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SUMMER SWAP 3.1
🕑 Added 2022-11-30 01:00:03 +0000 UTCFrom this towering height, the lifesaver looked like its candy counterpart, a small black ring floating almost dead center in a glowing turquoise rectangle; a targeting reticle in his proverbial night-vision scope. One o’clock in the morning, sunburned and beer-happy after a wonderful day on the yacht, Byron had one goal on mind: toss the volleyball from the rear hand-railing on the fourth deck and land it dead center inside the lifesaver floating on the surface of the second deck’s swimming pool. Not exactly easy-peasy. More like a million-to-one.
“Double or nothing, Byron,” Sully reminded him. Taunted him, more accurately. “Your terms, buddy.”
“I know,” Byron growled, trying to center his mind. He tossed the volleyball up and caught it, doing it over and over, spinning it against the pads of his fingertips, and poking out his tongue like he was Michael Jordan at a penalty throw.
Today had been wild. In the aftermath of the thing they’d done together last night, he’d had no idea how the morning would be. He and Chey had woken in Cody and Carla’s bed, and even though he’d watched his wife have crazy role-playing sex with Cody in front of their friends Sully and Scarlet, everything seemed . . . okay. Like after the act was done, all the worry and angst leading up to it had no reason to exist anymore. It was done. It was done, it was fun, and the integrity of the relationship with his wife remained intact. More than intact, more like grown stronger with the scarring and healing of a weak spot. The way a healed broken leg might be stronger than before it was broken.
“Here he is, folks,” Sully said in a low whisper like he was a golf announcer, “just about the worst three-point shooter they have on their team, up against what will prove to be—”
Byron shushed him and Sully snorted. Somewhere behind him, Scarlet giggled. Scarlet and Sully had watched Cheyenne have sex with Cody. Had participated, too, in their own ways. And yet, this morning, no one was shame-faced or regretful, or had shown him a look of derision. Not that he deserved one—it was a gift he’d given Cheyenne, and had enjoyed himself as well—but there was a lingering grime of humiliation that might take a little while to scrub clean. The kindness of his friends surprised him.
When Byron still hadn’t made his shot, Sully resumed his quiet narration: “You can see Byron is taking his time on this shot. He’s got a lot riding on this. Sullivan and Scarlet had beat him four hands on Hearts, and Byron, in an outrageous bid to avoid downing four shots of tequila, decided to throw down the famous double or nothing challenge, and here we are—”
Byron jumped to his toes and tossed the ball. It arced high and outward, and Sully leapt forward to the hand-railing, leaning over to watch it descend. Philippe was laughing with Arlo about something unrelated. Cody swigged his beer. The girls were gossiping. They were going to miss his incredible victory.
Sully hissed with furious anger. “Shit! It went in. It fucking went in.”
Byron was sure it didn’t.
Cody went to the railing and looked over. “It’s not in, dude.”
Sully said, “It went in and bounced out. You son of a bitch, Byron.”
***
The ball did not go in and then bounce out. The ball didn’t go in at all, but there was some new attraction to jeopardy that Sully couldn’t deny. He felt alive standing in the dark near the top deck of the yacht, hands on the railing, smile on his face and that wonderful lie still on his tongue. With the claim that Byron’s ball had landed inside the lifesaver, he’d submitted his fate to a newfound partner in crime. Byron Bishop was a man he now knew to be as devious and degenerate as he was.
Carla shook her head, frowning with an expression of doubt. “I swear that didn’t go in.”
Sully pushed back from the railing and threw his hands up in surrender. “Why would I lie about losing? I told you, I saw it go in.”
Carla put her hands up now, showing that she really didn’t give a shit either way. “Whatever, Sully. It’s your funeral.”
Cheyenne said, “You heard her, Byron. It’s Sully’s funeral. What song are we going to play?”
Scarlet said, “First, I don’t like the funeral talk. Second, we need to go back down to the lower deck because that’s where I left my drink.”
Cheyenne knocked her wine back. “You didn’t bring yours up?”
“You could’ve offered me a sip of yours,” Scarlet said, looking at Cheyenne’s empty wine glass.
Cheyenne said, “Could have,” elbowed Scarlet and laughed.
“All right,” Cody said. “Let’s back get back to the table.”
They all went single file down the set of stairs to the next deck, across and then down to the lower deck overlooking the pool. That’s where their card table was set up with their drinks and bowls of food. Cody was in the lead, and as they made their way to the table, Cody strode and leapt up with a foot on the hand-railing and jumped off the second deck to the pool twenty feet below, grabbing his knees and shouting, “Cannonball.” A second later: a loud splash.
Carla sat down, wincing. “Fuck, I hate it when he does shit like that.”
Cody hollered out from below, safe and sound. Nobody else would have the guts to do something like that.
Now Cody called out from below, “I can’t believe you hit that target, Byron!”
Sully and Byron and Arlo leaned on the railing, looking down to see Cody bobbing in the pool, paddling to retrieve the volleyball floating near the corner.
“I can’t believe it either,” Byron said, side-eyeing Sully.
Sully shrugged and said, “What am I going to do? You want me to lie? The ball went in the ring and bounced out.”
Byron shrugged and cocked his head, deciding to assume it now as a victory. “I mean, I am a really good fuckin’ shot.”
Philippe joined them, laying his beefy forearms on the railing. He said, “Double or nothing means you won nothing, you know that, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, but this is a different kind of double or nothing. One where I win something,” Byron said.
“That’s the way I understood it,” Sully said, getting antsy.
Philippe frowned, smirking and studying them. “Yeah? Well, you guys play it wrong.”
“Anyway,” Sully said, “You sunk it, Byron. What’s your pleasure?”
Instead of sitting at the uncomfortable chairs at the table, Cheyenne had plopped down on a padded lounger. She said, “Make it really good, Byron. It’s getting late.”
“I don’t know,” Byron said, rubbing his chin and narrowing his eyes in contemplation.
Arlo said, “A dare? Truth or dare again?”
“I think we’ve played it out,” Byron said.
Lily giggled and said, “Hurry up. I want to know how much trouble he’s in.”
Byron snapped his fingers and said, “Seven Minutes In Heaven.”
Lily frowned, unsure. “Is this is more funeral stuff again?”
Cheyenne said, “No, Seven Minutes In Heaven. It’s that spin the bottle game.”
“We didn’t spin any bottles,” Lily said, Arlo putting his arm over her shoulders.
Byron proclaimed: “Me sinking that incredible basket was the spinning of the bottle, Lily.”
Sully sucked in his lower lip, wondering where Byron would take this. Was he going to put him in a closet with someone? Carla, maybe? Or would he do what Sully kind of a little bit hoped he would do?
Cheyenne said, “So Sully has to go into a closet?”
Cody marched up the steps to their deck, dripping wet, saying, “Good, put him there for the night so we don’t have to hear him.”
Sully winked and showed Cody a middle finger. “Jump off the deck again, hot shot. Second time’s the charm.”
Cody darted around Byron and looped an arm around Sully’s neck, trying to put him in a friendly headlock. Sully pushed him away, shouting, “Cody, you asshole, you’re soaking fucking wet.”
Cody laughed, then charged nearer to Sully again, but instead of grabbing him, just shook his own head, sending his blonde hair in gyrating thrashes and sprinkling Sully’s face like he was a golden retriever. Sully recoiled, and Byron or someone kicked him in the ass. Sully went around to the far side of the table where they couldn’t get him, picked up a bowl of potato chips and held it at his chest like he would chuck it at anyone who followed. No one did, and he lifted a potato chip and crunched it. “So, what do I have to do? Want me to go in a closet?”
Now, the thing here under normal circumstances would be to say How about I go in the closet with Cheyenne? But given everything he’d seen last night, it would be too touchy to be funny. An unkind thing to say, and his intention wasn’t to be unkind. Sully looked at Lily. “How about it, Lily? You want to go in the closet for seven minutes in heaven?”
Lily made a funny face and crossed her arms over her chest and snuggled up to Arlo, who cinched his arm tighter around his wife. Arlo wasn’t offended, though, just smiling.
Sully said, “Don’t worry, Lily, I have a feeling Byron isn’t going to send me to do that.”
“No, there’s no fun in it,” Byron said, agreeing. “Scarlet...”
Sully’s heart jumped, and he began to smile.
Scarlet’s eyebrows rose high and her head oscillated towards Byron. “Me?”
Sully eyeballed Byron. They’d been through a lot together on this yacht trip and had got closer, and he wondered where Byron would take this.
Byron said, “Yeah . . . I think I’m liking it. Scarlet, I want you in the closet. Scarlet and…”
Sully crossed his arms over his chest and squeezed. The tension felt amazing. He knew what Byron was going to say before he even said it, but the long moment of silence before Byron made his pronouncement beat on Sully’s brain like a taiko drum. At last, he couldn’t take the suspense and blurted, “Who, Byron, who?”
Byron dragged it out even longer, like he just couldn’t make up his mind.
Jesus, Byron, just say it already!
“I don’t know,” Byron said. “I’m still thinking…” And, at last, he pointed at Philippe. “Scarlett and Philippe, Seven Minutes In Heaven.”
A lowing grew amongst the crowd. That was a terrible thing to do to somebody, send the man’s wife into a closet with another man. But while they lowed, there was still a friendly demeanor. They all knew something was happening between Scarlet and Philippe and that Sully didn’t like it, but also kind of didn’t hate it. And, after all, Byron’s choice was the exact reason Sully had lied about Byron sinking the basket. But he still had a duty to be offended.
“Hey, wait . . . hey, come on now,” he complained, not pushing it too hard in case someone like Lily jumped in and said Byron was going too far. But no one interjected.
Sully regarded them all, all of them smiling, enjoying the torment, and enjoying the night. So now he assumed the proud husband confident in his wife’s moral certitude. “Hey, fine, you want to waste your one-in-a-million shot, you go right ahead.”
Cheyenne’s brow lowered, unimpressed, and she leaned forward, hooked two fingers into the back of Byron’s waistband, and tugged him to sit down next to her on the comfy lounger. She put an arm around his shoulders and whispered in his ear behind a cupped hand. Byron never took his eyes off Sully, listening to Cheyenne, nodding, saying, “You don’t think that’s good enough? . . . uh-huh . . . uh-huh . . . that’s devious . . . uh-huh, yeah . . . oh, okay.”
Scarlet scoffed, exasperated. “Oh, come on, Chey.”
Byron said, “There’s an addendum.”
Scarlet said, “Oh, yeah? What’s that?” Her tone was dry and unimpressed, but Sully knew his wife’s every iota of body language and tone of voice; Scarlet was also brimming with excitement. Both Byron and Cheyenne were playing them, twisting them into a situation that neither of them hated, but both of them were too timid to initiate.
Byron said, “Seven Minutes In Heaven, Scarlet and Philippe...”
Scarlet said, “And?...”
Byron said, “And you’re both buck naked.”
Comments
L_S87
Late to the party, but this was a great opener, KT. I like how you found a way to weave everyone into this, especially with Byron. Sully needs to give Scarlet a reward for the previous night, and it's as if Byron knows exactly where he's headed, because despite the uneasiness, this whole experience has brought all of them closer together. Chey stepping in at the end to give her friend a little something extra is also funny, as if they are all conspiring to make this happen for Scarlet. Philippe sure is a lucky beneficiary. I also like the fact that we touched on the lingering feelings Byron has from the night before. He laid it all out there to give Chey what she wanted, and that obviously has emotional consequences. I can't wait to see what Chey sets up for him as a reward.
