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Hunter: Hey, hey, take your lovers’ spat elsewhere, okay? Nobody’s got time for your bull.
Tyler: Lovers’ spat, my butt. What the heck is your problem anyway, H? Wake up on the wrong side of the bed?
Corey: He probably woke up alone again. That can make any man grumpy.
Hunter: Buzz off. I am not grumpy. Just annoyed that I have two chicks for friends.
Corey: You mean Ty and Lance, right?
Me: How did this become about Hunter’s problems keeping a girl satisfied?
Hunter: I know how to satisfy a woman plenty.
Corey: Right, that’s why you’re still single.
Hunter: So are you, jerkhole.
Tyler: You’re making fun of him for being single? That’s a compliment.
Me: We’re all single. Go us. Are you all done playing tiddlywinks now?
Tyler: Where’s Mason anyway?
Me: I dropped him off with Steph. Figured he might have some fun with the other kids at the activities center.
Corey: Listen, if you need me to watch him for the day, I’m more than happy to.
Hunter: Yeah, same.
Tyler: Whatever you need, man.
Me: Thanks, guys, but right now I just need to get to work.
Chapter Four
Gemma
There was no easy way to say this, but parties were not my thing. I mean, they used to be when I was younger, but I was pushing forty and I didn’t feel the need to party like I was twenty anymore. These past couple of years, the only time I liked to get my party on was Christmas when my parents hosted their annual holiday party. It was a real blast, having the Christmas music cranked up, eating all the special foods, and then going out to carol with the rest of the group. Now that was a heck of a party.
But a week-long bachelorette party for my sister to live out her final days of being single? That wasn’t a party, that was a train wreck waiting to happen, especially with her two best friends in attendance. I mean, pretty girls in teeny tiny bikinis, drinking way too much, and horny shirtless men, that could only end in disaster.
Worse, she insisted we do it at the Emerald Seas Resort in Miami, the very same resort where I had a fling with a handsome surf instructor years ago. Apparently, when I talked about the resort three years ago after working for them for a brief stint it stuck in her head.
Just my luck.
And of course, this trip back there had me thinking about all the ways I’d changed since I’d last been there. At that time it was no big deal for me to extend my trip and have the fling of a lifetime. But now, well, now, that would never happen. My sister told me I was boring. In my opinion, I just woke up to the fact that I didn’t have time to let loose and forget about my troubles. Heck, the last time I did that, I nearly lost clients. It was selfish and careless on my part. Sure, Lance and I had a good time, but that was then and this was now.
I rubbed my forehead and sighed before being pushed slightly off kilter by a fist to my arm I didn’t see coming. “Come on, Gemma! It’s Soph’s bachelorette party!”
I looked over at Daphne, the girl who had fists of steel even when she was acting playful, and furrowed my brows. As if I didn’t already know why I was sitting in a convertible with the top down on a weekday with three girls in their twenties. If I didn’t know any better I’d think I was in the wrong car. I felt much safer in my Cadillac, where I paid extra for it to be dust, rain, and UV protected.
Sophie turned around from where she was sitting in the passenger seat, her high ponytail whipping her face as she did. “Yeah, come on, G, don’t be such a party pooper.”
I exhaled and slid the hairband off of my wrist as I put my hair in a sloppy bun on the top of my head. The wind was a real menace to my hair, but no one seemed to care. Coco, the girl driving and Sophie’s BFFAE—best friend forever and ever, her words not mine—didn’t want to cramp our style by putting the top up, closing the windows, and driving with the air conditioning on, like most Floridians did. I didn’t think of it as cramping anyone’s style, especially when it was July in Miami and the rays were threatening to burn me to death, but what did I know?
I wiped the back of my neck and felt tiny beads of sweat transfer to my palm.
I noticed Soph still turned around, eyeing me. “Well? Are you going to have some fun, or what?” she asked, trying again to get me to lighten up. But what was wrong with having a different kind of fun than them, I wondered.
