s great, thank you,” I tell thebartender.
“I’ll add it to your bill with Sterling,” he says, while moving down the bar to help the nextperson.
“See?” Jade continues. “It’s amazing,right?”
“Jade,” I pick up where I left off before we ordereddrinks.
