The morning after an epic summer party always carried the same sickly-sweet aroma: a combination of regret, residual chlorine, and the lingering taste of alcohol.
Paul knew it intimately. He sat slumped in a wicker chair at a sun-drenched beachside smoothie bar, feeling as though his brain was a dried sponge rattling inside his skull. His glasses were slightly askew, and he had the perpetually bewildered air of a man who had woken up in a foreign country. He was sitting across a small, circular table from Cierra and Chad. They, at least, looked functional.
Cierra, though tired, wore a fresh, light summer dress, and Chad looked annoyingly pristine in aviator sunglasses, already working on his second mango smoothie.
"You're telling me I projectile vomited purple punch all over you?" Paul asked weakly, trying to keep his voice low, but the words still felt like sandpaper scraping his throat. Chad winced, taking a theatrical sip of his espresso.
"Projectile is an understatement, Paul. It was a geyser. I was attempting to find and make a sincere apology to Cierra—about the hair incident, you know—and you turned me into a human Jackson Pollock. It was a masterpiece of liquid violence."
Cierra snorted a laugh into her green detox smoothie, but her smile was fleeting. Paul was utterly mortified. A violent flush spread across his pale neck. The memory was a complete blank, replaced only by Allyson's calm, observing face, which now felt like a hazy, judgmental dream.
" I… I don't remember any of that," Paul mumbled, gripping the condensation on his smoothie cup.
"Chad, I am so sorry. I'll pay for the shirt, whatever it was, I promise."
Chad removed his sunglasses slowly. His eyes, usually dancing with mischief, held a theatrical seriousness.
"It wasn't just a shirt, Paul. It was my dignity. I had to retreat and call Dave to extract you like a pup with its tail between its legs, covered in shame and punch remnants, right in front of a girl I was trying to impress." He leaned forward conspiratorially.
"So here's the deal, buddy. You owe me. Big. When the time is right, I will collect a huge favour. You'll know it when I ask."
Paul swallowed hard, the cold dread replacing the heat of the hangover. He was now eternally indebted to Chad, the one person whose favour currency he least wanted to deal in.
"Fine. I accept the terms of the vomit debt."
As the small talk drifted to plans for the evening's hangout at Leah's, Cierra struggled to focus. Her mind was a continuous, frantic reel of the night before, specifically the cramped, humid air of Nicole's bathroom. She pressed her hands into her thighs beneath the table.
A sudden flush rose on Cierra's olive skin as the memory of Amara's soft lips, the intoxicating taste of her mouth, her sweet scent, and the way she'd almost lost herself in the intensity of their electric kiss sent a wave of heat through her which was contradicting the official story she'd told herself only hours earlier. She squirmed slightly in her seat, adjusting her skirt.
"Something wrong, Cierra?" Chad's voice cut through her reverie. "You're turning kind of red. Stomach still settling after last night?"
"No, I'm fine, Chad, thanks," Cierra snapped, perhaps a bit too quickly.
"Just… hot." She forced a look of casual interest toward the beach.
The snap brought back the memory of Amara's subsequent avoidance. After the kiss and Cierra's panicked denial, Amara had retreated entirely. The ride home in Dave's SUV had been a brutal silence, broken only by Dave's oblivious humming and Leah's gentle instructions to the unconscious Paul.
Amara had stared out the window, her body language a wall of ice. It was just the booze, Cierra repeated the lie to herself, but the memory of that raw look in Amara's eyes stung. Just as Cierra was internally battling her demons, two figures walked past the smoothie bar, heading toward the sand.
It was Amara, and she was smiling up at the college guy from the party, André. Amara wore running shorts and a tank top, looking fresh and athletic. André, with his slightly older, effortless charm, had his hand gently resting on the small of her back. A powerful pang of jealousy struck Cierra, hard and fast, catching her off guard.
She immediately forced a mask of boredom over her features, picking up her phone with feigned interest. Chad, however, missed nothing. He raised his hand and shouted,
"Well, well! Look who traded up from a high school jock to a college trust fund! Morning, Mara! Who's your hot new chaperone?"
Amara glanced over, her expression neutral. She offered a quick, forced half-wave that notably did not include Cierra.
"Morning, Chad. This is André. We're just going for a run."
Chad grinned. "A run, huh? Sure, that's what we call it back in high school, too. Don't fall and need CPR, André."
Amara shook her head, offering only a brief, dismissive look at Chad, and gently guided André away from the table and toward the noise-dampening soft sand of the beach. Cierra watched them walk away, the simple act of Amara barely acknowledging her hitting Cierra with unexpected force.
The casual cruelty of Amara's avoidance felt deliberate. Cierra hunched over her smoothie, focusing fiercely on her phone screen, pretending the sight of Amara's dark hair next to André's blonde wasn't twisting something cold and tight in her gut.
Maybe she shouldn't have pushed Amara away?