Bree Bellucci

Bound And Sold

Addison Miller pushed a lock of her long chestnut hair back behind her ear for the thousandth time that evening. The wind was roaring across the winter beach, howling in the dark night and chilling the assembled friends down to their bones. Even under layers and layers, the four young adults couldn’t seem to get warm. Not that any of them minded the predicament too much. This was half the reason they’d decided to come to the beach in this first place. This deep into January, the only way to stay warm on the Jersey Shore was by snuggling close to someone and cloaking yourself in a booze jacket. And the foursome in question was on the ball, in that regard.

It was January during the friends’ senior year in college. Addison, along with her best girl friend Anna and their longtime friends with benefits Grayson and Charlie, attended colleges all across the region, and only ever got to see each other during the long summer and winter vacations that occurred during the school year. Knowing that they had each other to come home to made the trek back to their lame suburban town in Central Jersey fall less horrible.

Some people were surprised when they realized how close the four young people remained. There wasn’t a lot that they had in common, on the surface. Addison was a beautiful but introverted bookworm, president of the Mathletes during high school, and currently studying engineering at MIT. Anna had been the president of the drama club in high school and the lead in every single school play. Now, she was off in New York studying drama at The New School. Grayson had been a star athlete during college, and had won himself a scholarship playing lacrosse at Cornell up in Ithaca. And good old Charlie was the class clown, always coming up with some crazy scheme. He was in Boston now, studying something different every year at Boston University.

They were, indeed, an eclectic group, but that was what made them such a strong unit. Beneath their differences, they shared the same sense of divine dissatisfaction with the status quo, the same sense of adventure. These qualities had gotten them into some pretty fantastic scrapes through the years, but they always came out laughing their asses off. And that was the most important thing to all of them, at the end of the day.

They were even having a ball freezing their butts off on the abandoned January beach. These beach trips had been a tradition since their first winter break reunion during freshman year. Each of them would bring a little bottle of booze; Addison brought the rum, Anna the vodka, Grayson the whiskey, and Charlie the tequila. Then, they’d pile under a bunch of blankets on the beach and fool around, getting tipsy and rolling all over each other. Eventually, they’d pair off and do vaguely naughty things until everyone was too drunk to care about getting nasty in front of each other.

There was no self-consciousness between the four of them, as this had been going on forever. Ever since high school, Addison and Charlie had been fooling around, and the same went for Anna and Grayson. Even while they were away at college, the pairs managed booty call trips. None of the friends ever insisted on a relationship, because they were too young and too fond of their group to mess everything up with dating. So, they continued on as fuck buddies for most of their young lives and loved every single minute of it.

“Who’s got the rum?” Grayson said, his words getting whisked away on the wind the moment they left his mouth.

Charlie produced a bottle from the pocket of his coat. “Sorry, I’ve been hoarding it,” he said.

Grayson snatched the bottle away and took a long pull. Like a man dying of thirst in the desert, that’s how Grayson always was around booze. Vacations were the only times he ever got to goof around, what with his scholarship, and he was always the one to live it up the most. Pausing in his chugging for a moment, he wrapped his parka-clad arms around Anna and pulled her tightly against him. She squealed in not-too-authentic alarm, batting him with her gloves.

“You’re nothing but a big oaf, Grayson,” she chided, “You know that?”

“Well, I guess that makes you nothing but a little shrimp!” he laughed, giving her an affectionate noogie. Grayson and Anna had a funny way of switching back and forth between brother-and-sister antics and sex-buddy shenanigans. Addison smiled at them, shaking her head.

“You two are quite something,” she said, “Think you’ll ever grow up?”

“Why should we?” Anna said, “Growing up just means getting lame and frumpy. Like you, Addison!”