Page 201 of Hot Mess
“Good morning,” she practically sang.
“What’s in the bags?” I asked her. She had three big shopping bags full of stuff at her feet.
“Never you mind,” she said, with that smile on her face. She bent to pick them up and I got a sweet view down the front of her dress.
I moved in and took the bags from her, and led her over to Dylan’s luxury ride, the Dirty Deed.
“The boat’s not mine,” I informed her as we got in. “It’s Dylan’s.”
“Cool,” she said, looking around.
The sun was beating down, but we had a nice mix of sun and shade in the boat. I stashed the bags and grabbed a cider for her from the cooler I’d brought. Strongbow. I cracked it open and handed it over to her, which got me another smile.
“Oh my God, thank you!” she said, like I’d just handed her a fistful of hundreds, or the world’s cutest puppy or something.
I cracked myself a soda water—I was responsible like that, when I needed to be—and tapped my drink to hers. I watched her take a long pull, her lips wrapped around the mouth of the bottle.
Then I put on some music. Obviously, if I was gonna bother with Dylan’s luxury boat instead of my own non-luxurious one, I was gonna take advantage of every possible perk that might make Danica happy.
Not that Danica Vola seemed like the kind of girl who’d fuck a guy for playing the right song for her on a boat, but I really wasn’t gonna risk it if she was.
I turned it up, and when she heard the start of Empire of the Sun’s “Walking On a Dream,” she knew I was playing her playlist.
She smiled at me, yet again. And yes, I felt pretty fucking good about it.
I might’ve also sent her playlist to Summer just for the hell of it, and Summer might’ve told me she loved it, just like I figured she would.
On her musical tastes alone, I approve, were her exact words.
I liked the playlist, too. It was mostly a mix of alternative and pop, with a definite new wave bent, most of it stuff I’d never really listened to. But she had a good ear. She’d put thought into it, and clearly her tastes reached beyond whatever happened to be on the radio.
For me, that was a huge turn-on. No way I could really hang with someone, for any length of time, who wasn’t genuinely into music.
We settled in, and the ride across the water was decently smooth. When we got to Isabella Island, I pulled up to the dock Dylan and I shared, just south of the northeast point of the island. I helped Danica out, then tied off the boat as she stood by, watching me.
I tried not to stare as I helped her carry her three bags of whatever up to the house, along with the groceries I’d brought. But ladies first. I insisted on it, mostly so I could get a good look at her bare legs and the way the hem of her dress kept flirting with her thighs.
Fuck, she was sexy.
When we’d just barely started up the path, though, she stopped.
“Wow,” she said. Which was pretty much the first word out of everyone’s mouth when they saw Dylan Cope’s house for the first time. “Is that your place?”
I glanced at his roof, just visible above the high fence and trees above us. “Yeah. ’Cause I’m just rolling in platinum albums. I’ve got a gold-plated pool in the yard. Hope you brought a bikini. We can go for a dip before we drink all the Cristal.”
When utter silence greeted me, I glanced at the woman standing next to me. She hadn’t laughed at my joke, so I guessed the bitterness kinda glared through.
Dylan’s boat wasn’t the only thing that was better than mine.
Sometimes I was pretty sure I only kept my old boat to make a point about it. Like,Make no mistake, I’m just a regular guy.
Like I wasn’t even gonna try to compete with him or something.
“Um, I didn’t mean anything by that,” Danica said softly. “I’m sure your home is lovely, Ashley.”
Great. I’d made her feel bad.
You know, because I had small dick syndrome when it came to measuring my successes against my best friend’s.
