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We love you all endlessly. Can't wait for the whirlwind that's gonna be the rest of the summer in Lighthouse Cove!
Special thanks to readers, commenters, and our fantastic prereader Pamela. xx
-20-
Rose
July 7, 2023
Lighthouse Cove, Maine
Something different is in the air tonight.
The beach house that's always been a safe haven for me and my two best girls has been infiltrated by boys. There's never been boys before, except that one night I brought one home.
On one hand, it feels a little anti-feminist. I feel like I should want to push them all out and nail a home-made "NO BOYZ ALLOWED" sign on the front door. But on the other hand…
I see it.
I see all the little pieces coming together on our porch. Ali and Bella, obviously. Emmett, weaseling his way into my heart against all my better judgements. And even Jasper and Edward. Edward has been part of our Island Time since day one, so his presence finally in our house may be a tad alarming, but he fits. And Jasper…well, he's a perfect mix of southern gentleman with a little kick of spice that I think our Ali girl definitely needs in her life. The way he can roll with the punches with the rest of us tells me all I need to know.
I have everything I need right in front of me.
Hell, Alice and I never even brought our husbands here, and yet…this feels right.
It's kind of like it was always meant to be.
Emmett looks up at me from his conversation with Edward about boats or some shit and shoots me a wink that makes a tingle run down my whole spine.
God, even the way he's holding his beer bottle is turning me on.
Alas, there will be plenty of time to act on those urges later. For now, it's time to bring a little something into this group that hasn't been introduced just yet…
Competition.
Everyone loves a good game night, particularly the one I'm bringing out tonight, and I know it will be the perfect chance for us to see a slightly dirtier side of each other, and not the naughty kind. I know Bella has a competitive streak in her at least, and I'm willing to bet at least one of the boys does as well.
The table we ate at outside has been cleared, thanks to Alice and Jasper, so all I have to do to prepare for my part of the evening is grab supplies.
"Hey, Em, can you help me with something?" I call out to him.
"Sure thing!" He replies, standing from the table to head my way. He's got those hungry eyes again and I have half a mind to sneak up to my room for a few minutes before we set up the games, but I continue to repeat the mantra in my head that we'll have time for that later.
Once he meets me in the doorway, we head inside to the living room where I've tucked away the bag full of tonight's entertainment.
"What's in there?" Emmett asks, eyeing the bulging tote.
"Secrets," I reply, patting him on the chest.
"Oh, I like secrets. I've been wanting to figure out all of yours," he teases, his arms winding their way around my torso.
I'm not used to someone not being able to keep their hands off me.
"I'm not some big mystery," I say, rolling my eyes.
"Maybe not," he shrugs. "But it doesn't mean I don't want to find out everything about you."
His words make me falter for a second, but I recover quickly. He does that to me a lot, it seems. Catches me off guard so I stumble and slip a little further into him.
I like it.
"I'll keep you posted, I don't know a lot of it myself," I tell him.
"It's in there, you've just got to find it again." He's so sure when he says it, as if it's simple, but when you've been lost as long as I have…
I choose not to engage in the conversation. Not now. Not when I have asses to whoop.
So instead I lift up on the tips of my toes to press a kiss to his lips, and when I pull back my mask is firmly back in place and I'm ready to get to some more fun for the night.
"Let's go set up," I tell him, taking his hand and leading him out to the patio where the table is sitting.
Taking a seat at the head of the table, I place my bag in front of me and start pulling out boxes of various games we've gotten over the years to keep at the house.
"This is what you call a secret?" Emmett asks, sitting next to me and pulling "The Bigger, Blacker Box" of Cards Against Humanity towards him.
"The secret lies in just how into board games I am. These are child's play, but you really wanna learn something about me that almost no one knows?"
His answering smile takes up nearly half his face. "Of course I do."
"I'm kind of a slut for stupidly complex board games. Like Clank! and Evermore and Arkham Horror. Things that take like two hours just to learn how to play."
"I've never heard of any of those, but who knew you'd be such a nerd?" He laughs, opening the box to start shuffling cards.
"You want to hear nerdy? I used to write Harry Potter fanfiction," I add, unable to get the grin off my face while I help shuffle. There are only about a million cards here, so it's going to take us some time.
"Oh fuck, don't tell me you ship Dramione!"
"How the fuck do you know about Dramione?" I almost choke, I'm laughing so hard, the thought of Emmett being into something like fanfiction almost too much for me to handle.
"I'm the prime age to be a Potterhead, Rose. My girlfriend in high school, it was all she could talk about," he says. "So, who is it? Who's the pairing you couldn't get enough of?"
Now this is personal.
My voice is small when I finally admit it, because aside from Alice, Bella, and whoever read the stories I so stupidly posted to the internet, no one knows this about me.
"Linny," I almost-whisper, my eyes fixed on the table, and his answering silence is almost too much to bear.
"Ginny and Luna? That's…kind of hot, actually," Emmett's laughter is deep and it warms me right up, not only because he's not recoiling away at the realization that I'm actually pretty weird, but because it seems to endear him even more to me.
It's the first time I let him in. Something so seemingly small, but a vulnerable part of me that I don't show to just anyone.
Our eyes meet and we share a smile, simple movements that hold the weight of something so much more that I'm not ready to acknowledge just yet.
"I'll uh, I'll get everyone over here," I clear my throat and stand, effectively ending the moment before it can pull me under further than I'm ready for, and I think I might hear Emmett let out a frustrated sigh, but we have games to play.
He can steal my heart some other time.
…
"It's a pity that kids these days all get involved with blank," I read out loud from the black card in my hand. Popping the top from the can of…some sort of mixed drink Emmett brought, I'm too drunk to care anymore—my eyes take over the group of friends in front of me.
We're a quite few rounds in, having added a house rule that the winner of each round has to also take a shot, and I have three cards sitting in front of me making my head spin.
Several cards get thrown into the center of the table, but I watch as Bella and Jasper both analyze their cards with ferocious intent, as if they're waging a war.
Moments pass and I watch Bella light up triumphantly before she throws her card in, shortly followed by Jasper who has a smirk on his face that's a little unnerving, like he knows something we don't.
And Ali may not be aware, but she's been staring at him like he holds the whole world in his hands all night.
It's adorable to see her like this—flirty and giggly, but still a little cautious.
"Okay, what do we have here," I say, picking up the cards from the table and giving them a little shuffle before I read them off.
The first card has me laughing before I can even read it.
"A perfectly normal rimjob that doesn't involve clams or mayonnaise in any way."
"Booorinnnng," Emmett boos, giving two thumbs down. I have to hold my breath to be able to keep reading the cards.
"An older woman who knows her way around a penis, chanting in Latin, Uncle Fester, and sucking the farts out of a cow's butthole."
"Well, Rose can tell us all about at least three of those," Bella jokes, nudging my foot under the table.
I deserve it. I've been teasing them both all night, but that's what our relationship thrives off of. Inappropriate jokes, light roasting, and being there for each other so ferociously it's almost suspicious.
"And because I know about them, I can confidently say my choice is a perfectly normal rimjob," I announce, placing that card on the table.
"Damn it!" Jasper yells, slamming his hand down, just as Edward shoots both arms into the air in triumph.
"Told you clams don't belong in everything!" He stands up and leans across the table to take both his winning card and a shot from the tray we set out.
Bella is simply gawking at this man's ass, and then her eyes are fixed on his lips, and I know if she were more sober she'd be a whole hell of a lot more subtle. I have to be the one to nudge her under the table to snap her out of it.
"Right," she says, shaking her head to clear it. "My turn?"
We all nod except for Alice, who's teasing Jasper for being so upset and soothing him by telling him that his card surely should've won.
"In Irish culture, mourners practice their grief through the traditional practice of blank," she reads.
Focusing my attention on the cards in my hand, my eyes scan my options until I find the perfect contender to throw into the ring.
The others do the same and Bella picks up the cards, mirroring how I shuffled them before she reads them off.
"Imposter Syndrome, a sad handjob, feminism, grandpa jerking it to Betty Boop, and my dad's dumb fucking face," Bella screws her face up, her nose wrinkling. "The fucking imagery these things invoke, am I right?"
"Grandpa doesn't do it for you?" Ali prods.
"It's gonna be imposter syndrome for me," Bella announces.
"Shit fire!" Jasper shouts, possibly a tad too many shots in to hide his apparent competitive streak. Who would've thought the sweet southern boy would be the most vicious in a game?
What's more, I can tell that Ali likes it. She likes seeing him aggressive without being mean. And I think she even likes how it feels to be the one to take the winning shot and rub it in his face a little.
We go like that well into the night, laughing so hard the liquor flies straight to our heads and make our bellies hurt.
It's so fucking easy, being with all of them. As if all of our paths were meant to cross exactly this way at exactly this time to bring us here together.
It's the first time I see a picture of what I want the future to look like. What I want my future to look like.
This.