“Ooohh… let me. Right.” Becca thought for a moment. “They don’t want anyone to see them. She keeps glancing towards the door but she’s into him. He’s trying to make the most of it… look at his hands.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’ve got it. She’s got a boyfriend but he’s not here this week. Her friends are. The guy knows she’s got a boyfriend and wants to make the most of it. And she wants to too, maybe going home tomorrow, make the most of it. I’d say fifty-fifty whether they sleep together.”
“You’re good,” Ellie admitted. “Too good.”
Becca beamed. “Professional therapist. Basically makes me a mind reader.”
“Though we’re assuming you’re right. To prove the hypothesis we need to go and ask them…”
“Be my guest.” Becca looked over at a mixed group sat a few tables over. “Your turn. How about them?”
It was twenty minutes later that two women approached their table, both carrying drinks, both looking over their shoulders ata group of guys near the bar who were watching them with the hopeful expressions of golden retrievers who'd spotted a treat.
"Hi, this is going to sound weird," said the first one, "but can we sit with you? Those guys have been trying to buy us drinks since the beach and if we have to hear one more time about how they're going to be investment bankers we're going to commit a crime."
"Please, sit," Becca said, gesturing to the empty chairs. "We've been there."
“Thank you. Oh my God, thank you.” The second woman dropped into her chair like she’d just escaped a hostage situation. “I’m Alexa, this is Mia.”
"Becca. And this is Ellie."
Ellie took a moment to look at their new companions. Mia was beautiful. Shoulder-length dark hair, brown eyes, the kind of face that didn’t need makeup to look good. She was wearing the obligatory bikini top and denim shorts, and she had the build of someone who did something athletic seriously… strong shoulders, defined arms, she looked sporty.
"You are lifesavers,” Alexa said. She was a little taller than Mia, with long bleach-blonde hair, blue eyes, and a tan that looked like it had been her main goal since day one of spring break. Same athletic build, same effortless beauty, same air of being entirely aware of how good she looked. "I swear the guys get younger every year. I'm twenty-two, not forty. I shouldn't feel like a cougar."
"Senior year?" Ellie asked.
"That obvious?" Mia laughed. "Yeah, last spring break. We thought it would be this amazing victory lap and honestly? We peaked on like day two. Now we're just tired and sunburned and over it."
"We hooked up with some guys earlier in the week," Alexa added, not remotely shy about it at all. "That was fun for about five minutes. Literally five minutes in one case." She and Mia exchanged a look and dissolved into laughter.
"Five minutes is generous," Mia added.
"I was being kind. It was barely one."
They were fun. Ellie liked them immediately despite, or maybe because of, the slight arrogance that came off them both. These were two women who knew that they were the prettiest people in most rooms they walked into. It wasn't obnoxious, just something that was a given for them. They were used to being wanted, used to choosing rather than being chosen, and the spring break environment, where they were clearly at the top of whatever hierarchy existed among the college crowd in terms of both looks and seniority, seemed on the surface to have amplified that self-assurance even further. On the surface, but as they talked, deep down, Ellie recognised it as something else… a realisation that they’d outgrown this all.
“Where are you from?” Becca asked.
“I’m Atlanta,” Mia said. “She’s Mississippi. We’re at Georgia, both seniors. Volleyball.”
“That explains the arms,” Ellie said, grinning.
“These?” Mia flexed, grinning back. “Years of suffering. Totally worth it. Where are you at school?”
“We graduated a few years ago.”
Mia’s eyebrows went up. “Wait, really? How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
Mia looked at Alexa. “Twenty-five. Actual adults.”
“Wow.” Alexa looked at them with renewed interest. “You’re the oldest people we’ve talked to all week who aren’t trying to sell us something or sleep with us.”
“The night is young,” Ellie said, and Becca kicked her under the table.
