Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

You turn your head so you and Scott can look wide-eyed at each other, pressing your lips in exaggeratedly comic suppressed mirth, and then clap your hands over your respective mouths so you don't actually laugh aloud. You both know Dex would be way past dying of embarrassment if he knew even one of you could hear him beating off.

It's hard not to wonder whether your face is even redder than it feels—because you never once guessed how exhilarating it would be, to secretly know that the reason he had come straight back and take his cock out for a little recreational flogging is that... he liked kissing you that much.

You and Scott are completely on the same page, in that it's also kind of weird and disrespectful-feeling to be listening to somebody's solo session without them knowing it. You agree via gesture to meet out on the deck and pretend you've been there all along. Scott hands you three empty glasses to take outside, them rummages briefly in the cabinets until he finds a bag of white rice. He stands that up on one end and jams your phone into it, then picks up the drink pitcher and the rum bottle and motions you to get yourself outside.

"Our secret forever?" You present your pinky to Scott once the sliding door is safely closed behind you and the glasses are set down, and he hooks his around yours. "I promise," you both say in unison, laughing a little.

"Let's take this one to our graves," Scott agrees. Then, "You want a mojito?" he asks a minute later.

"Are you going to have one?"

"Uh. So, being strictly honest, I've had three already," he tells you, glancing away with mild embarrassment. "I was maybe stressing a little about all the new ways today might spur our recent bounds of awkwardness to still greater heights."

"So you're not done drinking is what I'm hearing," you deadpan, and he snorts with an obliging laugh.

"Far from it."

"Then hit me," you say, shoving one of the glasses over to him. "At least you shouldn't have to drink alone."

Scott splashes some rum into the glass and adds some of the mixture from the pitcher, making sure to get a couple ice cubes in the cup, then makes himself one. "So what happened to your phone?"

"He had the bright idea to wake me up with his foot while I was lying near the edge of the jetty, which startled me so badly I fell off with the phone. He's a mess because he stripped down and went in to get it. I think the phone's fucked, though," you sigh. "Mom's going to fucking end me. It's a good thing we're going home tomorrow, because I'm sure once she finds out I bricked the phone she'd just demand I do that anyway so she can punish me sooner."

"Maybe we can get it revived once it's dried out," he suggests, making the sort of uncomfortable face he makes when reminded how mean your mom is.

You don't really feel like talking about either your fucked up phone or your mom, so you just shrug and take a drink from your glass. "Hey," you say after tasting it, "this is pretty good. Kinda strong too."

"Yeah. I'm pretty much feeling the ones I already finished," he admits.

"Ooh, are you going to get out of control?" you tease him.

"You guys were down there a little while," he remarks, instead of replying to that.

Um. Right. "Yeah," you agree noncommittally. "How'd you two settle who was going to come down and find me, anyway?"

Scott gives you a quizzical look. "I mean, you basically asked for him, right?"

"Huh? How?" You frown at him as you take another drink.

"You were playing all Dex-themed music," he says, which, okay, now that he points it out, that's sort of true. Except—

"—how do you know what I was listening to?" you ask.

Scott shakes his head at you. "You left your bluetooth connected in the house. No idea how the range on that thing extends that far, but we figured you were doing it on purpose to prove a point."

"Oh. Uh. Yeah, no, I wasn't. I just was trying to cheer up and then I was just kinda in the mood for one particular song. Ugh. I didn't know you guys could hear all that. I'm an idiot."

"No you're not," he says, disapprovingly, but at least it's not a prudish kind of disapproval.

"Okay, fine, I'm not, but I'm still allowed to call out something as not being one of my finer moments of genius, all right?"

"Noted," Scott says mildly, but his eyes linger on you with enough curiosity that you can tell he's wondering what must have happened in that interval between when your phone got dunked and cut off the music playing in the house, and when you both finally came back up the hill.

"Can I ask you something super blunt?" you say, downing the rest of your drink and shoving the glass back over to him.

Scott has such friendly, cheerfully warm eyes. They're one of his best features. His face is not only handsome, it's built to look like he inherently gives a shit about whatever is happening in front of him, and his beautiful, dark eyes are integral to that. Even knowing it's just that his resting-nice-face doesn't detract from how easy person he is to relax around.

Right now, though, those eyes are a little wary. Fair enough. Both he and Dex must be worn the hell out with your peacemaking efforts up until the last couple days when you reluctantly agreed to basically give up on that and try to make do with two separate vacations with each of them, rather than the group thing you wanted. "You can ask," he says cautiously.

"I asked him something the other day and his answer felt... incomplete," you say after considering how to word this. "I asked him if you guys fell out because of something to do with me. Like some kind of, fighting over who gets to win the girl thing, or whatever. I know how self-obsessed that sounds but I really needed to feel sure."

"What'd he say?" Scott asks.

This just makes you wrinkle your nose at him. "No way. You answer first."

"Worth a shot," he says, looking questioningly at your glass. When you nod, he makes you another and pushes it over to you. "No," he says. "We weren't fighting over who gets to win you. Promise. You didn't do anything wrong or come between us."

"Even though you were flirting with me that night of the party? That wasn't anything to do with it?"

You see a muscle move in Scott's neck, but his expression is neutral. "You were flirting with me, too," he observes, which is true, but not the relevant point.