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It was too much chaos for Florence’s liking. Children screamed somewhere in the distance. A volleyball had narrowly missed her twice already before Ana offered her sanctuary on her towel. Someone nearby had brought a speaker and was blasting the strangest mix of genres imaginable with a headache-inducing focus on Nickelback.
At least Archibald had vanished an hour ago with snorkelling gear. Hopefully, he had been eaten by a shark in the meantime.
On her next birthday, she would simply disappear without warning. Fake her death, perhaps. Hitchhike to Vegas. But this was her thirtieth, and Armand had insisted on making a whole event of it. As if he, of all people, needed an excuse to celebrate. A beach day had been the compromise. Florence was beginning to suspect she should have simply allowed him to throw the cocaine yacht party he had originally proposed. At least yachts tended to have fewer children.
Florence took another drag from the joint Ana had handed her, then held it out to Armand in a silent question.
“Bah, non, this always makes me crave malbouffe,” Armand complained dramatically and passed it back to Ana instead. “The last time I smoked, I spent forty dollars on truffle fries and told the waiter I loved him.”
“Didn’t he give you his number afterwards?” Ana asked.
Armand looked smug immediately. “Yes.”
“That is deeply upsetting.”
“That, ma chère, is my radiant personality doing God’s work even when profoundly intoxicated by recreational substances.”
Florence hadn’t really been following the conversation. Fries sounded divine right now. With sour cream, perhaps. Or guacamole. And ice cream for desert.
Ana tilted her sunglasses down slightly and stubbed out the joint. “Oh. It’s the new next-door neighbours. What are the odds?”
“Ohh.” Armand stretched lazily on his leopard print towel and turned around, trying his best to act all natural. Immediately, his face lit up.
Florence resisted the urge to roll her eyes. He was not fooling anyone. Not after the shameless flirting and elaborate bird-of-paradise mating rituals he had been performing in their backyard every single time the neighbours appeared in theirs. She had once watched him casually open a bottle of wine, shirtless, naturally, while maintaining direct eye contact with Auric across the fence for nearly a whole minute.
When the two men came into view (Florence hadn’t bothered to follow her friends’ gazes), the ginger—Andrew, if Florence remembered correctly—was already glaring in their direction. Beside him, Auric spotted them and waved enthusiastically. Florence hadn’t really spoken a word to either of them ever since they had moved in, but the blonde seemed nice. Like a very beautiful golden retriever who paid taxes. Probably on time, too.
“Hey neighbours!” Armand called, waving daintily. “Want to join us? We still have lots of space and snacks.”
In a deeply unnecessary display of seduction, he reached into the bright pink cooler beside him, plucked out a grape, tossed it into the air, and caught it with his mouth.
Florence closed her eyes briefly. Jesus Christ. This was getting embarrassing. The weed made it difficult not to laugh immediately.
Andrew didn’t look impressed. “We wouldn’t want to impose. I’m sure we’ll find somewhere else.”
“Oh, sharing might be fun, dear,” Auric said brightly.
Andrew’s jaw tightened.
At that moment, Archie waded out of the water, carrying a ridiculous amount of seashells. He plopped himself down onto his towel he had spread out next to Armand’s, seemingly unaware of the fight he had just walked into.
“Found treasure,” he announced proudly.
When no one acknowledged him, he finally seemed to notice the others standing there. His expression soured immediately upon spotting Auric.
“Oh. Him,” he uttered, but still loud enough for everyone to hear.
Auric blinked politely. “Hello...?”
Meanwhile, Andrew was scanning the beach with growing despair. It was absolutely packed.
“There’s a nude section just over there,” Armand chimed in smoothly. “Maybe there’s still free room.”
Auric brightened immediately. “Oh! Really?”
Andrew looked like a man suddenly forced to confront every moral principle he had ever held, his grip on the beach bag tightening hard enough for his knuckles to whiten.
Archie perked up as well.
“There’s a what?”
“A nude section,” Ana supplied helpfully.
Armand’s smile sharpened ever so slightly. Florence recognised that expression. It meant he had identified weakness and intended to poke at it relentlessly for sport.
“Oh, but perhaps that’s too unconventional for some people,” he added silkily, eyes fixed on Andrew. “…In that case—” He motioned gracefully to the free speck of sand next to his towel.
Andrew straightened immediately. “Well, it isn’t.”
“Mm.” Armand tilted his head innocently. “You looked concerned.”
“Tch, I’m not concerned.”
“No, of course not. That would be…what is the word?” Armand pretended to think deeply. “Très uptight of you.”
Florence nearly laughed.
Auric blinked between them. “I mean, we could go there? If you want?”
Andrew visibly hesitated.
Florence could practically hear the internal crisis unfolding in real time. On one side: public nudity. On the other: Armand Lefevre continuing to flirt openly with his fiancé directly in front of him under the guise of simply being polite and French for the next several hours.
The decision clearly pained him.
“That sounds fine,” Andrew said through gritted teeth.
“Wonderful,” Armand purred.
Auric smiled, seemingly oblivious to the psychological warfare currently taking place around him. “See? This is exciting. We’re making beach memories.”
Andrew looked like he would rather make a police report.
Auric waved again before allowing himself to be guided away down the shoreline by a deeply tense-looking Andrew.
“See you later!”
“Hopefully not fully,” Ana called after him.
Florence watched Armand visibly light up at the fact that he had successfully manipulated another human being into voluntarily going to a nude beach out of sheer spite. Which still felt a bit off—because why would he want to do that if he clearly had preferred them staying here? Interesting.
Once they disappeared into the crowd, Archie turned slowly toward Armand.
“…What the fuck was that?”
“What was what?” Armand asked innocently.
“You just bullied a man into getting naked.”
“I did no such thing.”
“You absolutely did.”
Armand only smiled to himself and reached for the bottle of sunscreen beside the cooler. “Want to do my back, Arch?”
Archie stared at him suspiciously for a long moment before taking the bottle anyway. He shuffled closer on the towel with visible reluctance, muttering something under his breath that sounded vaguely like psychosexual warfare, then squirted far too much sunscreen directly onto Armand’s shoulder blade.
Armand hissed dramatically. “Mon dieu, are you trying to baste me?”
“You’ll survive.”
“I bruise emotionally very easily, actually.”
“Yes,” Archie deadpanned, already rubbing the sunscreen in with far more force than strictly necessary. “I’m aware.”
The whole exchange looked bizarrely domestic in a way Florence deeply distrusted. In front of her, Ana had lit up the joint again, smoke curling lazily upwards into the heat. Somewhere nearby, the speaker had transitioned from Nickelback into aggressively horny reggaeton. The music felt physically sticky somehow.
Humanity, as a concept, seemed to remain exhausting, even in your thirties. Given the circumstances, Ana’s reaction felt completely justified.
Armand sighed deeply. “Archibald, don’t act like you weren’t the one to ruin our little tête-à-tête. I had every right to be upset.”
Archie nearly dropped the sunscreen bottle. “I only—ugh, I won’t argue about this with you again.”
Florence decided immediately that it was best for her long-term psychological well-being not to ask what that meant.
Armand puffed out a theatrical breath and abruptly sat up. “I’m going for a walk.” He reached for his phone and, after a brief glance at the screen, tilted it toward himself and adjusted his bun.
Florence narrowed her eyes slightly.
There it was again—that weirdly pleased expression underneath the irritation. Like a cat that had shoved a glass off the counter and was already eyeing the second one. What was that about?
Ana seemed to notice it too. “Why do you look like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re plotting.”
Armand gasped softly. “Moi?”
“Sí, you culebra mañosa.”
“Very hurtful on Florence’s birthday.”
Then it clicked. Of course. Florence pointed lazily at him. “You’re going over there, aren’t you?”
Armand’s smile widened incrementally without her having to specify where there was. So she was right.
Archie sat upright so quickly that several seashells rolled off his towel.
“You’re what?”
“I merely think,” Armand said, already reaching for his sunglasses again, “that it would be rude not to greet our neighbours properly.”
Ana barked out an incredulous laugh.
Florence stared at him in disbelief. “You orchestrated this entire thing because you wanted to peacock around naked in front of a deeply uncomfortable suburban man and his fiancé?”
“When you say it like that, it sounds calculated.”
“Because it is calculated.”
“Thank you.”
Archie looked genuinely offended now, which Florence found deeply funny considering the man had spent the better part of the last six months having emotionally catastrophic situationships with Armand entirely of his own free will.
“You’re gonna get arrested,” Ana said.
“For what?” Armand asked. “Being neighbourly?”
“For whatever the fuck this is.”
“Good thing that I have the best lawyer in town, then.”
Ana flipped him off immediately, but Armand only pressed a hand to his chest in mock offence, gave her a little bow, and sauntered off down the beach like a man heading toward destiny rather than a probable restraining order.
“Pendejo!” Ana shouted after him.
Armand merely waved over his shoulder without turning around. Florence watched him disappear into the crowd between sun umbrellas and screaming children, already dreading the inevitable fallout.
Somewhere out there was Andrew Gillette, unknowingly minutes away from possibly the worst day of his life so far.
“Ten bucks Gillette has a nervous breakdown or attempts manslaughter within the hour?” Ana asked.
“Both sound probable,” Florence replied.
Beside them, Archie muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, “I’d hand him a hammer.”
Florence snorted despite herself. A nearby child immediately began crying at full volume for reasons entirely unrelated, though the timing felt appropriate.
For a while, the three of them simply existed in the heat and noise of the beach. Ana smoked lazily beside her, while Archie appeared to be absorbed in his phone, though Florence strongly suspected he was just staring at his podcast analytics as though willpower alone could improve engagement. The ocean glittered so aggressively it almost stopped looking real.
After a while, Ana pushed her sunglasses back up her nose and asked, “Beckett coming later?”
“Ugh, no. He gets weird around sand.”
Archibald’s ears perked up again. Obviously. Florence suppressed an eye roll. The man seemed to be unable to move on from any ex he had ever had.
She continued, “I’m spending the night at his place, though. He made a reservation in this fancy restaurant. Insisted on it. And then,” with a short glance toward Archibald, she added, “I’m gonna make sweet, sweet love to him.”
“Eugh. I’m not even gonna pretend to be happy for you,” Ana said.
“Thank you.”
“I hope the waiter spills red wine on him.”
“That’s fair.”
“I hope he starts talking about property taxes halfway through dinner.”
Florence recoiled slightly. “Alright, calm down. That’s too far.”
Ana grinned smugly and grabbed some water from the cooler. Archie, meanwhile, had gone strangely quiet beside them, reorganising seashells that absolutely did not require organising. And because Florence was only cruel to an extent (and maybe also because Archibald had started looking like a kicked puppy abandoned outside a Walmart), she decided to change the subject.
“Come on,” she said, pushing herself upright and stretching lazily. “Let’s go for a swim and you can tell me everything about your fling with that stiff-upper-lip guy from the DA’s office who always looks yearningly into the distance.”
Ana snorted as she got to her feet. “It’s not half as dramatic as you make it sound.”
Florence looped an arm through hers anyway, grateful to leave Archibald behind on his towel with his sad little shell collection and unresolved emotional issues as they started toward the water.
Somewhere in the distance, faintly, she thought she heard someone yell in outrage.
Ana paused.
“…Do you think that’s Gillette?”
Florence chuckled. “Guess we’ll find out later.”