“Mom,” I warn. “I’m already her babysitter. I don’t need to be her therapist too.”
“I’m not asking you to be. Just saying be gentle with her. Listen to her if she brings it up instead of brushing it off.”
“Fine. I gotta go. Blake’s here.”
Her footsteps thud on the stairs, and she appears on the dock at the same time as I hear the rumble of a boat engine. Blake struts to the edge and raises her hand to wave at the approaching vessel.
“Annaliese and her friends are spending the day,” she tells me over her shoulder. “And before you throw a grumpy Graham fit, I told you about this two days ago, and you didn’t object.”
I watch as she jogs down to the pier and catches the rope that one of the dudes on board tosses her. Awesome. So much for a quiet writing day.
The new arrivals are annoying, but they bring some damn good weed. I split a joint with Kuri, who tells me he’s an engineering major at the University of Nevada andnota male model like I expect. Kid’s half Japanese and half Black and one of the best-looking dudes I’ve ever seen in my life.
Once I’m good and stoned, I stretch out in my usual lounge chair, sunglasses shielding my eyes. I doze in the sun while Kuri and the other two guys have a cannonball competition, repeatedly hurling themselves off the dock into the water.
Blake and Annaliese disappear into the house for what feels like forever, finally returning with a pitcher full of some fruity cocktail. They sip from hot-pink straws that my dad got Uncle Dean last year when they came up here to celebrate his birthday. For some inexplicable reason, they always buy Dean pink things. It’s an inside joke I don’t get or frankly need to be part of. That entire friend group is beyond help.
As I lie there, snippets of conversation keep wafting in my direction. Kuri seems cool, but his buddies are beyond sex-obsessed. Clay and Preston, because of course their names are Clay and Preston. Those are, like, the requisite pervy frat boy names.
Somehow, they manage to turn everything into a sex joke or double entendre. Annaliese and Blake just laugh it off. Kudos to them for being able to do that. I grew up around hockey players and have heard every type of locker room talk imaginable, but this Clay guy is starting to grate on me.
“So, like, she says she can’t come from penetration. Fine, whatever. But guess what, babe? There ain’t always time to go down on you for forty fucking minutes before we go to pound town.”
My fingers tighten around my beer.
“Dude, ifyourdick can’t make her come? Like that huge hog? There’s no hope for the rest of us.”
“Yours isn’t that bad,” Clay graciously tells Preston. “It’s above the national average.”
Why do these dudes know so much about each other’s dicks? It’s weird.
“But yeah, I’ve got a winning hog.” Clay snorts. “Liese can vouch for that.”
Annaliese gives him a shove, which has him jostling Blake mid-sip, spilling pinkish-orange slush on her chest.
She mops up her collarbone with the corner of her towel, then stands. “Does anyone want a refill of LMD?” It’s what she’s been calling the cocktail, which looks more like a slushie than an actual drink.
“Hey, freckles,” I call toward her. “Maybe go easy on the LMD?”
“Don’t,” she warns.
“Just saying. I’m the responsible adult here and—”
“You are not the adult, and you’re the furthest thing from responsible. Aren’t you the one who led the charge on the boathouse roof jumping contest last summer?”
“Wait, you guys can jump off that thing?” Preston shifts his gaze to the boathouse.
I nod absently. “Yeah. You don’t even need a running start.”
“New fun level unlocked,” Kuri says happily.
Even Annaliese brightens. “Oh, right! Eddie was telling me about that. He and the Golden Boys were trying to see who could jump closest to the swim platform.”
“Hundred bucks says it’s me,” Clay declares, shooting to his feet.
The others follow suit, but Annaliese hesitates then, glancing toward me. “You sure it’s cool?” she asks. At leastsomeoneis recognizing my authority here.
I sit up and scrutinize the group to gauge their level of intoxication. But I’ve only seen the guys consume one beer each, and Annaliese and Blake have barely finished their first round of Blake’s slushy monstrosity.
