kirt after all, but thigh-skimming shorts in a lacy fabric. A zipper runs from just below her shoulder blades to the small of her back. It’s all one piece. The sporty, sexy look works for her…and me. I imagine us alone on my patio, her hands braced on the railing while I lower the zipper and reveal more of her smooth, tanned back. As long as I’m imagining, I envision she begs me to keep going, and I do—until I reach pale skin never touched by the sun. Then I kiss every satiny inch. I can practically hear her calling my name in a breathless voice.
“Vaughn?”
The voice in question fills my ear now, because I’ve slowed my steps. She has no way of knowing how the soft prompt grabs me by the balls. Matt and Dylan stand as we approach, and I do the introductions.
“Quite a place,” Amber says as she scoots to the middle of the long side of the sectional. “We don’t have clubs like this in Kansas.”
Matt takes the seat next to her, closest to the edge. Dylan drops in on her other side. I settle Kendall into the corner and take the spot next to her.
“We lucked out with the location,” Dylan says as if the space fell into his lap rather than required months of negotiations with the building owners, but I detect a hint of pride in his tone. “If you’re going to open a club in L.A., might as well embrace the things L.A. does best, right? Perfect weather, amazing views, a casual vibe, and—”
“Overpriced drinks,” Matt inserts.
“We can’t all live on domestic beer. Expand your horizons, dude. Besides, when you’re sitting at the owner’s table, drinks are on the house.” Dylan signals a cocktail waitress. “Ladies, what can I get you?”
“I’m a cheap date,” Kendall says. “Just water, please.”
“Same,” Amber pipes in. “I drove.”
I haven’t had a drink since yesterday afternoon, and frankly, a beer sounds good, but Kendall’s refraining, so I say, “Make it three.”
“Water? Seriously? Did I interrupt an AA meeting?”
“I’ll have a beer,” Matt says. “Domestic.”
“He’ll have a Heineken,” Dylan tells the server, and then orders a seven and seven for himself.
Amber asks how we know each other. Matt and Dylan begin tag-teaming their way through the story any one of us could tell in our sleep.
“So Mastermind here”—Matt jerks a thumb at Dylan—“decides we ought to make a break during nap time because the ice cream truck stops at the park across the street every day and we need to get in on that. We can be gone and back before anybody notices.”
“Nobody’s going to notice you have ice cream?” Amber asks.
“We were four. We didn’t think it through,” Dylan acknowledges. “I had five bucks burning a hole in my pocket, and I knew the gate code. That’s as far as I’d gotten. The teachers were chatting, so we snuck out to the play yard and climbed the slope to the back fence.”
“Vaughn was the smallest of us, back then, so he was supposed to squeeze through the fence and then come around to the gate, punch in the code, and spring us,” Matt explains.
“A perfect plan,” Dylan adds.
“Yeah, except I couldn’t squeeze through the fence.”
“You mostly could, after you took my advice and streamlined your wardrobe. I solved 90 percent of that problem.”
“Yeah, a 90 percent solution that left me stuck in a fence, naked.”
“Oh, no…” Amber’s show of sympathy doesn’t quite hide her amusement. Kendall doesn’t even pretend not to laugh.
“You weren’t naked,” Dylan corrects. “You had your Spiderman underwear on. And how is it my fault you lodged that big coconut you call a head between the slats?”
“What happened?” Kendall asks.
“He started to freak, so we tried to work him free,” Matt continues. “I grabbed his arm. Dylan pulled his head, and—”
“And this ungrateful little punk pushes me down the hill,” Dylan supplies, eyes on me.
“You were breaking my neck, motherfucker. I told you to stop.”
“Anyway, Dylan rolls down the hill and ‘passes out.’” Matt makes air quotes around the words.