Therefore, I had no choice but to deflect the compliment. “Fuck off.” But I smiled as I said it, which only made him grin bigger as I walked out the door.

Katherine

I wish I could’ve called Tori, but my drama could wait until she came home. Until then, I marched my ass up the stairs and went straight to Dee’s place next to Beachy Bride. Out of the five bungalows, only two were businesses. The other three were your basic beach cottage: blue weatherboards, small porch with white railings, and awesome stable-style front doors. Dee told me they were actually called Dutch doors, but it reminded me of a stable, so I went with that.

She saw me approach and called from her kitchen window, “It’s open.”

When I sat down at the little round table, I laid it on her. “I’m having drama-overload.”

Dee turned around with a pot of tea and made her way to the table. She’d spent a few years in England, and the tea habit, along with her unwillingness to commit to Frodo, seemed to be souvenirs…as well as her boring breakfast. She ate the same thing every day: wheat toast with Danish butter and orange marmalade, imported English tea with milk and two sugars. She argued it had way more caffeine and flavor than coffee. Sometimes she cooked what she called a “hot breakfast” on Sunday morning, but I suspected that was something she only did for Frodo if he spent the night.

Whatever.

I tried to talk to her about him, about the guy who fucked her over in London, but she gave nothing. I knew when Tori tried that route with me, even though she was gentle about it, any push made me retreat, and I didn’t want to do that to Dee. She was a new friend; we’d known each other just over a year, but you know when you meet someone who’s a keeper. I didn’t want to fuck that up.

“So.” She poured tea into a delicate, pale pink tea cup with matching saucer. “Tell me about your drama.”

“I’m sorry to dump on you, Dee. I just need some feedback.”

“I’m happy to listen. You know that,” she scoffed, but she did it good-naturedly. Poor Dee. I hated that I felt sorry for her since, I think, a lot of times, people create their own drama. But she just didn’t seem to be able to bounce back, and I hated that for her. She was a cool chick, absolutely beautiful, and I could tell that Frodo, if he wasn’t already, wanted to fall in love with her.

“Well…” I almost forgot about the message on my phone. I decided to ignore it and powered on. “Goya…well, we’ll just call him Mark from now on since he is past-tense and that right there releases me from having to worry about his sensitive, little feelings.”

“You broke up with him?” She asked, trying to hide her relief.

“We had words. I bagged his…art. He bagged me. Sayonara, sailor.” I waved.

“Are you okay?” Dee was one of those girls who didn’t need a stitch of make-up. And just then, as she looked at me with sympathetic, pale blue eyes and fair skin, I was a little jealous.

Whore.

“I won’t bore you with the details—”

“You can though…bore me with the details,” she offered.

“Nah. Not even worth repeating it was so…stupid. He’s tried to apologize, but whatever. I’m done.” Two texts already asking for my forgiveness. Nope, no, and no way.

“I’m bracing myself for the next chapter of drama because that seemed a little ‘drama-lite’,” she said.

“Yeah.” I chuckled for a brief, peaceful moment and took a sip of my coffee. I looked around the place, which Nico apparently used to live in, and when all was calm, I slammed her with, “Oh, I almost forgot. I saw Holst naked this morning.”

“Pardon?” The word seemed to be stuck in her throat, kinda like my bagel earlier.

“He’d come in from a surf or something. I saw the wetsuit on the floor. And Dee…Dee, dude, you have no idea.”

I closed my eyes at the memory and decided it was just best to keep them open.

“I require a full description,” she demanded, never taking her eyes off of me as she refilled her tea cup.

“Thick brown hair, damp…brown skin…everywhere…gotta find out his ethnicity...lean, but strong, definitely fit…no tattoos on the front of his body, but I know he has them on his legs; I just haven’t had a decent look yet. Hair on his chest, but not, you know, gross shag carpet or anything.”

“A man,” she sighed.

“God. Damn. Yes.” I laughed, and Dee laughed with me.

“Keep going.” She grinned.

“Right…the roadmap to rigid and pure male glory? In one word, perfection.” I lifted my hands to the heavens like I was at a tent revival, and declared, “Can I hear an amen?”

When I heard nothing from my friend, I looked and saw she was blushing.

“Dee?” I asked, a tease in my voice, because I could tell she had a secret, and that secret had to do with cock. “Tell me.”

She shook her head and stared into her cup, her face now flaming.

Then I tried a different approach. “I never pry, because I know you don’t want me to. But when it comes to cock, I gotta know.”

She covered her face, but couldn’t hide her grin that reached the back of her head, it was so wide, and confessed on a whisper, “Huge.”

“Baby’s arm, pepper mill, can of air freshener? I mean, how big are we talking here?”

She licked her lips, pulled them between her teeth a few times, and finally said, “I think the first time I could finally take all of him, we’d been trying for over a week. He had to…prepare me.”

I sat back in my chair, a little stunned at this revelation. “Dee…you’ve been holding out on us.”

“I know,” she admitted. “It’s…I’m not ready to make it more than it is, and you being the…” she trailed off.

“Me being the what?” I returned, not really sure what she meant by that.

“Well, you’re more of a free spirit than I am. You’d tell me to go for it, jump in with my eyes closed.”

“And your legs wide open.” I laughed.

She decided she was done being the focus. “So, Holst is…endowed?”

“Yes, ma’am. I mean, not John Holmes huge because, you know, too much of a good thing for me, but he got a semi while I was staring at him. I couldn’t help it.”

I listened to Dee giggle for a minute and drank the remainder of my now-cold coffee. That was when I delivered my last bit of drama.

“I also got a text from my mom. Apparently, my parents are coming to town for an engagement party.” I sprinkled tidbits about my parents now and then. My dad was a controlling asshole who wanted a son, got a daughter, and never let me forget it. And my mom was his servant who seemed to forget she even had a daughter.

“When?” she asked, sobering at this news, because she knew, from the little I’d shared about them, I wanted to be as far away from my parents as possible.

“Just after Christmas, I think. Apparently there’s this huge cocktail party the night before, and then New Year’s Day they leave on this engagement cruise with the families to Catalina. That was all I got from the text my mom sent. But the thing freaking me out?”

“The café,” she guessed and guessed right. I shared my dad’s views on my dream.

“Yeah. Although, according to Holst, it’s gonna be a coffee shop. He’s pretty firm on that. We are never to call it a café.” I rolled my eyes, but it was all for show. “Anyway, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to hide the fact I went halvsies on a business subsidized by them.”

“Then don’t,” she said firmly.

“I don’t think you get it, Dee. My dad…he can be…”

“You’re a grown woman. You’ve worked hard for someone else. Now you’re going to work hard for yourself. According to Frodo, Holst knows what he’s doing. He’s capable of opening a business on his own, but he chose to have a partner, and further, he chose you.”