about Alan, but something stopped her. Possibly the cold knot of something icky that had begun to form in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t put a name to the ick, which bothered her. It was more a general feeling of wait, now...wait. No. Which was stupid. She had no claim on Alan, and objectively speaking he was a great guy. Why wouldn’t she want Amanda to investigate further? Hell, she’d already tried to fix them up once before. Three years ago. When she hardly knew Alan.
“I have more immediate concerns. They’re about getting my bikini on and finding a fancy umbrella drink before dinner. You in?”
“Julie, honey, I’ve never been so in.”
Chapter Three
For Julie, the whole point of the vacation was to get away from home. She wanted exotic. Debonair strangers, dangerous beach joggers. Instead, she got Alan, not even shirtless, appearing on the lanai right as she and Amanda were heading out. He had exchanged his shorts for swim trunks, but otherwise wore what he had on the flight. And what he usually wore to work, for that matter. An XKCD T-shirt that only geeks would understand, and sports sandals. He’d been ready to go since they left San Jose.
“Oh my God?” he led off.
“Oh my God,” Julie confirmed. “Oh my fucking God, this place!”
“Are we going for drinks?”
She nodded. “Of course we are.”
“You’re, um...” His eyes shifted, flicking down for a second at her bikini-clad form. If she’d blinked, she would have missed it. “You’re going like that?”
That bad? “Yeah, that was the plan. Drinks, maybe a swim, then dinner. Look, Amanda’s in a bikini, too.”
The look he gave Amanda was more open and, if Julie didn’t mistake his expression, more appreciative. Why that struck her with a sudden pang, she wasn’t sure. She knew she shouldn’t care. She spent a great deal of time reminding herself she didn’t think of Alan that way, after all. If Amanda was ready to try Alan on for size again, Julie should be happy to see that the interest was reciprocated. Because they were her friends.
“So she is. I feel overdressed.”
“We’ll put pareos on,” Amanda volunteered. “I feel too exposed to relax and enjoy a drink like this. My butt’s hanging out.”
Her butt was too tiny to hang anywhere—if Amanda was stocky, Julie thought, she was the Easter Bunny—but she wasn’t going to argue if Alan’s dismissive glance at her own bikini body was any indication of the reception she’d receive out in the world.
Amanda had to show her how to tie the pareo around her hips, while Alan tapped his foot and sighed extravagantly. “You’re wearing next to nothing and it still takes you forever to get ready.”
“I’ll remind you that I am typically ready before you.” It was true, because unlike Julie, Alan did wear hair care products, and sometimes he even ironed his clothes.
“An aspect of our friendship that I genuinely appreciate.”
“There. You’re a beach goddess now.” Amanda stood back to admire her handiwork, and Julie had to admit she liked the way the soft fabric of the pareo clung to her hips and created the impression of a smaller waist.
Then she caught it—the peek. Amanda’s momentary sideways gaze at Alan, right before she blushed. Julie’s stomach lurched again.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck! Why should that be full of fuck, though? She wasn’t supposed to care about Alan that way. Was. Not. Supposed. To.
“So, Alan,” Amanda ventured, while Julie tried to quell her growing distress, “I think you’re still overdressed. You don’t look like you’re in the spirit of things.”
“Nope. You need to lose the shirt.”
“And blind everybody with my pasty chest? I don’t think so.”
Julie thought, Go ahead, blind me. And then she identified the horrible clenching grip on her stomach. It was the hand of jealousy, clutching tight. Which was ridiculous, because the last thing she needed was a nerdy, straight-arrow guy from a big, clingy suburban family like her own, who worked with her every day. Besides, Alan was like a brother to her. A brother. She told herself that all the time, so it must be true, right? There were work spouses and there were real-life love interests, and never the twain should meet.
“Lay off, Amanda. If he’s not comfortable he should keep it on. Maybe you can reconsider it after a couple drinks,” Julie suggested to Alan. “When it’s dark out.”
Pretending not to see the puzzled glare Amanda turned her way, she headed for the door.
* * *
They never made it into the water. Drinks led directly into dinner. Night fell as they finished dessert and a last round, so they took themselves down to the beach, where a respectable bonfire and innumerable tiki torches illuminated the partiers’ faces with glowing, hellish intensity. A temporary grass-roofed bar was set up nearby. Beachy music thumped through the crowd, tempting everyone to dance, but the trio skirted the gyrating crush and continued past the fire to the water’s edge. Three in a row, arm in arm, flip-flops kicking up warm sand with every step. Alan was the monkey in the middle, and he’d already made several threesome cracks. He couldn’t resist, sandwiched between two undeniably hot women as he was, but damn was there an uncomfortable undercurrent.
Amanda laughed too loud at the jokes, and Julie could barely muster a smile, so the normal order of things felt entirely subverted. It hadn’t been bad at first, but the more relaxed they all got, the more obvious Amanda’s flirting became. The penny had finally dropped about halfway through dinner. She’s actually coming on to me. And Julie looked like she was about to cry—or possibly throw up, although she hadn’t had that much to drink. She was also doing an extreme version of the aggressive, outgoing good cheer that signaled she would rather be alone. Wearing her extrovert armor to protect her soft, chewy, introverted center, which usually only happened when she was stressed or upset about something. He wasn’t sure what to make of it all. Alan’s nerves rose, making him talk too much and say stupid, obvious stuff that nobody really ought to be laughing at. He couldn’t seem to make himself stop, though.
Underneath the nerves, however, there was a flicker of resentment he hated to acknowledge. Where did Julie get off pouting when she’d fixed him up with Amanda in the first place for their previous mildly disastrous attempts at dating? What was it to her if they hooked up for a vacation fling? Since that was obviously what Amanda had in mind, with the broad hints she’d been dropping. Now that he thought about it...it hadn’t been all that disastrous between them. More lacking in instant chemistry than anything else. Awkward moments, too many lulls in conversation. They had trouble agreeing on where to eat for their first date, because they had wildly different preferences in food. On their second try they’d gone to a movie, and hadn’t laughed in exactly the same places. Effort number three had been the “let’s meet for coffee and talk” outing, the end of the experiment.
But no animosity. And their brief make-out session on date two had probably been the highlight of the whole non-relationship. He could see them having a no-strings fling. Except for one thing, the part of their dates he thought wouldn’t translate well to meaningless sexytimes. The part where both of them kept talking about Julie. She was their best topic, the main thing they had in common. His favorite
