The Cocktail Collection Read online

  “ ’Night, Simon,” I answered, giving him a little waggle of my fingertips as I closed my door. I placed my bag on my bed and smiled.

  “Come on, guys, not that much farther,” I yelled behind me as I surged up the final leg of the trail. We’d been hiking for about two hours now, and while everyone stayed together for a while, in the last thirty minutes or so, Ryan had slowed considerably, and Neil hung back with him. Simon and I kept the pace together and were about to reach the crest of the trail.

  I’d managed to avoid being alone with Sophia or Mimi, although the puffy eyes and tired faces on all four of them proved no one had gotten a good night’s sleep—except Simon and me.

  After breakfast, I dodged the firing squad by changing quickly and waiting outside for the boys before the hike. I knew once I returned to the house I’d be in for it, although I admit I was curious to see how they were planning to rage without acknowledging that sleeping with the guys they’d been seeing for weeks now was not, in fact, what they wanted to do.

  But as Simon had said, “Here’s to things staring you right in the face.” Tonight should be interesting.

  I pushed up and over the last little ridge and made it to the top. Simon was only a few yards behind me, and I could hear him on his way. I breathed deep, the clear air prickling at my lungs. It was chilly, but I was warm with exertion. It had been a while since I’d gotten out of the city, and my body had missed hiking like this. My legs were burning, my nose was running, I was sweating like a pig, and I couldn’t remember when I’d felt better. I laughed out loud as I looked down at the lake below, spying a few hawks gliding on a downdraft. The steely blue of the lake, the deep green of the forest, the clean whites and creams of the rocks: It was beautiful.

  And then there was my new favorite blue. Simon appeared at my side, breathing as deeply as I was. He stretched his arms wide and took in the valley below. He’d peeled off layers as we climbed and was now wearing a white T-shirt with a flannel knotted at his waist. Khaki pants, hiking boots, and a wide grin completed the wet dream I now stared at, instead of looking at the natural wonders all around us. And those blue eyes—I could see them framing each shot as he looked around.

  “Beautiful.” I breathed, and he turned to me. I got caught staring. “I mean, isn’t it beautiful?” I stuttered, gesturing widely with my arm.

  He appeared to know exactly what I’d been doing, and I felt the blush come up in my cheeks. Luckily, I was still a bit winded from the climb, and I hoped I was already sufficiently red.

  “Yes, it is beautiful actually. Very beautiful.” He smiled, and we stared at each other. He took a few steps closer, and I felt the air shift and change. I bit my lip. He ran his hand through his hair. We smiled. There were no words, but even the woodland animals could tell there was something about to happen and wisely stayed in their hidey-holes.

  “Hi,” he said quietly.

  “Hi,” I answered.

  “Hi,” he said again, taking one last step toward me and stepping inside my little circle. One more step and he’d be practically on top of me. And how.

  “Hi,” I said once more, tilting my head to the side and letting him know he could take that last step.

  Simon leaned toward me, just barely, but almost as if he were going to . . .

  “Parker!” thundered from below, and we both sprang back. “Parker!” It came again, and I recognized Ryan’s voice underneath the jungle-man yell.

  “Ryan,” we both said, and smiled.

  Now that the voodoo wasn’t so concentrated, I could see things clearly again, and I repeated the word harem over and over again in my head.

  “Up here!” Simon yelled, and Ryan appeared from around a bend.

  “Hey there! Neil is done, kaput, thrown in the towel, so to speak. You guys about ready to head back down?” he called, jumping from rock to path to rock again with the ease of a mountain goat. He didn’t even appear to be winded. Hmmmm. . . .

  “Yep, we were just about to come looking for you guys,” I said, kicking my leg up behind me for a quick stretch.

  “Is he really pussing out so close to the top?” Simon asked, heading back down the trail.

  “He’s lying straight across the trail like he owns the place, refusing to go any higher.” Ryan laughed, bounding ahead and calling down to Neil to let him know we were on our way.

  “You sure you didn’t want to stay up here a little longer? I mean, we worked so hard to get all the way here,” Simon asked, reaching out to stop me running down the mountain after Ryan.

  I felt the warmth of his hand on my shoulder and willed my hormones to flee to the other side of my body. “I’m sure. We should get back. Looks like a storm is coming.” I nodded toward the horizon where a group of dark clouds had begun to build. His eyes followed mine, and he frowned.

  “You’re probably right. We don’t want to get caught out here all alone,” he muttered.

  “Besides, if we don’t hurry, we can’t tease Neil about getting beat up the mountain by a girl.” I grinned, and he laughed loudly.

  “Hell, we don’t want to miss that. Let’s go.”

  And down the trail we went.

  “So how was your gangbang, Caroline?” Sophia sang sweetly as she found us all in the kitchen drinking water after our hike. The three guys each did a spit take, but I calmly continued sipping like a lady.

  “Fantastic, thanks. Neil especially. We practically had to carry him back down the mountain after I finished with him,” I replied just as sweetly.

  The boys recovered their game faces, but Neil could barely stop staring at Sophia’s tight tank top. Her actual suitor? Playing Spot the Mimi, his head rotating so fast I could have sworn he was an owl. I shook my head and put him out of his misery.

  “Where’s Mimi?” I asked.

  “Shower, which you four clearly need. It’s freezing outside. How could you have gotten so sweaty?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

  “We worked hard making it up that mountain. Hiking is harder than you think,” Neil puffed, and the rest of us wisely kept silent about the heart attack he almost had fifty feet from the summit.

  I grabbed an apple and headed in the direction of my room, with Sophia hot on my tail, as expected. I smirked a little and contemplated going easy on her—just asking her about it, giving her an out.

  “Those shorts look terrible on you, Caroline,” she remarked as she followed me into my room.

  Nope. Not going to happen. No easy out. “Thank you, dear. Should I have packed a little cat food for you when I packed Clive’s travel bag?” I sneered.

  She collapsed on my bed, curling her body around one of the giant pillows. “Where is he anyway? Who’s watching him this weekend?”

  “He’s staying with Uncle Euan and Uncle Antonio. That cat is lounging on a silk bed, being hand-fed tuna rolls right about now. He’s living the life.”

  “He has the life, that’s for sure,” she said, her face clouding briefly as she got comfortable.

  I peeled off my sweaty clothes and wrapped up in a terrycloth robe hanging on the back of the door. She complimented my choice of sports bra and laughed when she saw that I’d paired it with leopard panties, but then she went back to her previous wistful expression.

  “What’s up, Sophia?” I asked, lying on the bed next to her and wrapping myself around a pillow as well.

  “Nothing, why?” she asked.

  “You look like a sad sack.”

  “Eh, I just didn’t sleep well, I guess.”

  “Oh, really? Mr. Ryan keeping you up late at night, hmm? He didn’t have a lot of energy on the mountain today. . . .” I nudged her with my elbow.

  “No, no, nothing like that. I just . . . I dunno. I just couldn’t get settled last night. Normally I sleep really well up here, but it was so quiet last night, I just . . .” She beat her pillow a little with her fist, forcing it into a new shape.

  “I see. Well, I slept great!” I laughed, and she started trying to force my head i
nto a new shape with her fist.

  “You wanna get drunk tonight?” she asked when we finally settled down.

  “Hell yes. You?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  There was a knock at the door, and Mimi poked her towel-covered head in. “Is this a private session, or can a non-lesbian get into this bed?” she called.

  We waved her in, and she vaulted from the floor to the bed and landed on top of both of us.

  “What are we doing in here, ladies? Foreplay or just going for it?” she asked.

  “Please say foreplay,” a male voice said from the now-open door. We rolled over to see the men in the doorway, different versions of the same oh-my-goodness-girls-in-bed-together look on their faces.

  “Oh, get over yourselves. Like we’d ever need a guy to tell us whether we needed foreplay or not.” Sophia giggled, kicking a foot in the air and waving at them from over my shoulder. They shifted their weight from one foot to the other and cleared their throats. So predictable.

  “We’re planning on getting drunk tonight. You boys up for it?” Mimi yelled. Even though no alcohol was currently present in her system, Drunky Mimi’s volume level was already making an encore appearance.

  “Done and done,” Ryan answered, giving us a weird little salute that made us giggle even harder.

  “Now run away, boys, and let us have our girl time,” Sophia tossed over her shoulder, lifting my robe a little and giving my ass a quick smack. I squealed and tried to cover myself, but it was too late.

  “Dude. Leopard print,” Neil whispered to Simon in the kind of whisper that’s actually louder than just speaking.

  “I know, I know,” Simon countered, then drew his hand down his face as though he were trying to physically remove the image from his brain.

  Simon liked animal prints. Duly noted.

  “Come on, guys. The ladies have requested a little alone time, so let’s leave them to it.” Ryan tugged them out into the hallway and closed the door behind them with a wink that made Mimi’s entire neck turn bright red. Sophia examined her fingernails.

  I was really going to have fun with these two tonight.

  “Where the hell did you learn to cook like this? Jesus, this is good!” Neil exclaimed, taking his third helping of paella from the giant pan in the center of the table.

  “Thank you, Neil.” I laughed as he dug into another pile of rice.

  Simon nodded toward my wineglass, and I nodded back.

  I’d thought about making a quick version of paella when I saw all the wonderful seafood on sale at the local market, and when I saw their special on Spanish rosé and cava, my plans came together. We’d started in on the cava while prepping in the kitchen. The sparkling Spanish wine went perfectly with the wedge of Manchego I’d picked up, as well as the little salty olives. Once again, Simon was my helper, and we moved together in the kitchen. The other four settled on barstools across from us while we cooked, someone popped an old Otis Redding record on the ancient turntable, and we were in business.

  The wine flowed as freely as the conversation, and I could tell this had the potential to become a tight-knit group. Similar interests, similar senses of humor, but everything just different enough to keep it lively.

  Speaking of lively, as the alcohol was inhaled, the walls came down. Mimi and Sophia were barely hiding their misplaced interests anymore. Not that the boys were minding. In fact, they were encouraging it. Ryan currently examined Mimi’s foot for what she insisted was a spider bite. The fact that he’d been inspecting it for several minutes, and that said inspection included a calf massage did not escape my attention, or Simon’s.

  He grinned and motioned for me to move closer. I slid across the bench and inclined my head to his. He put his mouth next to my ear, and I inhaled. Wine, heat, and sex ran straight up my nostrils and invaded my brain, turning everything a bit fuzzy.

  “How long before they kiss?” he whispered, his mouth so close I swear I felt lips brush my ear.

  “What?” I asked, beginning to giggle the way I did when I’d had a little too much to drink and a little too much sexy dangled in front of me.

  “How long? You know, before they kiss the wrong person?” he asked as I turned to look into his eyes.

  Those eyes, oh, those eyes were now calling to me.

  “You mean the right person?” I whispered.

  “Yeah, the right person,” he answered, scooting a little closer on the bench.

  “I don’t know, but if the kiss doesn’t come soon, I’m gonna burst,” I admitted, knowing full well I was no longer talking about our friends. And knowing full well that he knew full well I was no longer talking about our friends.

  “Hmm, I wouldn’t want you to burst.” He was now mere inches from my face.

  Harem. Harem. Harem. I repeated this mantra over and over.

  “I wanna go in the hot tub.”

  The whining pulled me away from the voodoo and back to the kitchen. Where there were people present.

  “I wanna go in the hot tub,” I heard again, and turned to address Mimi. Imagine my surprise when I saw that Sophia was actually the whiner, and she was now hanging on Neil like a backpack.

  “Okay, so go in the hot tub. No one’s stopping you,” I insisted, sliding away from Simon and back in front of my plate where I began separating my peas from my lobster. I was full, but I would never leave lobster on the plate. I have standards, after all.

  “You have to come too,” Sophia whined again as I began to comprehend. Sophia was drunk. Sophia got clingy when she got drunk. Oh boy.

  “Go ahead. I’ll clean up the kitchen a little and then meet you guys out there,” Simon said, taking my plate and starting to stand.

  “Hey, hey, hey! Lobster bite, hello,” I protested as I grabbed my fork.

  “Here, I would never get between a woman and her lobster.” He smiled, offering me my fork back. I accepted the bite with a smile and stood up. I was a little more drunk than I thought, and this fact made itself known as gravity began to tease me.

  “Whoa there, you okay?” he asked, steadying me as Sophia started off for the bedroom.

  “Yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine,” I answered, planting my feet and winning the battle.

  “Maybe you oughta slow down?” he asked, taking my wineglass.

  “Oh, lighten up, it’s a party,” I cried, beginning to giggle. Suddenly everything was funny.

  “Okay, party on.” He smiled as I headed to the bedroom to change into my suit. Which proved harder than I thought. String bikinis are difficult to tie when you’re more than a little buzzed.

  “Okay, Caroline’s next. Truth or dare,” Mimi yelled, once again proving that Drunky Mimi had only one volume level.

  “Truth,” I yelled back, splashing Sophia in the face accidentally as I reached behind me for my glass of wine. We’d brought out the last bottle of cava and were steadily working our way through it. And it was steadily working its way through us, our game becoming more and more dangerous. The sky crackled a bit with faraway lightning, and low rumbles of thunder were just beginning to be heard over the giggling and splashing.

  Once we came outside and got settled in the hot tub, it was only minutes before Neil suggested a game of Truth or Dare, and only seconds after that before Sophia agreed to it. I laughed it off at first, saying there was no way I’d play such a childish game. But when Simon implied that I was chicken, the alcohol reared its ugly head and shouted something to the effect of, “I will play Truth or Dare, you sucker, until you can’t tell your truth from your dare!”

  This statement made perfect sense in my head, and must have seemed logical to Mimi and Sophia as well, as they immediately began offering me high fives and you-go-girls. I’m pretty sure I saw Simon shake his head, but he was smiling, so I let it go. And poured another glass of sparkly.

  “Where’s the one place you want to travel and haven’t been yet,” Sophia asked, humming along to the tunes coming through the French doors.

  Sophia
had found all of her grandfather’s old records, and Simon almost had a fit when he saw the collection. He’d selected a Tommy Dorsey album, and the big band accentuated the night perfectly.

  “Boring, make her take a dare!” Simon sang, and I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “It’s not boring, and she chose truth so she gets truth. Caroline, where is the one place on earth you want to go?” she asked again.

  I leaned my head back against the edge of the tub. I looked up at the stars and an image immediately came to mind: soft wind blowing, warm sun on my face, the ocean spread out in front of me dotted with craggy rocks. I smiled just thinking about it.

  “Spain,” I sighed quietly, the smile lingering as I imagined myself on a beach in Spain.

  “Spain?” Simon asked.

  I turned my face toward his. He was smiling back at me. “Spain. That’s where I want to go. But it’s so expensive, it’s going to have to wait awhile.” I smiled again, my head still wrapped around the image.

  “Hey, wait, Simon, aren’t you going to Spain next month?” Ryan asked, and my eyes widened.

  “Um, yeah. Yeah, I am actually,” he answered.

  “Great! Caroline, you can go with him,” Mimi decided, clapping her hands and turning to Ryan.

  “Ryan, you’re next.”

  “No, no, wait a minute. First of all, I can’t just go with Simon to Spain. And second of all, it’s my turn,” I protested as Simon sat up.

  “Actually, you could ‘just go with Simon to Spain,’ ” he said, turning to me fully. The other side of the hot tub got very quiet.

  “Um, no, I can’t. You’re working. I can’t afford a trip like that, and besides, I don’t know that I can take time off next month.” I felt my heart swell as I processed what he’d just said.

  “Actually, I heard Jillian telling you the other day that next month would be a good time to take your vacation before the holiday season,” Mimi piped up. She sank back into the shadows as I glared at her.

  “Be that as it may, I also can’t afford it, so discussion ended. Now then, I believe it’s my turn. Let’s see, who should I pick?” I looked around at everyone.