“That’s a good idea,” she said, despite herself. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Excellent. I’ll be at the party tonight. I’m looking forward to seeing what you put together.” He squeezed her shoulder
After he left, Sarah stood there for a moment, letting the frustration wash over her. Then she pulled out her phone and texted Lizzie: “Need you at the pool deck. Now.”
Lizzie appeared ten minutes later in shorts that showed off the tan she was getting. Her legs were long and smooth and for a glorious second, she imagined what it might be like to...
No!
She wasn’t going to think that. That way lay trouble.
Lizzie looked nervous. “Is something wrong?”
“We’re making some changes to tonight’s party.”
“Okay. What kind of changes?”
Sarah hated every word that came out of her mouth next. “You mentioned TikTok dances and viral cocktails or mocktails. Tell me more.”
Lizzie’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”
“The board thinks we need to update our approach. Presumably you know what college students want to do at a party.”
“Right. Okay.” Lizzie pulled out her phone and started scrolling. “So there are like five or six dances that are trendingright now. If we set up a big screen by the DJ booth and play the videos on a loop, people can learn the moves and film themselves doing them. Or we could create different stations around the pool, one for each dance.”
“Stations.”
“Yeah. Like themed areas. One for the Sunset Groove dance, one for the Beach Vibe one, that kind of thing. People move between them, film content, post it with the hotel hashtag. That’s if we have time to set up screens. We could set up laptops to show the dances and…”
Sarah watched her talk, watched the way she got animated when she was explaining something she cared about.
“And the drinks?” Sarah asked.
“There’s this one called Electric Sunset that’s everywhere right now. It’s layered, looks really cool in photos. We could serve that alongside the regular drinks. Make it Instagram-worthy.”
“Instagram-worthy.”
“Trust me, half of spring break is about the content you can post. If we give them something visually interesting, they’ll eat it up.”
Sarah considered. It went against everything she’d been doing. But Stavros was right. She needed this party to be successful.
“Fine. We’ll do it. I’ll talk to the DJ and the crew. See if they can do it in short order. Send me the TikTok videos. And the mocktail recipe.”
“On it.” Lizzie was already typing on her phone.
They spent the next two hours transforming the pool deck. Sarah called the bar manager and explained the new mocktail. Lizzie helped arrange the stations around the pool, marking each one with a small sign indicating which dance it featured. They dances would be shown on laptops.
“This one should be by the waterfall,” Lizzie said, moving a sign. “Better lighting for videos.”
Sarah followed her over. The waterfall feature was on the north end of the pool, water cascading over decorative rocks. It would photograph well. They both reached for the sign at the same time. Their hands brushed. Sarah inhaled sharply. Lizzie’s skin was soft, smooth just as she’d imagined.
She made herself pull back. “Sorry.”
“No problem.” Lizzie secured the sign and moved to the next station.
It happened again twenty minutes later when they were adjusting the placement of a table. Fingers touching for just a second. Sarah felt the contact like electricity running up her arm.
This was ridiculous. She was a thirty-five-year-old widow. She could handle accidentally touching someone without having a reaction.
