Secret Sins: (A Standalone) Read Free Page B

have friends who couldn’t cope. No one knew what to do with me. I didn’t even know what to do with me. I knew I didn’t fit in, and I didn’t care. Maybe it was my version of rich girl ennui. Maybe I was just too smart, too good at too many things. Or too acerbic to make those warm girly relationships. I depended on no one. Didn’t feel useful.
    I felt as though I had more going on in my head than most people, then I thought I was out of my mind for believing that. So I reached out, trying to make more friends. Then I realized how empty relationships were. I realized I really did have more going on in my head than most people, and I started the cycle over.
    Lynn had disappeared into the club, on her way to the suite to have a threesome or foursome, and I was left on the beach. I could have made it a fivesome, and why not? What would be the difference either way?
    Screwing one or ten people didn’t need to be an earth-shatteringly meaningful experience, but I should know why I wanted to besides boredom.
    “It’s not ennui then,” I said to myself.
    My face squeezed tight, reacting to having sand thrown in it before my brain fully registered that two shirtless men had run past me, kicking up sand. They dove into the freezing surf.
    God damn. Los Angeles was pretty warm in March, all things being equal, but the water was fucking cold.
    They swam to the place where the waves rose cleanly and treaded water, looking toward the horizon. When a big one rolled in, curling at the top at just the right moment, they flattened their bodies and rode it in. They got lost in the white froth, then they came up sitting. They high fived. The wave they had ridden continued past them, past the boundary of wet sand, to the dry line six inches from my boots.
    Tide was coming in.
    One of the men came toward me, pants heavy with water, hair dripping, short beard glistening in the lights of the boardwalk. “Got a towel?”
    “No.”
    “Fucking cold.”
    “Shoulda thought of that before you went in.”
    Behind me, the other guy snapped a white hotel towel off the sand and gave it a shake before putting it around his shoulders. He had music tattooed all over his chest. That would be Stratford Gilliam. Unbelievable in person. Even in the dark.
    “She’s got a point,” he said and darted back to the club.
    The guy with the ginger beard was Indiana McCaffrey, and he was supposed to be fucking Lynn and Yoni. Instead, he was standing over me, shivering.
    “I have fire,” I said, handing him my cigarettes and lighter.
    He took them and sat next to me. “Thanks.” He pulled out two cigarettes, handed me one, and lit both with trembling hands.
    “You should probably get inside.”
    “I like being cold.”
    “Sure. That’s why people move here.”
    He blew out a stream of smoke. It took a hairpin turn two inches from his lips when the sea breeze sent it behind him.
    “You from here?” he asked.
    “Los Angeles born and raised. Fermented in Pacific brine and air-dried in the California sun.” I flipped my hair so the wind blew it out of my face. He was more beautiful in person than in any magazine. I didn’t know how I got to be sitting on the beach with Indiana McCaffrey, but once the cigarette was done, he was probably going to split. Every second counted. “Your Southern accent’s mostly gone. You could be a newscaster.”
    He nodded, or he could have been shivering. “My father didn’t like me sounding like a hick, so he beat the accent out of me.”
    “What else did he beat out of you?”
    He glanced at me. “Besides the shit?”
    His pupils were dilated eight-balls with blue rings. He was on some sensory-enhancing drug. Quaaludes maybe. Supposedly the blue capsules made you horny and happy enough to melt the awkwardness out of the threesomes. That’s what Lynn said. She got blued whenever she could. I kept away from blues. I didn’t need to be any hornier or happier.
    The top layer of his hair had dried, and it fluttered