The Summer Deal

Eleven - I'm not your rebound.

My second glass of whiskey tasted like old ash after I took a drag on my cigarette and blew out smoke.

"Where the hell are you?" I texted. Message Sent. Message not delivered. "You better give me an explanation about this."

I haven't heard from Quincy in three whole days. That's 72 hours in total since she broke the news of her unexpected pregnancy to me.

"Hi," grinning, a man sat beside me. "How are you doing?"

The first thing I noticed about him was that he was hot. I watched his biceps flex as he placed his surfboard in support of the bar counter and removed his white flamingo shirt, revealing his wet washboard abs. My ovaries developed a heartbeat after a long while. He smirked at me, his clear blue eyes twinkling, which reminded me of the ocean I was missing outside as he ran his fingers through his dirty, wet blonde hair, arranging it.

I bet he's dirty in bed too.

It was a shame that he had a ring on his finger though. Despite feeling attracted to the man, I kept my business to myself. He ordered a drink for himself, and to my surprise, he ordered a refill for me.

I turned to the man. "That's not necessary. I'm leaving."

"Please. It will be my pleasure to buy a drink for a beautiful woman like you or at least buy you a refill."

My nose itched, and I controlled the urge to rub it, not wanting to hurt my renewed piercing. My black hair was tied in a high pony and dyed with brown highlights. I had a clean-up which guaranteed some reduction of my adult acne for a few days, and I was smoking like a chimney with no regrets. Of course, I was smoking in an area where destroying my lungs was allowed by the general public, and nobody bothered me.

Beauty was something people only looked at from the outside. If I had not had a little makeover a day ago, the man would not have even spared a glance at me. I was the perfect example of a big brain and less beauty.

"Not interested." I crushed my cigarette on the ashtray and got up from my chair. "Besides, I think your wife wouldn't appreciate that her husband goes around buying drinks for beautiful women like me."

The man let out a short, forced laugh. Then he removed his wedding band and tossed it on the counter. "You mean this? I wear it to ward off prying vultures. If you sit down and drink with me, I'll tell you my story."

I took a moment to consider his offer. "And if I don't?"

This man surely knows what a woman like me needs, I thought as he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a matchbox. "Then I'll have to finish these all by myself."

We spent the entire day drinking, smoking, and sharing our sob stories with each other.

"So you're divorced?" I asked, blowing out smoke in the air, and passed the cig to Robin, who was lying on the beach beside me. We were both watching the sky turning orange to a dark shade of blue to black.

"Soon-to-be divorced. Next week actually."

"That sucks."

He passed the cigarette back after taking a drag. "And your parents are..."

"Yeah." I was not in the mood to hear more of it.

"That sucks too. At least you never had to marry a bitchface addict."

I scoffed and sucked in the last bit of the fag, then crushed it on the mat we were lying in. "So you think living in a caged, lavish life is fun?"

"No," Robin answered. Poor guy. I genuinely felt bad for his relationship experience. "But it sounds so much better than dating somebody for a year, only to find in three months of marriage that you were scammed for pills of ecstasy."