Page 28

When I’m finally okay, I turn to go back inside only to discover Six has my ID.

The doorman won’t budge, even when I tell him I was just inside and that my boyfriend has it. “Then your boyfriend can bring it to you,” he says. “No ID, no entry.”

As much as I love not being recognized, it had its benefits.

I pull out my phone and attempt to call Six, and when that fails, I text him. There’s no answer, of course. He’ll see it eventually.

I sink onto the nearest bench and scroll on my phone, opening a text from an unknown number which I’m strangely thrilled to discover is from Josh. I have his number now, I think. It feels like a gift, one I’m likely to abuse.

Are you guys okay? You missed dinner and my mom is worried. Please reply if you see this.

Fucking Six. He said he’d call them. I told him to call them. I wish I’d never come out tonight. I’d honestly have had more fun with Beth and Jim, even with Josh and Sloane. Okay, maybe not “fun” but if I’d just stayed, I wouldn’t have spent the past hours begging to go to bed, and I wouldn’t feel like I’m about to throw up.

Sorry, I reply. It’s all I can manage at the moment.

Suddenly the phone in my hand starts ringing. That same unknown number. Josh’s number.

“Hey,” I whisper. I wish we were sitting by the pool watching the sun come up. I wish he was sitting on this bench beside me.

“Where are you guys?” he asks. He sounds worried, not mad. I don’t know why that makes me want to cry.

“I’m stuck outside this club,” I tell him. “Six has my ID and they won’t let me back in.”

“And you’re sitting outside on the street?” he asks. Now he sounds mad, but it’s just because he has some weird belief that I’m fragile. I spent the three years after I dropped out of school sleeping on people’s floors or at the train station. Sitting outside in Waikiki is child’s play compared to life back then.

“I texted him,” I say, closing my eyes. “It’s fine. He’ll get me in a second or I’ll Uber back.”

“Are you drunk?” he asks. I hear a zipper and wonder if he’s undressing. For a moment, I picture him pulling off his shorts and it has the well-worn quality of something I’ve pictured before. I see abs like artwork, that fine trail of hair leading to boxer briefs.

Jesus, Drew, I can’t believe you noticed his happy trail with that level of specificity. “Bad Drew,” I say aloud.

“I don’t know if that’s a yes or no,” he says.

I blink. “To what?”

“Never mind. Your inability to string words together answers my question. Where are you?”

He sounds slightly breathless, distracted. I wonder if he’s asking me all this while he’s getting busy with Sloane. That is not an appealing thought. “I can’t really picture Sloane having sex,” I tell him. She seems like she’d demand all surfaces be wiped down with bleach or ammonia before commencing, perhaps run a few quick labs to make sure they’re both disease-free.

“Drew,” he repeats, sterner now. “Where the fuck are you?”

I lean forward to look at the well-lit sign above me, and nearly fall off the bench in doing so. “The Tik Hut.” I look again and realize one of the ‘i’s isn’t lighting up. “Tiki Hut. I just want a glass of water. They won’t even let me get a glass of water. This is America. I should be able to get water.”

He’s preoccupied, talking to someone. I sit, listening to the sounds he makes—his deep voice, a car door shutting, the seatbelt warning. I bet wherever he is the air isn’t quite so muggy. I bet there’s a bottle of water. I bet if I’d come here with him, he’d have been worried when I didn’t return. He’d have looked for me.

“So tell me what happened,” he says gently.

“Happened with what?” I ask. I’m going to be too hungover to run tomorrow. And it might be our last chance.

“Focus, Drew,” he says. “What happened tonight? Why did you guys blow off dinner? I’d expect it of Joel, but not you.”

“Because I called my sister-in-law a cunt,” I whisper.

To my surprise, he laughs. “You did what?”

“I called my sister-in-law a cunt. But she is one. She’s such a cunt, Josh, you would not believe.”

He laughs again. “So you decided to blow off my parents and go on a wild drinking spree because you used the word cunt? No offense, but I pictured you as someone who’d say that word fairly regularly, and with ease.”