“You’ll never not be our little girl!” Drea didn’t have to look at all their faces to know that was true. Her uncles had changed their lives around to make sure she was taken care of growing up and that she wanted for nothing. Their little family might have looked weird from the outside, but it worked just fine for them.
“Alright, so now that we’re all here, what’s everyone got?” Miller asked.
“There is a group of four blondes that I call trying to entice Dalton all night. He’ll flirt with all of them, but they’ll all be in their own beds tonight,” Drea said.
“I know the ones you’re talking about, and I’ll give you that, but I think this group of meatheads will try and catch some of his castoffs, so I see at least one drunken hookup between those two groups,” Vaughn interjected.
“Mr. and Mrs. Prage, that really old couple from Oregon—they’re gonna be the last ones standing,” Miller stated.
“Oh, you think?” Simone asked. Miller nodded confidently. “Well, I’m calling an explosive fight between that weird redhead couple. With at least one chair thrown.”
“Damn,” Vaughn muttered under his breath.
“Uncle Gray, you wanna place your bet?” Drea asked. They had started playing this game sometime when she was in high school, once she was old enough to really understand most of what was going down. They met up before the bonfire every week to place their bets, and then had breakfast the next morning to compare notes, and see who “won.” There wasn’t always a clear winner and/or loser, and really the idea was to simply be the least wrong. The more specific you got, the more chance you had at losing. Winners simply got bragging rights. Whoever was deemed to have lost, though, had to wear “the shirt.”
“The shirt” looked innocent enough to any bystander. It was a simple, if not fading after years of wear, heather-gray shirt that read “ask me about the bet I lost.” However, when you work in the service business and interact with guests all day, you inevitably were asked, constantly, about the bet you lost. And you couldn’t just answer “you didn’t get blind stinking drunk and puke on yourself like I thought,” now could you? So the loser was stuck making up a litany of different answers, since the rule was you couldn’t say the same thing twice unless it was the truth.
“Hmmmmm,” Grayson pondered. “We’re gonna see a staff hookup tonight.”
“With a guest, or something more incestuous?” Simone inquired.
“Nah, I’m gonna leave out specifics, but one of our staff is getting lucky tonight.”
“Dude, are you asking to wear the shirt? How are we gonna know?” Vaughn scoffed.
“I’m not sure I want to,” Drea inserted.
“Simone’s over here calling chairs being thrown. I’m not sure I’m gonna need to go in search of a used condom.”
“Ewwww, ew, ew, ew, ew ew!” Drea said, scrunching up her nose. Her uncles laughed at her reaction.
“You just keep thinking like that, baby girl,” Miller commented.
“And that’s why you’ll always be our little girl” Grayson added.
After the family each went their separate ways—Vaughn and Simone off to secure their favorite spot on the beach, Miller to go rearrange the s’mores bar, and Grayson off to wherever it was he ventured off to during the bonfire—Drea grabbed a seat at the bar to wait for either Leona or Kyle. She looked out at the guests starting to arrive, grabbing their spots by the fire or gathering s’mores ingredients. Hoping that she blended in with the crowd, she sipped on the drink the bartender had automatically set down in front of her. Being the owners’ kid had its privileges.
She watched as the group of four overly done-up, seemingly enhanced blondes from the boat arrived, umbrella drinks already in hand, clad in itty-bitty skirts (although that term was being generous) and their bikini tops. Each one seemed sexier than the last, with their long blonde hair, sparkling eyes, flat stomachs, and seriously generous busts. It was no wonder they had so much confidence, they were like walking mannequins. Just as she was about to turn away, she caught a glimpse of exactly what, or rather whom, she’d been looking for, heading right toward the hot blondes.
Drea was not the only one who had noticed him either, as the group of women turned toward Kyle and made their way in his direction. They were suddenly all smiles and giggles and hair flipping. The tallest of the four greeted him with a hug, which Kyle casually returned with only his right arm, trying to minimize full body contact. Since when did he hug guests? she wondered to herself. The three others followed suit and Kyle returned each hug, smiling broadly at each girl. Her stomach was tying itself in knots as she watched him stand there and chat, a new knot forming with each little giggle she heard escape from their lips. Just when she thought that maybe he might try to walk away, the music from the DJ picked up a little and “Candy,” as Drea had started to refer to her in her head, the blonde who initiated the hugging, grabbed Kyle’s hands and dragged him to a less-crowded area to dance.
Pulling him close and throwing her arms around his neck, “Candy” giggled as she started to move her hips in time with the music. The song the DJ was playing wasn’t overly slow, but also didn’t have some harsh bass beat behind it. In fact, it was the perfect mid-tempo song to simply rock back and forth to while holding another person. Drea’s stomach dropped as she sat there, waiting for Kyle to pull away from the girl. She slid her eyes back to the friends left behind, who all stood there also watching the couple, whispering among themselves. She looked back over at Kyle and found him smiling. This was not his polite customer service smile, but rather his actual smile—the one that made her insides melt, the one that she had always thought was reserved just for her. He spun the girl as they continued to move to the beat and they both laughed at something she said in response to his spin. Tears started to form in the corners of her eyes and Drea thought she was going to throw up. She needed to get out of there.
She quickly slid off the barstool and turned to go. She wasn’t sure exactly where she’d go, but anywhere where she didn’t have to witness her nightmare play out and feel her heart shatter would be just fine. As she turned to walk away, she smacked right into a wall. A six-foot, four-inch Dalton-shaped wall.
“Whoa there, sugar, where you off to so fast?” Dalton asked her, grabbing on to her upper arms to steady her.
She looked down quickly and shook her head, trying to rid herself of the tears that were forming. She didn’t want Dalton to see her upset. She didn’t want to have to explain herself. “Nowhere, just headed inside.”
“How about you look at me when you say that?” She looked up at him, hoping that she could hide the fact that she was dying inside.
“Just headed inside, Dalton. Let me go, ‘kay?”
“Not until you tell me what’s wrong,” he said. She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off. “And don’t you dare bother telling me nothing is the matter. A) the bonfire is your most favorite thing, like ever, and you never miss it, even when you’re sick. And B) I spend pretty much all day, every day with you. I know your facial expressions better than you think.”
“Is that so? Then what does mine say right now?” she challenged him.
“Right now your face is telling me to go the fuck away, but your eyes are screaming heartbreak.”
