The sidewalk ends at a short ramp, leading down to the water. There isn't much of a beachthough.
“Come on,” Jade stumbles towards the rocks and ... I’m pretty sure this is a bad idea. “It's high tide, so we have to sit on therocks.”
“You’re going to fall flat on your face, girly.” Of course, this is coming from the person with two left feet, so I shouldn’t be warning her when I’m more likely to fall beingsober.
“You drove all that way yourself?” one of the guys asks. I’m not sure who is Sandwich and who is Brewster, but his voice sounds the same as the person I was speaking to on thephone.
“It was an adventure. A long, boring adventure filled with way too muchjunkfood.”
“I’d fall asleep twenty minutes in, and it would never end well for me,” theguysays.
“I’d be your copilot and just punch you every few minutes. That’d keep you awake,” the other guy says throughlaughter.
“Okay, who’s who?” I turn around and pull my legs into apretzel.
“I’m Cale,” the guy with the familiarvoicesays.
“I’m Jared,” the otherfollows.
“So, neither of you are Sandwich or Brewster?” I’m soconfused.
“We’re from Massachusetts and used to live on the town border of Sandwich and Brewster. Apparently, Jade can’t remember too many things at once,” he says with a smile. “She couldn’t remember our names, but she remembered thosetowns.”
“That’s Jade!” I feel like I say that a lot. Jade’s auniquegirl.
“I think she knows our names now, but the nicknames seemed to stick around after she called us by those names for the first two weeks shewashere.”
I look over at Jade, and I think she may be sleeping sitting upright. Her hands are holding her head up, at least, but she might be passed out too. I’ll leave her be for aminute.
“And how did youallmeet?”
“Well, Jared and I are brothers, and Jade works next door to us,”Calesays.
“Oh, so do you two live together?” I ask, looking over at Jared who seems quiet as he texts on hisphone.
“I’m sort of crashing with Jared and his wife for thesummer.”
“Sort of crashing, sort of cramping our style,” Jared pipes in without looking up from his phone. “Same thing, though, right, Cale?” I can tell Jared is the dryer of the twobrothers.
Cale stands up from the rock he’s sitting on and pulls his phone out of his pocket. Glancing at the display for a brief second, he hits the speaker button and holds the phone in front of his mouth. “Dude, where have you been allnight?”
“The usual,” the guy on the other end of the phone answers. “Working.”
“Yeah, yeah,”Calesays.
“Oh, well,” the guy utters. “Oh, hey, uh, is Jade with you guystonight?”
Cale leans forward to look around me. “Yeah, she’s drunk, but her friend just arrived, so we’re keeping her company while Jade quietly remains passed out Jade style, on the rocks.” Jade on the rocks. If that’s not her new nickname here, it willbesoon.
“Is she out of control tonightbecauseI’m—”
“She’s a little tamer than normal,” Cale answers quickly as if he’s stopping his friend from sayinganymore.
“Is her friend just as crazy?” the guy on thephoneasks.
Cale eyeballs me, and his voice lowers to almost a whisper. “She’s right here, man, and you’re on speaker, so ...” Cale glances back up at me with an awkward smile as I hear Jared snickerbehindhim.
“Moron,” Jaredmutters.
