Like Lovers Do - Tracey Livesay Page 0,1

on the same page regarding their life philosophies: careers before dears. Now she’d changed? Just like that? How could she continue pursuing her goal with that same single-minded focus if that time was now eaten up by a man?

Before Nic could voice her question, laughter alerted her to the fact that Ava and Lacey had finished their massages. When they cleared the foliage, Nic’s eyes widened and she pointed at Ava’s head.

“What is that?”

Ava Taylor touched the brim of her straw hat. “It’s to keep the sun out of my face. You know all this brownness doesn’t need to tan.”

Nic and Caila shared a glance.

“And what look were you going for?” Caila asked.

“Oh come on,” Ava said, jamming her fists on her shapely hips. “You’ve seen this look before. Women wear it at the beach all of the time. I’m trying it out for tomorrow.”

Nic shot a look at Lacey. “You let your friend come out of the house wearing that?”

Lacey, her tall, lithe dancer’s body showcased to perfection in an emerald green one-piece, held up her hands. “Don’t blame me. I sent her the link to the one she said she wanted.”

“It was four hundred dollars! I wanted Jennifer Lopez’s hat. I don’t have her money.”

Nic motioned to Ava’s studded sandals. “How much did you spend on those?”

“That’s different. These are Valentino.”

Caila brought a fist to her mouth, as if covering a cough. “So you were going for the J.Lo floppy hat look, circa 2002?”

“Exactly!”

Nic capitulated in her own struggle not to laugh. “Unfortunately, you ended up with the Miss Celie hat look, circa The Color Purple.”

Ava narrowed her brown eyes. “I did not!”

Nic pulled out her phone, did a quick google search, and showed Ava a still from the movie. Then she efficiently engaged her camera app, took her friend’s photo, and showed her the screen.

“Dammit!” Ava muttered, tugging the offending item off her head and tossing it onto the nearby table.

“It needs to be more than straw to be fashionable,” Caila said. “It should be big and actually floppy. What you’re wearing is just sad.”

“Screw all three of you.” Ava plopped down on a lounger situated beneath artfully planted palm trees. “I’m claiming the best full-coverage spot under the umbrellas when we head to the beach.”

“We’ll get a cabana,” Caila said. “That way, we won’t take any chances. ’Cuz I don’t do the sun, either.”

Lacey shook her head from her spot next to Caila on the edge of the pool. “Nic and I weren’t blessed with your melanin. We need to lie out. Plus, cabanas are too big and they block the view. How are we supposed to see the men?”

Nic pursed her lips. “What men?”

Nic hadn’t seen anyone worth her time, though to be fair, she hadn’t been looking. She wasn’t opposed to a vacation fling, but the timing wasn’t right. She was two months away from finishing up her residency and starting her fellowship.

“Remember that guy from the club last night?” Lacey asked.

Nic scoffed. “That one? He was alright.”

“His friend was cute,” Ava said.

Nic jerked her head back. “The one with the chicken legs?”

Lacey raised her brows. “Ava wasn’t looking at his legs . . . unless you count the third one that was visible through his too-tight pants.”

They all winced in unison.

“Speaking of hot guys . . .” Ava scooted closer and lowered her voice. “Did you have Randall for your massage?”

“I had Holly,” Caila said.

Ava pointed to Nic. “So you had him?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How was he?”

Nic shrugged. “He was good. Why?”

Ava sighed. “I don’t know. I mean, I wasn’t sure if he was giving me a massage or courting me.”

“What are you talking about?”

Lacey shook her head. “Don’t encourage her nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense! When I got a massage a few months ago, the therapist didn’t have a need to entwine his fingers with mine, like we were holding hands.”

Nic sat up. “He massaged my palms, but I can’t say it was anything like holding hands.”

“See? What did I tell you?” Ava shot at Lacey. “Then he did this move where he rolled me back and forth on the table and everything was jiggling.”

Ava shimmied for them to underscore her point that she did, indeed, have curves aplenty.

Nic waved her hand dismissively. “They do that to make sure you’re truly relaxed and that all of the tension is out of your body. He did that to me when I was facedown, too.”

Ava tilted her head knowingly. “I wasn’t facedown.”

It took a second for the meaning to