Chapter 1: The Driftwood is in trouble
The salt air usually tasted like freedom, but today it just tasted like panic.
Becky’s knuckles were white where she gripped the sun-bleached railing of the Driftwood’s deck. Her heart wasn’t just pounding; it was trying to crack her ribs from the inside. Down the beach, a gleaming parade was cutting through the late afternoon haze. The staff from the Oceanside Lounge, all in matching crisp white polos and khakis, were marching right along the tide line, handing out flyers and neon wristbands to anyone spread out on a towel. Their laughter, bright and artificial, carried on the wind.
“They’re doing a full-on amphibious assault,” Claire said, materializing beside her. She didn’t sound panicked. She sounded tired. The Driftwood, her Driftwood, was a creaking, beloved shack of sun-bleached wood and mismatched furniture. The Oceanside Lounge was a glass and steel monument to credit lines and cocktail umbrellas.
“We can’t compete with that, Claire. They’ve got a frozen margarita machine that looks like it was beamed down from orbit.”
“We’ve got better tequila,” Claire muttered, but the statement hung limply between them. She watched a family gather their things and begin trudging up the sand toward the Lounge’s procession. “We’ve also got a mortgage payment due on this dump in twelve days.”
The silence that followed was filled by the rusty creak of the Driftwood’s sign. Becky looked at her best friend. Saw the premature etch of worry around her eyes, the way her shoulders sagged under an invisible weight. Saving her parents’ bar had been Claire’s only mission for three hard years.
“So what’s the plan?” Becky asked, her voice low. “We run down there and start a kickline? Our two-woman show versus their twenty-person chorus line?”
A slow, calculating smile spread across Claire’s face. It was a smile Becky knew well. It usually preceded trouble. Claire’s eyes swept over Becky, from her windswept brown hair down to her worn Converse.
“We have something they don’t have,” Claire said.
“What? A collection of dusty ship wheels and a jukebox that only plays Springsteen?”
“You.”
Becky barked a laugh. “Right. My legendary charm and wit. I’ll dazzle them with my knowledge of top-shelf rum.”
“No.” Claire’s gaze was direct, unwavering. “Look at them. They’re all… packaged. Uniform. You’re real. You’re here. And you’re gorgeous, Bec. We just need to make you a little more… visible.”
A cold trickle of understanding dripped down Becky’s spine. “Visible how?”
Claire nodded toward the bar inside. “It’s a hundred degrees. You’re wearing jeans and a tank. You’re sweating. Everyone’s here for the beach. So… be of the beach. Lose the tank. Just the bikini top. Be comfortable.”
Becky glanced down at herself. The turquoise fabric of her bikini was just visible under the thin white cotton of her tank. The idea was ridiculous. Insane. “I’m working, Claire. Not sunbathing.”
“You’re surviving,” Claire corrected, her voice soft but urgent. “Please. Just try it. For an hour. See if it changes the… vibe.”
The desperation in Claire’s eyes was the final straw. It was a look that bypassed logic. With a sharp, resigned sigh, Becky grabbed the hem of her tank top. “This is a terrible idea,” she mumbled, before pulling the damp fabric up and over her head in one swift motion.
The late afternoon sun hit her skin like a physical touch. The salt breeze, which had felt abrasive before, now swept directly over the exposed skin of her stomach and ribs, a sudden, shocking intimacy. Her bikini top, simple and sporty, now felt flimsy, the only barrier between her and the open air. She felt immediately taller, more aware of the lift of her chest with each breath, the way her midriff tapered into the waistband of her jeans. She crossed her arms instinctively.
“See?” Claire said, her smile turning genuine. “Better already. More you. Now go take an order. Walk like you own the place.”
Unfurling her arms felt like dropping a shield. Becky forced her shoulders back, grabbed her notepad from the bar, and headed to the deck table where a group of guys in board shorts were nursing beers. She felt their collective gaze shift, sharpen. It wasn’t the usual glance for a waitress. It was a slow, appraising slide that lingered on the strip of skin between her top and her jeans, on the curve of her neck. One of them ordered a second round immediately. Another asked for her name.
The next hour passed in a blur of heightened sensation. Every brush of her bare arm against a customer’s shoulder, every reach across a table to clear a glass, sent a jolt of awareness through her. She was performing a version of herself, one that was deliberately, provocatively present. And it was working. The tables on the deck stayed full. A few people from the beach wandered up, drawn by the laughter and the sight of her moving between the tables, a spot of warm, moving color against the weathered wood.
Claire sidled up to her as she was loading the dishwasher. “Feet must be killing you in those shoes on this warped floor. Kick ’em off. Ground yourself.”
The request felt even more intimate than removing the shirt. Her feet were private. “Claire…”
“It’s a beach bar! Who wears shoes?” Claire’s voice was light, but her eyes were pleading. “It’ll look natural. Unaffected.”
Becky slumped against the sink, tugged at the laces of her Converse, and peeled off her socks. The wooden floor was cool, grainy with sand and spilled salt. She curled her toes, feeling the solid, unfamiliar planks beneath her arches. When she walked back out, the feeling was profoundly different. Each step was a connection, a silent, grounding press against the world. She felt the grit, the slight give of the old boards. It made her movements quieter, more fluid. A guy at the corner table watched her feet as she walked, his eyes tracking the delicate bones, the clean line of her ankles. He ordered an expensive Scotch.
The sun began its slow bleed into the horizon, painting the sky in violent oranges and purples. The crowd had grown, become livelier. The Driftwood was buzzing with a energy it hadn’t seen in months. Claire pulled Becky into the tiny, cluttered office.
“It’s working,” Claire whispered, her face flushed with a mixture of triumph and fear. “But they’re getting ready to leave, to go to the Lounge for their ‘sunset specials’. We need the coup de grâce.”
Becky’s skin was humming. The attention had become a current running under her skin, warm and addictive. “What else could I possibly take off? My ears?”
Claine’s eyes dropped to Becky’s jeans. “Those. They’re sending the wrong message now. You’re barefoot, you’re in a bikini top… but you’re still hiding. The jeans say ‘town’. We need ‘shore’. Lose them.”
A laugh, shaky and thin, escaped Becky’s lips. “You want me to work in just my bikini? Claire, that’s… that’s not bartending. That’s…”
“Saving my home,” Claire finished, her voice cracking. “Please, Bec. It’s just a few more hours. You saw how they looked at you. It’s just skin. It’s power.”
The word power hung in the air. It didn’t feel like power. It felt like a cliff edge. But Becky looked at Claire’s tear-bright eyes, looked out at the bar full of people they had attracted, and felt the strange, thrilling buzz of the evening coursing through her. The initial reluctance had been burned away, replaced by a daring, thrumming heat.
Without another word, she unsnapped her jeans. The sound was shockingly loud in the small room. She pushed the denim down over her hips, stepping out of the pooled fabric. The air in the office felt new against the long lines of her thighs, the backs of her knees, the previously concealed sweep of her hips. Her bikini bottoms, matching the top, now felt absurdly small, the final, flimsy border of her self. She kicked the jeans into the corner.
Walking back into the main bar was like stepping onto a stage. The conversation didn’t stop, but it dipped, warped, re-focused. The light from the hanging bulbs caught the smooth tan of her legs, the muscle shifting in her calves as she moved. She felt utterly exposed, a nerve ending. And she was blazingly, undeniably aroused by it. The weight of their stares was a physical pressure, a thousand invisible hands on her skin. It was terrifying. It was electrifying. She served drinks with a smile that felt both genuine and fiercely defiant.
The sunset crowd stayed. More arrived. The jukebox played. The noise was a wall of joy.
Later, during a momentary lull, Claire leaned close, her breath hot on Becky’s ear. Her voice was a low, thrilling tremor. “You see it, right? You feel it. They can’t look away. You’re the heartbeat of this place tonight.” She paused, her gaze intent. “The top. It’s the last barrier. Between you and them. Between failing and saving everything. Just the freedom of it. The ultimate ‘fuck you’ to the Lounge in their polo shirts. What do you say?”
Becky’s breath hitched. Her nipples, already peaked tight against the fabric from the constant thrill, ached. A man at the bar, catching her eye, raised his glass in a silent, encouraging toast. Another nodded, a slow, approving smile on his face. The encouragement wasn’t vocal, but it was palpable, a wave of permission and desire rolling toward her.
This was the cliff. She closed her eyes for a second, feeling the entire evening—the fear, the desperation, the shocking, growing pleasure—tighten into a single, taut wire in her core.
Her hands moved of their own accord. They came up behind her back, fumbling for the tie of the bikini top. The knot gave way. She let the straps slide down her arms, catching the fabric in her hands before it fell. For a heartbeat, she held it, the final scrap of convention. Then she let it drop onto the bar.
The air was cool on her breasts. The feeling was so profoundly exposing it stole her breath. Her skin prickled, her breasts feeling full, heavy, the tips intensely sensitive to every shift in the air current from the fans. She didn’t hunch. She stood there, behind the bar, her chest bare, her feet planted on the grainy wood, and met the eyes of the room. There was a collective intake of breath, then a cheer, a burst of applause that was more shock than approval.
The final step, later, when the night had deepened and the crowd had become a single, pulsing, sweaty entity egging her on, felt inevitable. The tiny bikini bottoms, damp and incongruous, were the last whisper of a past life. Slipping them down, stepping out of them, was like shedding a skin. The thatch of dark hair between her legs was briefly, utterly vulnerable before she turned, fully naked, to face the room. The wood grain pressed its history into the soles of her feet. Every inch of her was now part of the bar’s atmosphere—the smooth stomach, the strong feet, the full breasts, the dark triangle of pubic hair, the faint sheen of sweat making her glow in the low light.
She was completely, utterly exposed. And she had never felt more powerful, or more alive. The desperate mission to save the bar had twisted, had become something else entirely—a terrifying, white-hot awakening.
As the last customer stumbled out, drunk on rum and the spectacle, Claire locked the door and turned to her. The silence was absolute, broken only by the crash of waves.
“You were… monumental,” Claire said, her voice hushed.
Becky, still naked, her body humming with a deep, satiated energy, leaned against the bar. The cool wood against her back was a relief. She looked at the empty glasses, the spilled money, the undeniable success of the night.
“Is this the job now?” Becky asked, her voice raw. The arousal hadn’t faded; it had settled into a low, permanent thrum.
Claire walked over, placing a tender hand on her bare shoulder. “Only if you want it to be.”
Becky looked out the window at the dark, endless ocean. Then she nodded, a slow, decisive movement. “Then it is.”