Jenna gulped her drink and righted her red bikini top, which was trying its hardest to relieve itself of her enormous breasts. Even her bikini top was ready for a man. A real man. A man who craved her as much as she craved him.
Jenna reluctantly turned away from Testosterone Road and faced her best friends. The women she had spent her summers with here in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, for as long as she could remember and the women she hoped would help her through her most important summer ever.
Okay, she’d self-defined it as such, and it was probably a poor excuse for most important, but that’s how it felt. Huge. Momentous. Gargantuan. Great. Now she was thinking about other huge things…
“You’ve been here for a week, and you still haven’t told us why you’re all claws and hormones. Want to clue us in, or are we supposed to guess?” Bella Abbascia was a brazen blonde—and she, like Leanna Bray, the disorganized brunette of their bestie clan—had already found her true love. A feat Jenna only dreamed of. Ached for might be more accurate, and Bella was right; it was time to come clean.
Jenna downed the last of her drink and slapped her palms on the table.
“I don’t care what it takes; this is my summer. I’m done pussyfooting around. I want a man. A real man.” She slid her eyes to the construction workers again. Yum! She tried to convince herself to feel something more for the construction worker, but the only person her mind found yummy was Pete—and it didn’t seem to want to make room for others.
She wasn’t above faking it to pull herself through the charade. Maybe if she tried hard enough, she could talk herself into believing it.
“So, you’re going after Pete?” Leanna sipped her margarita and arched a brow. “How is that any different than every single one of the last five summers?”
“Oh no. Peter Lacroux can kiss my big, sexy butt.”
“Jenna!” Amy’s eyes widened. The sweetest of the group, she was perfectly petite, with kindness that sailed from her green eyes like a summer breeze.
“You do have a mighty fine butt, Jen,” Bella said. “But you’ve had a wicked crush on that man forever. If you’re going to focus your attention on someone—” Bella bit her lower lip and shook her head as one of the construction workers wiped sweat from his brow, pecs in full, drool-inciting view. Bella raked her eyes down his sculpted abs. “Um…Okay, yeah. They’re pretty hot. But why throw Pete away?”
Jenna had been over this in her mind a hundred times. She locked her eyes on her glass and exhaled. “Because I’m not going to spend another summer chasing a man who doesn’t want me. And this is a tough summer for me. I have to break up with my mother, and that’s enough heartache for a few short weeks.”
“Break up with your mom? Can a person do that?” Amy glanced around the table.
“I gather she’s not taking your dad getting remarried well?” Leanna asked. “I had such high hopes when she didn’t fall apart during the divorce.”
Jenna rolled her eyes. “So did I. You’d think that two years after her divorce, she’d be able to sort of compartmentalize it all, but, girls, you have no idea.” Jenna shook her head and held up her glass, indicating to the bartender that she needed another drink. She could have gotten up and retrieved the drink herself, but Jenna wanted the diversion of the sexy waiter who would deliver it to their table. She’d take as many diversions as she could get to keep from thinking of Pete.
“She’s gone…hmm…how do I say this respectfully? She’s not gone cougar, but she’s definitely acting different. She’s dressing way too young for a fifty-seven-year-old woman, and I swear she thinks she’s my new best friend. She wants to talk about guys and sex, and what’s worse is that she suddenly wants to go dancing and to bars. I love my mom, but I don’t need to go to bars with her, and talking about sex with her? Please.”
“I was wondering what was going on when she texted you a hundred times last night.” Bella pulled her hair back and secured it with an elastic band. “She’s going through a hard time, Jenna. Give her a break. She was married for thirty-four years. That’s a long time. I’m not even married to Caden yet, and if we broke up and he married a younger chick, I’d be devastated.” Bella and Caden met last year when Bella had been busy rearranging her own life. She’d started a work-study program for the local school district, fallen in love with Caden Grant, a cop on the Cape, and now she was as close as a mother to his almost sixteen-year-old son, Evan. The Cape was a narrow stretch of land between the bay and the ocean. Bella and Caden lived on the bay side in a house that Caden had owned when they’d met, and they would be staying at Bella’s Seaside cottage on and off this summer.
“I get it, okay? I just…it’s just so hard to see her struggling with her looks, and honestly, you know I adore her, but she’s sort of making a fool of herself. It’s been two years since the divorce. She just needs to get over it and move on. I do feel bad because I had to take a firm stand and tell her that I wasn’t going to come home until after the summer.”
“Why do you feel bad? That’s what you do every summer.” Amy eyed one of the construction workers, a water bottle held above his mouth, a stream of wetness disappearing down his throat. “Holy hotness.” She fanned herself with her napkin.
Jenna watched the guy wipe his mouth with his heavily muscled forearm. “Yeah, but she wanted me to come home to hang out with her a few times.” The sexy waiter brought Jenna her drink.
“Thank you, doll.” She watched his fine butt as he walked away.
“Doll?” Amy giggled.
“See?” Jenna bonked her forehead on the table. “That’s her word. Doll? Who says that? You have to help me. She’ll ruin me, and I swear if I spend one more summer lusting after Pete, then I’ll be empty on all accounts. My mother will hate me, my hoo-ha will be lonely, and I’ll use words like doll. Come on, do us all a favor and shoot me now.”
“Yeah, well, about that whole Pete thing?” Leanna nodded toward the crosswalk, where Pete Lacroux was crossing the road carrying the cutest puppy.
Holy mother of hotness, he is fine. I want to be that puppy. Those construction workers couldn’t hold a candle to Pete, and Jenna’s body was proof as her pulse quickened and her mouth went dry. His shoulders were twice as broad as those of the boys on the pavement, his waist was trim and he shifted the pup to the side, giving Jenna a clear view of the pronounced muscles that blazed a path south from his abs and disappeared into his snug jeans. Those muscles turned her mind to mush. Yup. She’d gone as dumb as a doorknob.
“Breathe, Jenna,” Amy whispered. “You are so not over him.”
Jenna couldn’t tear her eyes from him. Years of lust and anticipation brewed deep in her belly. Just one more summer? One more try?
No. No. I can’t do this anymore. “The man’s one big tease. I’m moving on.” She forced herself to tear her eyes away from him and guzzle her drink.