Beach House Reunion (Beach House #5)(11)

Linnea stretched out on her mattress, closing her eyes. Her head was still spinning and her mouth felt like it was filled with cotton after last night. The long string of graduation parties was continuing in Charleston as more of her high school friends returned home from colleges all across the country. Texts were blowing up her phone. She opened her eyes and checked her texts.

Dale back! Party at the Darling at 8

Going to the darling? Can I borrow your red Louboutins?

Leslie’s is on SI. Bring wine . . . lots of wine

She found the endless round of parties to be just a continuation of the college weekend binge drinking. Only it seemed to be a perpetual weekend. They were blending one into the other—lots of drinking, laughing, acting like high school students again. She could predict what the next round of parties would be. Dale’s would be a private dinner party for twelve in a private room in a restaurant thrown by his exuberant parents, who were thrilled he’d been accepted to med school. Then it was on to Jessica’s family beach house on Sullivan’s Island. The cottage would be crammed from porch to rafter.

Linnea had had way too much to drink at last night’s party. She usually wasn’t a heavy drinker, but last night, Darby Middleton had shown up. They’d been serious in high school and he’d been her escort to her debut at the St. Cecilia Ball. But their parents’ calculated efforts and not-so-subtle hints, like showing how beautiful her new monogram would be, helped split them up. They went their separate ways in college—he to Sewanee and she to USC. Last night, however, Darby had looked even more handsome than she remembered. Unfortunately, he ruined the impression by getting too handsy in a dark corner. She’d remembered him being a good kisser, but something was missing. As with the parties, Linnea had grown bored and pushed him away.

She and her girlfriends had ended up crashing on the spare beds of the beach house like a pile of puppies rather than risk driving home. She’d risen at the crack of dawn, drunk gallons of water, then made her way back to Charleston. Thankfully the iron gates didn’t squeak. She’d tiptoed into the house as quiet as a mouse, careful not to awaken her parents, then spent the day in her room, sleeping and drinking coconut water for hydration.

She put her arm over her eyes to quiet her throbbing temples. She was finished with these endless parties. She felt restless, but she wasn’t sure what her next step should be. She was a college graduate. She was supposed to be a grown-up ready to tackle a nine-to-five job, Monday through Friday. The trouble was, she couldn’t find a job in her field and she had no idea what to do without one. Should she seek an internship? But she’d done that, and it felt like just postponing her leap into the real world. Marriage was not even on the table, much to her mother’s despair. Maybe grad school? But she hadn’t a clue what area to focus on. She’d been searching for a job for months. Organizations wouldn’t hire her because she didn’t have experience, yet no one was giving her a job to get that experience. It was all such a merry-go-round and so very frustrating.

The dinner bell sounded. Linnea groaned. She hated that dinner bell. Her mother had brought back an enormous cowbell from Switzerland and thought it was a clever way to call the children to dinner. It might’ve been clever when Linnea was ten years old, but at twenty-two, it was insulting. She pushed herself up on her elbows. Her mother would bang that damn bell until she came running.

“Coming!” Linnea called out, then grimaced as pain ricocheted through her head. There wasn’t enough water and aspirin in the world to flush this hangover away. With an aggrieved sigh, she slid from her bed and walked into her bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face, relishing the shock to her sluggish system. She stared back at her face, pale and wan, from behind the towel. She looked terrible. Her blue eyes were traitorously red-rimmed and puffy. She rummaged through her makeup drawer for eyedrops and a bit of brown shadow. Then she added blush to her cheeks and even applied lip gloss. Finally, she ran a brush through her blond hair and pulled it back with a clasp. She had to pass her mother’s radar. She slipped a green vintage sundress over her head and while she did up the front buttons slid her feet into sandals.

The bell rang again, more persistently this time. Linnea turned off the light, but instead of going directly downstairs, she took a detour to check on her brother. She raised her fist in the air to knock, then paused to sniff. There was no mistaking the scent of pot. She knocked once and swung open the door without waiting for a reply. In the darkened room her brother slept like the dead, snoring and stretched out on his belly, his feet hanging over the side of the mattress. Apparently, the dinner bell hadn’t registered through his haze. She crinkled her nose at the stench of stale alcohol.

“Cooper. Get up,” she said, wiggling his foot. “It’s dinnertime.”

He waved her away drunkenly. “Go away.”

“It reeks in here.”

No reply. She wiggled his foot again but only got a grunt for a response. At least he was alive. She drew closer and gave his shoulders a hard shake.

“Whaaat?”

“Get up. It’s dinnertime.”

“Don’ wann any,” he slurred.

“What time did you get in last night?”

“One,” he mumbled against his pillow.

“That’s not too late.”

“Afternoon.”

“What?” Linnea was stunned. “You stayed out all night?”