One Drop of Golden Sun

Ch. 26 Tequila Talk

*Lokela

Someone grabbed him right before he crossed the threshold to the kitchen.

The scent of strawberries and vodka hit him an instant before a head of blond hair came into view. Arms squeezed him.

"Lokela's here, everybody!" Ray shouted, dragging him back to the lanai. "And he brought a sacrifice to the goddess!"

She took his tequila to wave over her head and replaced it with a shot of vodka and three strawberries impaled on a toothpick.

Miller slapped his back. "Drink!"

The guys started chanting for him to drink. He had no idea what was going on, except that somehow Ray had transformed her heartbreak into a house party. He tossed the vodka back.

"You are supposed to eat the strawberries now. I made them as a garnish, but they didn't fit in the shot glasses." Ray demonstrated by putting a line of them in her mouth. Her lips closed around their red lusciousness.

His knees nearly gave out. He shook his head. A little vodka shouldn't affect him like that. She was laughing and trying to put his toothpick berries in his mouth, but he waved her off. Too much attention from her would kill him at this rate.

"What took you so long?" Miller asked as Ray danced off with Hugh as Travis strummed an island tune on his ukulele. "I assume you heard the good news if you showed up with a bottle to celebrate."

"I was there. I might have even nudged the guilty party in the right direction."

"Convenient."

Lokela scoffed. "Necessary. He might be a friend, but he's messing around with some chic back home to pass the time, while telling Ray she's the one. I couldn't let it slide."

"Indeed. And now she's single. And celebrating. And you live on the same floor," Miller said. "She's had a couple of shots. I think now would be the time to—"

"I'm going to interrupt you right there," a woman's voice said at their elbows. They jumped.

Naia stood behind them, hands on her hips, expression dripping with anger. "Is that how it goes around here? Get a girl a drunk and take advantage of the situation?"

"You're Ray's friend Naia," Miller said. "You're here as protection."

She nodded. "Ding, ding, ding. You are smarter than you look."

"Well, you don't know me, so I will inform you now that that is not the way things go around here."

She narrowed her eyes. "I hope so. But I've come prepared just in case. I know a thing or two about break-ups and heart-aches, and how guy friends are always there to offer their moral supportz." From her purse, she pulled a spiraled kid leash in hot pink.

"You have got to be joking," Miller said, rolling his eyes. "What do you think is going to happen to Ray in our backyard? No one is going to kidnap anyone, I promise."

"You might be surprised to hear this, but not everything is about you." She gave Lokela a pointed glare.

His face, which was already heating up from the memory of Naia barging in on him and Ray kissing, steamed up even more. He fanned his shirt, pretending to be hot from his ride home. As she waved to Ray to say hello, she took another kid leash from her bag, this time in blue, and as he watched, incredulous, she put both ends on Ray's wrists and then attached herself and Doug to both sides.

Ray was going to be chaperoned at this house party, and he knew it was because Naia didn't trust him.

Of all the...