Status Update (13 page)

Kristen snorted, walking over to look at the structure. It stood nearly eight feet high and was painted in vivid colors with a spray-painted sign that did indeed declare it was a Topless Lifeguard Stand.

“Is this thing built to code? Looks a little rickety to me. I don’t want to have to represent your ass in court when someone climbs up there and it collapses.”

Jason leaned back and took a long swig of his beer. “That thing is solid. You wait. Few more hours of tailgating and we’ll have a line of hot young chicks fighting to get on it.” Jason gestured to Bryan. “You might wanna grab a chair and claim a good spot now for the show.”

Laura laughed when Kristen shook her head. “You are king of the male chauvinist pigs.”

“Have another beer, Kris. Might help you lighten up.” Jason held out his hands as if he’d just delivered them all to paradise. “After all, it’s Buffett. Anything can happen.”

The afternoon passed in a blur of loud music, laughter, drinking, eating and…much to Jason’s delight and Kristen’s chagrin, flashing.

Laura was amazed by the sheer madness of the day. Everyone around her seemed to have shed every single inhibition they possessed, giving themselves over to the music, the moment, the magic of the place.

“I wanna go up on the lifeguard stand,” Georgie said, tugging on Laura’s arm. “Come with me.”

Laura was pleasantly tipsy, but not enough to get up on that stand. Most of the girls who’d climbed up throughout the day had been young college girls with very perky breasts. Laura imagined this was what Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale was like. It was fun, but certainly made her feel her age. “No thanks.”

“Please. Think about it. This fits in perfectly with your plan to do all the crazy things you never did when you were younger.”

Laura shook her head. “Flashing my tits to a parking lot of strangers was not on my list of things I missed.”

Bryan reached out and took her hand, tugging her to her feet. “It should have been. Your tits are hot.”

Laura laughed. “I’ll give you a private show later.”

Georgie sighed. “I thought you were getting into the spirit of this second chance, Laura. How can you let an opportunity like this pass you by? I’ll bet you twenty dollars you’ll wake up tomorrow morning and regret not doing this.”

“Georgie. There are a lot of things I’m going to be sorry about tomorrow morning, the main one probably having to do with the fact I’ve had too much to drink, but I don’t think the lifeguard stand is going to be on that list.”

“Nick,” Georgie called. “Set Laura up with one of those shotgun things.”

Georgie and Nick had called a truce since January, though Laura wasn’t sure how long it would last. Georgie was determined to revisit her previous fiancés and she had started with bachelor number one—Phillip. Part of Laura wished Georgie had skipped straight to Nick. She couldn’t dismiss the feeling there were still some genuine feelings between the two of them.

“Here.” Nick cut a hole in the bottom of a can of beer. “Just put this to your mouth, pop the top and drink fast.”

Laura shook her head. “Hell no.”

Nick grabbed another can of beer, creating his own shotgun hole. “I’ll race you. Bet I can chug faster than you.”

Dammit. The alcohol she’d already consumed was making it difficult for Laura to turn down the dare. Kristen, Bryan and Jason gathered around, picking sides. The guys were rooting for Nick, while Georgie and Kristen had her back. She laughed.

Was this what college parties had been like? Laura had often wished she’d had a chance to further her education, to go to a fraternity party just once. Suddenly she felt like she was there, in the middle of a raucous, out-of-control bash.

“You’re on,” she said as she lifted the can. Georgie and Kristen cheered as Jason yelled, “Go!”

Laura popped the tab, shocked by how fast the beer came out. She swallowed rapidly, three, four huge chugs, before the can was empty. She lowered it a split second before Nick.

“Laura wins!” Georgie shouted.

Laura grinned.

“Again,” Nick said, reaching for two more beers. “This time we’ll put a wager on it to make it more interesting.”

The alcohol gave her courage…and confidence. “Fine. What’s the bet?”

“If I win, you go up on the lifeguard stand and flash us.”

Suddenly, the idea of trying that didn’t sound so bad to Laura. Hell, it might even be fun. “Okay. If I win, you go up on the stand and flash…” She paused as their friends laughed. “Your ass.”

Nick laughed. Then shook on it.

“Let the games begin.” Laura lifted the can to her lips…

Laura squinted against the bright sunlight shining across her bed, groaning. Reaching up, she covered her eyes, trying to rub away the splitting headache. Somewhere along the line, someone had driven an ax through her skull. Then, she recalled how many beers she’d drunk. Crap. Self-induced agony. She had no one to blame but herself.

“Good morning, hotshot.”

“There’s nothing good about this morning.” She licked her lips, wondering where all the moisture in her mouth had gone. Each of her teeth felt like they were covered in tiny fuzzy socks.

Bryan chuckled. “Yeah. I was afraid of that.”

“What the hell happened?”

Bryan sat up, reaching for a bottle of Advil and some water. “I’d say you made a couple of questionable decisions around six o’clock.”

His tone was pure humor. If Laura’s head didn’t feel like it was on the verge of exploding, she would have laughed. Questionable was an understatement. “I was on the lifeguard stand, wasn’t I?”

“Laura. I think it’s safe to say I’ve lived a very rich and fulfilling life. I’ve seen my daughter born, the Grand Canyon, the Northern Lights and Springsteen in concert. But seeing you up on that stand, flashing those sexy tits of yours probably ranks up there as one of my top five Most Beautiful Sights ever.”

“I may kill myself. After I throw up.”

“You don’t remember?”

She started to shake her head, but the motion sent a spike of pain behind her eyes. Then she realized she recalled more than she wanted to. “Yeah. Bits of it. Maybe. Shit. Did we even go into the concert?”

Bryan laughed. “Oh hell yeah. It was great. You danced and sang the whole time. ‘Fins’. ‘Volcano’. You and Nick really nailed a duet of ‘It’s Five O’clock Somewhere’.”

“So in other words, I made a total ass of myself?”

Bryan shook his head. “No. Not at all. You were having fun, Laura. Personally, you made the night for me. You were funny, uninhibited, silly. I don’t think I realized how many restraints you put on yourself ordinarily. It was nice to see you cut loose without worrying what people thought.”

Was that what she normally did?

Of course, it was. Wasn’t that the whole purpose of this year? To get out and break free from her routine. To experience all the things she’d missed.

She’d told her friends at New Year’s she wanted to rediscover the girl she used to be, but that was the wrong goal.

She didn’t need to find her younger self. That version of her had been innocent, naïve, sort of stupid and easily led by others. There was no way she wanted to go back to that.

She also didn’t want to be the Laura she’d been before the divorce. Defined by a husband who wanted a wife who would cook, clean, raise the kids and stay quiet. In the end, all that got her was an empty nest with a distant, cold husband.

So Laura had spent the first year following her divorce walking on eggshells. She never colored outside the lines, never felt like she deserved to feel happiness. She’d lived on copious amounts of guilt, feeling selfish for breaking her family apart simply because she longed for something more, something better.

No, what she really needed to do was reinvent herself. Become the kind of woman she could look straight in the eye each morning in the mirror and respect.

She rubbed her forehead wearily. She wasn’t sure she’d found that woman yet. At least not this morning. Opening her eyes to look at anything hurt too much.

“You’re overthinking this,” Bryan whispered, running his fingers through her hair, then stroking the creases in her brow that became far too noticeable when she was worried.

She smiled at him. “You’re right. I am. I live my life in a constant state of analysis. It’s exhausting.”

“Want to disappear for a little while?”

Her body responded before she could. Whatever spell Bryan had put on her physically, she hoped to hell it never broke. “What did you have in mind?”

“How bad does your head hurt?”

She rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes. “On a scale of one to ten, it’s probably a five, maybe a six.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to be creative, make sure you don’t have to move around very much.”

Bryan drew the covers down. Laura wasn’t surprised to find herself naked. She vaguely recalled walking upstairs last night with Bryan, giggling as they undressed. Then…she’d immediately passed out.

Bryan opened her legs, kneeling between them. He gazed at her body before looking into her eyes again. “Let’s play a game.”

“Okay,” she answered without hesitation.

“We’re back in high school. My dad didn’t get transferred. We stopped being blind and stupid and realized we were meant for each other.”

Life before Mason. She liked this game already.

“I invited you to be my date for the senior prom.”

She recalled her real prom. She and Mason had gotten into a fight over something stupid and she’d spent the first two hours of the evening in the bathroom crying. She couldn’t remember what they’d fought over, but she suspected the argument had been based on something small—made larger by teen drama and angst. They’d made up just prior to midnight and danced the last slow dance together. At the time, Laura recalled thinking it had been the most romantic dance of her life. Now when she looked back at that prom, all she saw was the crying. It was fairly prophetic in terms of how her life would turn out.

Oh, to go back and do it all differently.

Then she pictured Bryan in a tuxedo. He was giving her that chance. “I would have loved to go to prom with you.”

“After the prom, I surprised you with this hotel room.”

Laura glanced around her bedroom and grinned. “Scandalous. What if our parents find out I didn’t spend the night at Rachel’s house?”

Bryan ran his hand along her thigh. “It’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

“I’ve never had sex before. I’m scared.”

He smiled, clearly pleased with her willingness to play along. “I won’t hurt you.”

She lifted her arms and Bryan leaned forward, accepting her embrace. She kissed him softly on the cheek. “I know you won’t.”

Bryan cupped her face and kissed her, the touch surprisingly innocent, almost chaste compared to all the kisses that came before. “I’ve always wanted to kiss you, Laura. Ever since I saw you in Ms. Rodgers’s homeroom in seventh grade.”

She laughed quietly. “You were wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap. I swore I could never be friends with a Yankees fan.”

Bryan grinned. “I won you over despite that.”

He had won her over—then and now—with his quick wit, kind words and his genuine interest in her. He’d always engaged her in conversation, always wanted to know what she thought and felt about things. They’d spent four years in constant conversation and that deep desire to simply talk and listen hadn’t waned with the passage of time. Bryan still listened to her. It was a precious gift.

“Lost you again, didn’t I?”

She drew her finger along his handsome face. “I’m having trouble focusing this morning. I’m sorry. My head is a million miles away.”

“Yeah. But your body is right here.” Bryan’s erection lay thick and hard against her opening. “Do you want to talk instead?”

“No.”

“Do you want to forget the game, the past?”

She nodded. “I want to forget everything.”

He studied her face for a long, quiet moment, his eyes serious, concerned. “Okay.”

And just like that Bryan swept her away, erasing her regrets, her sadness, even her damn headache. He lifted her legs and pressed inside her.

She locked her ankles at the small of his back, tilting her hips to encourage him to go deeper. His pace was steady and slow, a far cry from the usual rough sex they shared and enjoyed. This wasn’t like the other heated interludes.

Bryan was making love to her.

The second that thought hit, she was bombarded with conflicting emotions—happiness and terror battling for supremacy.

Her face must have given away some of her anxiety. Bryan stilled. “Laura?”

“I’m scared.”

He kissed her gently. “I know. I am too.”

Leave it to Bryan to know exactly what she was thinking and how to make things better. Somehow he always seemed to know the best answer, the one that would set her mind at ease. There was very little she could hide from him, but that realization wasn’t as scary as it should be.

He understood her.