I'll Be Holding on to You

bonfire

We hit up the beach for a bonfire one night, taking two cars because Gage admitted he suffered from motion sickness on the windy roads. Erika rode with him and Mara and I sat in the far back of the SUV, Evie riding shotgun.

"So does he really get car sick or just want to be alone with m-my sister?" Mo turned to ask Mara at one point, good naturedly.

"Oh, he gets car sick," she assured him. It was after nine and she had on a blue hoodie with a parrot on it and some sort of super soft leggings that I couldn't keep my hand off. "It's pretty awful." She considered. "Though if he didn't, he might've made it up. He does like your sister."

Well, who the fuck wouldn't?

"You've known him how long?" Oh great, now Moey was going to grill her. I gave him a look but he pretended not to see.

"Um, forever?" She laughed easily. "Ten years. He's good people. The best." She nudged me. "If I were straight I'd have married him years ago. But, as we know, I'm so gay I can't even walk straight, so . . . " She squeezed my hand on her thigh.

"These pants," I said, mesmerized.

"Lularoe. Super soft, huh. You can borrow them if you want. I have more, too. It's like a club. Bet they look better on you."

"Hmm. Bet they look better on the floor," I said breezily. Cam snorted in the seat in front of me. I smiled because hearing him laugh made my heart sing.

"Only one way to find out," she said, drinking some of her water. She got serious again. "Really, though. He's nice. He's respectful. He's a lot smarter than he wants anyone to know because he was teased mercilessly as a kid. Doesn't do drugs, or drink much. He dated Christel for five years but it fizzled and then she cheated on him. He was even cool to her about that." She shrugged. "Like I said, good people. He's not perfect."

Mo was satisfied. "Nobody is. He s-seems okay."

"For a guy dating your twin, right?"

"Exactly."

We got to our favorite beach and parked outside the closed parking lot, in the coastal residential streets. Then we gathered all of our stuff and began the trek to the spot over the dunes which was hidden from the rangers patrolling.

"I cannot believe you aren't going into the snowy plover spiel," Gage told her, obviously ribbing her.

"Shut up, Gage." She rolled her eyes.

"But there's a dog on the beach and it might eat allll the endangered plovers, Mar!"

She pushed him and he tripped and almost fell over, top heavy from the blankets he held. "Bowser is obviously not that kind of dog. And shut up, I said."

"This beach is special nesting grounds for the endangered snowy plovers," Gage said in an announcer's voice.

She shoved him again. "They are awesome birds," she said earnestly, to us. "They're tiny and cute and get scared of everything. If they're disturbed they can't hatch all the eggs or will even lay less."

"How interesting," Erika said, and I resisted the urge to kick her kind of hard.

"I think so," Mara said with a shrug, not caring what Freak thought.

Soon we had a fire going and a couple of joints going around. Erika was opening a bag of giant marshmallows and Mo, Freddy and Evie were stick hunting. Gage was next to Erika, messing with the fire. He had on a black shirt and a black Nike jacket and it was a damn good color on him. Surprise. Erika next to him in her long-sleeved purple shirt looked like art with the fire playing on her face. They were a gorgeous couple. Disgusting. I was still entertaining the whole sister wives thing. I was willing to bet heavily that Gage would be on my side about it.