“Come on,” he prods, gesturing her to follow him. “You’ll like the taco, I promise.”

“I probably will,” she says, “but that still doesn’t mean I should eat it.”

Melissa clutches Ryke’s hand and begins to pull him towards the outside grill behind a set of palm trees. “She doesn’t want a taco,” she says, tugging him like a child would a parent. “Let’s go.”

Ryke’s jaw locks, and I think he would try to convince Daisy until she relented, but not with Melissa yanking his arm. So he leaves with that failure. Ryke inserting himself in other people’s problems is nothing new. I’m not surprised that he would take interest in Daisy’s diet, one that she maintains only to please her mother—I’ve known that since she started modeling.

 Connor holds a mojito low in his hand and watches Melissa disappear behind the palm trees with Ryke. “He’s going to regret bringing her.”

“He already does,” I say. I didn’t think being around alcohol would affect me as much. My attention zones in on the plastic cup, and it takes a great deal of energy to concentrate on other things. Like my brother’s sex life, not that I particularly care about it.

“What’d you do last year for Spring Break?” Connor asks.

I strain my mind and shake my head. “I can’t remember.” I’m sure I spent my nights at a bar while Lily fucked other guys. Our old routine. It’s all so hazy, even trying to crawl back through the memories is like walking through fog. “Probably something stupid,” I mutter under my breath.

Connor takes the hint and doesn’t prod. “If it makes you feel any better, my last three Spring Breaks were in Japan trying to convince angel investors to capitalize in Cobalt Inc.”

I let out a short laugh. “Now I just feel like an underachieving loser.”

“I tried,” he says with a casual smile.

Rose swims over to us and she elbows me in the ribs.

“Hello, Rose,” I say with a grimace.

She points to our lounge chairs where Lily lies.

“Do you see what she’s reading?” Rose asks me, not even slurring yet.

I frown and study Lily. Sure enough, in her hands is a Cosmo magazine. “Where did she get that?”

“Daisy probably bought it from the airport.”

“Is she not allowed to read trashy magazines?” Connor asks.

Rose tilts her head like he asked a stupid question. “Not ones that describe sexual positions and have romance stories in the back.”

I raise my eyes at him. “You’ve never read Cosmo before?”

“I never needed to know the top fifty ways to pleasure a man.”

I splash him, and he lets out a laugh, and I actually smile. I swim to the ledge, knowing full well that if I had whiskey today, nothing would have stopped me from uttering a biting response. And for once, I truly feel like I achieved something.

I hop out of the pool. Lily doesn’t even see me coming, too immersed in a dirty magazine.

5 Sex Toys Perfect for Traveling. My little bullet vibrator survived the bellhop-impersonator-thief since I stowed it in my purse, but there’s a slim chance I’ll be using it anytime this week.

Vibrating panties even made it on the list. I have those too (back home), but I never actually tried them out. I flip the page and land on the sex tips from guys. Some make me laugh, while others are actually helpful. I skim the list and smile at the advice from Brett, 24. “Wet your lips. Then tell me you can’t wait to taste me.”  Thank you, Brett for making it seem like girls have to give blow jobs to please a guy. Not true. In fact, if I didn’t like giving Lo head, I wouldn’t do it.

“Hey.”

I jump a little at the voice and press the magazine to my chest, flushing in a rosy shade. I relax when I see it’s Lo, dripping wet in his swimsuit. I try to focus on his face and not his body, but even the striking jaw and dark, wet hair looks extremely sexy right now.

I lick my bottom lip and say, “I can’t wait to taste you.”

He narrows his eyes, not amused, and grabs the magazine from me. My shoulders slacken as his eyes flit over the page. They roll dramatically when he reads Brett’s advice. Lo folds the magazine in his hand and sits down on the foot of the lounge chair. I realize I’m probably not going to be getting that Cosmo back.

“It’s not porn,” I defend immediately.

“You still shouldn’t read it. You’re trying to go a day without thinking about sex, and flipping through a magazine that highlights the ten best ways to go down on someone is not going to help.”

I just nod, and then my eyes drift to Ryke who walks back towards our area with an aluminum foil wrapped taco. He licks his fingers, so I assume he already ate one on the way here. Melissa says something, and she leaves his side, heading back to the hotel room. It’s strange that she would ditch him when she’s made it clear that he’s the only reason she’s withstanding the rest of us.

My gaze drifts to the bright pink mankini that leaves nothing to the imagination. He fills it out too well. One wrong move and everything may just pop out. “That kind of backfired, didn’t it?” I say to Lo with a smile.

Lo places a hand on my bare calf, which sends tingles down my spine. Even the simplest touch right now, I covet. “How was I supposed to know he was so comfortable in a banana hammock?” Lo says loud enough for Ryke to hear when he approaches. “We’ve only been brothers for four months.”

“We’ve been brothers for twenty-one years,” Ryke refutes. He sits on the pool ledge beside our chair, sticking his feet into the water. “You only knew about me four months ago.”

“And that’s supposed to make me like you more?”

Ryke flashes a dry smile and nods to the magazine in Lo’s hand. “Beach reading?”

Lo tosses the magazine on the wet cement beside Ryke. “Here, maybe you can learn how to go down on Melissa. She seems incredibly displeased by you.”

“I can lick her just fine. That’s not why she’s mad.”

I tear my eyes off the hand that Lo keeps planted on my ankle. I would like, dearly, for his fingers to run up to my thigh. Especially after all this sex talk. “Why is she upset?”

“Same reason you are.”

“She’s a sex addict too?” I say brightly. I’m not the only one out there. Wow, that feels good.

“No, she’s just a normal horny girl.”

Oh, damn. My shoulders droop.

Lo starts rubbing my calf. That feels even better. I sink against the back of the chair, relaxing. Lo scrolls through his cell phone for a moment, and I watch as Ryke motions to Daisy in the pool without calling her name.

She swims over to his spot by the pool wall, and since he sits out of the water, he towers above her and hunches slightly to look down at Daisy. He holds the taco out to her.

She sets her empty cup beside the sopping magazine. “I thought you said I could only have a taco if I went with you.”

“I’m making an exception.”

Her eyes flicker between the taco and Ryke, and I don’t like where this is headed. It reminds me of the time where he tempted her with a piece of chocolate cake. She ate it, but only after a string of inappropriate events. Lo didn’t see that. And he’s too focused on his phone to look up and watch Daisy and Ryke.

But maybe…maybe it’s all in my head. I mean, my thoughts circumnavigate to sex all the time. Maybe these past three months without Lo, their time together has been innocent and not as bad as I believed. And I do want Daisy to eat that taco.

“What will you do for me if I eat that?” Daisy asks, a scheming smile lifting her lips.

“We’re bargaining now?”

She swims a little closer to him, her shoulders the same height as his knees. “It’s only fair. You want me to do something. So I think I should get something in return.”

“You get the nutrients of this fucking taco,” he tells her. “That’s a win-win.”