Jules explained, “Marissa asked us to look for you. At first, when she’d waved us to come over to her, we thought she needed something. We thought it was related to the pregnancy, maybe. We were surprised when she said she was alright, but that you may need …”

Bette was shaking her head, and interrupted Jules, “No, I was ok, Jules. I just had a tete-a-tete with an ex, and … well ….” She gave them a wry half-grin, half-frown.

Diane encircled Bette’s waist as Jules drew an arm across the brunette’s shoulder. “Oh, well…” Diane commented, making sympathetic sounds.

They walked together in silence, towards the cocktail tables.

“Umm… I have to talk to the two of you, actually,” Bette said after a few minutes. She looked around. Things seemed to be under control around the party/bonfire area. I guess I can walk on the beach with Jules and Diane for a few minutes, even if Logan asked me to keep an eye on things.

She signaled to them, pointing towards the area where the beach curved a little, away from the majority of people milling around, and asked, “Mind if we walk over there … away from people?”

Jules and Diane looked at each other, and said simultaneously, “No, of course not! C’mon, let’s go for a walk.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A few hours later, after most of the guests had departed for their own homes or hotel rooms, or for a “vampire club” that opened only during the summer, the remaining guests sat around the bonfire, now composed mainly of heaps of glowing embers and a few remaining thick logs from which a fire was still roaring.

Brom and Tom had returned from another gathering they’d gone to soon after dinner was over earlier that evening.  Brom had been invited to an after-dinner social in another mansion a few miles away, and he took Tom with him. He and Tom had taken Brom’s Ducati, eschewing the use of a car, to get to the other party. When they returned to Logan’s place they were full of stories about drivers weaving down the roads, and who made Brom nervous. Bette and Tina were shaking their heads at the two men.

“Whose party was it anyway?” Bette asked as Brom collapsed in a heap next to Tina, lying on his back on the sand, letting out the nervous energy he’d stored during the short bike ride back to Logan’s place while carefully avoiding weaving cars on the road with a loud sigh.