Island Vibes

25. none of it

"Trouble in paradise?" Brie joked, waggling her eyebrows at the two of us.

I still wasn't sure where I stood with Brie. She seemed to still be suspicious of me – like maybe she thought I was the kind of girl who would waltz into her brother's life and turn everything upside-down and set the whole thing on fire, but really? Noah was the one who'd just kissed me. He was burning his own bridges.

"Hi Brie," I said, because I wasn't sure what else there was to say. I wasn't about to tell her what Noah had done, but I also wasn't ready to cover it up for him, either.

"So you two are having fun, clearly," she replied, her smirk turning into a grin. The expression echoed Noah's classic grin, only where Noah was boyishly handsome, Brie was sharper, more angular. It showed in their smiles. Noah's lit his face up like a kid on Christmas; Brie's was like drinking the most delicious poison.

"Could you leave us to it, B?" Noah was both audibly and visibly drained.

"Where's the fun in that?" Brie sauntered over, coming closer to me, Noah, and the van. "C'mon, let me help. What's the drama?"

I looked over at Noah and winced. I couldn't find the words, but I knew Noah wouldn't offer them up. We were at an impasse.

"Wait--" Brie piped up again, while I was still looking at Noah. His eyes widened a fraction, as if Brie might've guessed what was going on, but then-- "Did you go for smoothies without me? God, I bet you got that pineapple-coconut garbage again."

The line of Noah's shoulders dropped noticeably, and a familiar chuckle came out of his mouth. "Garbage? Okay, that's rude," he said, lifting his smoothie cup to gesture pointedly with it.

Brie turned to look at me, rolling her eyes sourly. "He has the worst taste, don't listen to him. It's all about the watermelon one. You gotta try it next time." She fussed with her hair, taking it down out of what had looked like a slick bun to reveal that actually, her hair was just wet.

A quiet moment passed between the three of us, and looking between the two siblings I realized it was probably a good idea to say something before Brie could get back to questioning us on our outburst and before Noah could say something dumb.

Brie shook her hair, ruffling a hand back over her scalp.

"Oh, were you out surfing?" I asked, 99% sure that she was. Her Instagram revealed that that was basically her number one hobby, and Brie didn't seem the type to shower in the middle of the day and skip out on the hairdrying.

"Yep," she nodded, instinctively looking back behind her, in the direction of the sea. "Not a lot of waves today though, we were mostly just bobbing around," she laughed. "You surf?"

My eyes widened, probably comically. "Oh, God, no," I said, shaking my head.

Brie cracked up at my obvious inexperience and wariness. "We should teach you!" She looked across at Noah excitedly, who still looked like he might've been about to chew his bottom lip right through.

"Um, yeah!" Noah chimed in, as if he had a choice. Brie's prompting would've been hard to ignore. "I actually already invited her to our hangout tomorrow, so... this worked out well," he chuckled, nodding back at me.

Brie reached a hand into the pocket of her shorts, reacting to a faint buzz. "That's my alarm, I'm supposed to meet Erica in, like, half an hour," she explained, muttering more to herself than either of us. "But tomorrow sounds perfect!" She fiddled with her phone for a moment, then beamed back at Noah, then me. "I told Melissa she should come along too," Brie added, stopping my heart. "So it'll be a real girls' day," she laughed.