In back of the bar, the gang had managed to shove a few tables together, and they were squeezed in around them, two seats left conveniently free for Adam and Jo to slip into. He draped his arm over the back of Jo’s chair and grabbed a menu to share. While they looked it over, a waitress in cutoffs and a bikini top came by to take their orders.
Jared called for a round of shots, and Adam gave him a look.
“It’s our last time out,” Jared said. “Live a little.”
Jo seemed game enough. “I’m in.”
They put in the rest of their orders. A couple of minutes later, eight tiny glasses appeared, all full of amber liquid. Adam took a whiff of his and sucked in a whistle. They weren’t messing around. He lifted it up, and the others did the same. Carol asked, “So what are we drinking to?”
Everyone looked around. When no one spoke, Adam raised his shot higher. His throat bobbed. “To the best summer ever.”
It was a cheesy, easy thing to say. The kind of sappy crap that came with their time running out.
But fuck him if there, in that moment, it didn’t feel true.
They all met in the middle to clink their glasses. He tipped the liquor to his mouth and gulped it down, then shook his head against the burn.
Quiet descended over the table like a realization. This was really it. Their last hurrah.
Adam’s stomach sank.
“Kind of hard to believe, huh?” Carol said. “Feels like we just got here, and in a few days we’ll all be home.”
“For certain definitions of it.” Jo rolled her empty glass between her fingers, and Adam rubbed her shoulder.
A few of the others chimed in with where they were heading next, how they were spending the remaining week or two before the semester began.
Jared set his shot glass down with a thunk. “Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t fucking wait.”
“Excuse you?” It made something hot like betrayal rise up in Adam’s throat at the idea that anyone could be eager to go.
“I’m sorry. It’s been a good time and all. Maybe not the ‘best summer ever,’”—he made little finger quotes—“but sure, good. But I want to go home. I’m gonna get there and drive my car anywhere I want and eat like a million cheeseburgers and hit on waitresses who understand what I’m saying because they speak freaking English. Then I’m gonna crank my AC until I blow a fuse. Home is awesome, and I can’t wait to go back.”
“I’ll miss you, too, asshole,” Kim said, jabbing him with her elbow. Her tone was mostly playful. Mostly.
“Of course I’ll miss you guys,” Jared said it to the table as a whole. “But don’t you miss your friends back home?”
“Sure,” Adam started. “But…” His words trailed off. Because Adam did miss his parents and his brothers and everyone. But not as much as he was going to miss…
Jo stared at the center of the table like she could burn a hole in the wood with her eyes.
Adam’s hunger disappeared, his interest in anything except that time alone with her vanishing. He put his hand over hers, wanting to say something. Drag her away somewhere.
Then Kim said, “Well, you won’t have to miss me for long. When I come visit you—”
And Jared laughed. Right out loud. In her face.
Jesus Christ.
“What the hell is so funny?”
Jared didn’t seem to understand what he’d just stepped in. “You’re not coming to visit me.” He said it like it was a fact, something he’d already decided.
“Like hell I’m not.”
Finally, Jared sat up a little straighter. “Babe. We said from the beginning.”
“I know what the hell we said. But that was before . . . before . . .” Kim sputtered. Her face went pale.
“Babe? Kim?”
Kim tossed her napkin down and stalked out of the restaurant.
The table went silent again for all of half a second. Adam could have smacked himself. Or better yet, Jared. “Go after her, you idiot.”
“But my burger’s still coming.”
“I’ll go.” Jo of all people stood up.
Adam tried not to look too surprised. “Jo?”
She touched his shoulder. “Have them pack my stuff if I’m not back, okay?”
He wanted to question her again. But instead he nodded. “Okay.”
What the hell was Jo’s life?
She’d come to this island a veritable fortress of solitude, and now here she was, walking away from her overly concerned boyfriend to chase after a girl who, improbably enough, had actually become her friend. Not that it was entirely altruistic. Jared and Kim and Adam and she were the only ones who’d paired off this summer. They were the only ones really going through this kind of thing right now. The chance to talk about it with someone who understood… Well, that was why normal people had friends, wasn’t it?
By the time Jo chased her down, Kim had crossed the street. She was bent half over, her arms braced on the railing looking out over the beach below. Jo slowed. “Hey.”
Kim flinched, glancing over at her. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah. That’s what I say when I stalk away from all of my friends, too.”
Kim snorted at that, facing the water again. Jo didn’t offer anything else. She crossed to stand beside her, turning to lean her ass against the railing. A couple of quiet moments passed.
It was weird to see Kim like this. Jo and Adam’s relationship had been fraught with all this turmoil, while things between Jared and Kim had seemed so much simpler, at least from the outside.
“That time at the grocery store.” Jo paused, staring across the street at the restaurant where everybody else was probably sitting around talking about them. “You made it sound like it was casual.”
Kim chuckled sourly. “It was. We said it at the outset. We were just two people having a good time, no strings.” She finally looked over at Jo again. “He was such a dick when I met him, you know?”
“He still kind of is.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know him. There’s a lot more underneath. God.” She pushed her hair back from her face. “It was one of the best parts. He was a jerk, so staying casual was easy. No way I could get invested. Stupid me.”
Sounded nice. From their very first not-quite-kiss, Jo and Adam had been in way too deep. “What changed?”
“Everything. He’s just—he’s not like that when it’s the two of us. Not anymore.”
Jo chewed on her lip ring for a minute. “You really think you could make it work? After we leave?”
“Hell if I know. But the idea of not at least trying…”
“But if you try and it all falls apart…” Because this was the thing that had been killing her. “Wouldn’t it be better, in a way? Ending it before it goes to shit?”
Having something to hang on to. One good thing, one good memory. Didn’t Jo deserve that?
“But can you imagine it?” Kim raised her gaze toward the sky. “Never talking to him again? Not even a chance of getting to kiss him again?”
No. Jo couldn’t.
Kim smiled sadly. “Me neither.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Yell at him, mostly. He’ll either come to see it my way or he won’t.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then I guess it’ll have ended and gone to shit, too.”
Jo’s heart squeezed.
Across the street, a figure emerged from the restaurant. Jo squinted, but there wasn’t all that much question as to who it was; she’d recognize those shoulders anywhere. She waved at Adam, and he headed over, a plastic bag in his hand.
“You have no idea how you look at him, do you?”
Jo jerked her head to Kim. “I—What?”
But Kim just patted her shoulder. “Good luck.”
“Do I need it?”
“Tonight? I’m pretty sure we both do.” Kim turned to Adam as he approached. “Is the asshole still in there?”