“Weak,” Sarah says accusingly as she stalks around her bedroom, searching for the sunscreen that she knows is here somewhere. “You’re weak. One mention of a good time, and you sell us out for a night in Portsmouth.”

Marcia beams at her from where she’s sitting, cross-legged, atop Sarah’s mattress. Her overnight bag sits on the floor near the door with a floppy hat resting on top. Sarah, however, is not done packing, because she got sidetracked proofReading an email to send to a professor and ended up redrafting part of the paper she was asking him to read, and now she can’t find her damn sunscreen.

“Oh come on, Sarah, it’ll be fun. You knew we were going the second you phoned me.”

Okay, that’s mostly true. “Not my fault Lucas is persuasive.”

Marcia cocks her head to the side, looking not unlike a curious Golden Retriever. “Oh, are you finding it hard to resist those baby blues?”

Sarah throws a rejected tank top at her. “Shut up. None of that, okay? We’re friends.”

“Sarah, he looks at you like you’re made of like … moonlight.”

“He looks at everyone like that.” Sarah opens her top drawer for the fourth time, digs around again, and then finally - “Success! Found it.”

“Great.” Marcia shuffles to the end of the bed and grabs Sarah’s backpack, zipping it open. “Now come on, throw it in here, and - Sarah, why do you have running shoes in here?” Marcia digs in a bit deeper. “And a sports bra, and shorts, and - Sarah, it’s the summer. Also only for like a day!”

Sarah glares at her and snatches the bag away, shoving everything back in. “And my training schedule says I have to run twelve miles tomorrow. If I wait until we’re back in the city, it’ll be too hot. So I’ll have to do it in the morning.”

“You’re crazy,” Marcia declares, but doesn’t argue. She slides off the bed, grabs her own bag, then opens Sarah’s bedroom door. “Lucas, we’re ready!”

Lucas is waiting in the kitchen near the entranceway, prodding at one of the new entries at the fermentation station. “Oh hey, only twenty minutes late!” he says, pointing at the clock on the microwave. “Not too bad for Sarah.”

“Hey,” Sarah objects weakly, but even she knows it’s a futile protest. She does have a bit of a punctuality problem. But she’s working on it. Kind of. She’s thinking about working on it. That’s still progress.

“Aw come on, Sarah, I’m just teasing.” Lucas reaches out and squeezes her shoulder, then opens the apartment door and holds it for Sarah and Marcia. “Let’s go, ladies, we haven’t got all day.” He flashes a goofy grin at Sarah as she passes by. “Might have to fit in some autograph time, actually. People on the train are going to think I’m a big deal, showing up with you two!”

Sarah rolls her eyes affectionately at him and intentionally ignores Marcia’s pointed smirk. She slips her other arm through her backpack straps and hoists it comfortably onto her shoulders, then leads the way through the hallway, down the stairs, and onto the street.

Six hours later, Sarah has to admit that she’s having a pretty good time.

She’s sitting on the edge of a red brick step with a bottle of cherry kombucha in her hand, her back to the door of the house they’re staying in, talking to a girl named Jordan who is apparently one of Lucas’s friends from high school. Nearby, there’s a raucous game of beer pong going, and just past that, a game of ladder golf. It’s a pretty spacious yard, at least for Portsmouth, but something tells Sarah that this group of people would find a way to have a good time even if there wasn’t a backyard at all.

She’s met a lot of different people since showing up with Marcia and Lucas a couple of hours earlier, but she only remembers a few names: Hamil, obviously, who she’s met before and whose friends’ house they’ve apparently commandeered, Jordan, Max. They’ve been nice and welcoming, and mercifully only a few of them seem to be on Lucas’s level of positive chaos.

“So you’re from Canada, I think Lucas said?” Jordan asks. “How do you like England?”

“Half Canadian, actually,” Sarah says. “Born in Canada. I went to school in Oxford, though.”

Jordan smiles. “Lucas told us you did your undergrad at Oxford too.”

“Oh, I - yeah,” Sarah confirms, feeling a brief flush of heat in her cheeks. “I moved to London a couple of years ago for my masters, and I love it. It’s probably my favourite city in the world, I think. Never a dull moment.”

“Especially now that you’ve got Lucas as your roommate, I bet,” Jordan jokes. “You must have the patience of a saint. I love Lucas, he’s the nicest guy around, but I can’t imagine he’s easy to live with.”

As if on cue, Lucas chooses that moment to amble away from the ladder golf setup, where he’d been engaged in active commentary of a seemingly contentious game between two guys named Liz and Lemuel. “Hey, I heard my name, Krishna!” he hollers as he strides up. “Don’t be telling her lies about me!”

Jordan holds up one hand innocently; the other is clutching a Carlsberg. “You’re right, I shouldn’t lie. He’s actually not a nice guy at all, Sarah.”

“Me?” Lucas exclaims, bringing his hands to his chest. “I’m the salt of the earth! Right Hamil?”

Hamil, who’s been engrossed in conversation with Marcia near the beer pong table for at least twenty minutes now, barely looks up. “That’s right, buddy!”

Sarah laughs. “Only good things, I swear.”

Jordan hesitates. “Well, in the interests of honesty, I did just presume that you were probably difficult to live with.”

“Oh!” Lucas raises his eyebrows. “And what’d she say?”

“She didn’t answer yet.”

Lucas crouches down in front of Sarah and rests his elbow on his knee. He drops his chin into his hand, letting a beer dangle from his fingers, and says, “Well, Sarah? Am I difficult to live with?”

Sarah laughs and glances down at her pale knees, then back up, not quite making eye contact. “He’s a great roommate,” she tells Jordan truthfully. “He fixed the sink the other day.”

“See!” Lucas vaults to his feet. “Knew I’d come in handy, didn’t you, Sarah?”

“Yes. I haven’t needed to use the step stool in weeks.”

Jordan chuckles and downs the rest of her drink. “Well, I need another. You want anything, Sarah?”

“Oh, no thank you. I’ve still got most of this left.” Sarah holds up the kombucha in her hand. Then, feeling compelled as always to explain her sobriety, she adds, “I’m not really much of a drinker, so I’m pacing myself until later.” She doesn’t add that one of the last times she’d drank around Lucas and Hamil, she’d made an ass out of herself by hanging off of Lucas all night. He’d been nice about it, but she doesn’t want to make it a pattern with a guy who’s just her friend.

Jordan doesn’t skip a beat. “Alright, well, I’ll be back! Don’t let Lucas rope you into playing ladder golf with him. He says he’s bad, but he’s actually the best here.”

Lucas grins down at her. “She isn’t lying, I’m the king.” Once Jordan vacates her spot, he turns and plops down beside Sarah. “So, having fun, Sarah?”

She nods. “Yes, I am! Everybody’s really nice. You were right, Lucas. Thanks for inviting us.”

“Anytime, Sarah!” Lucas claps his hand down on his knee enthusiastically, then rises to his feet. “Now, come on. Jordan probably warded you off of ladder golf, but I promise I’m pretty bad at beer pong if you want to go lose to Hamil and Marcia together. You can play with the ‘booch if you want, I’ll drink your shares.” He holds his hand out, offering it to her.

Sarah is also pretty terrible at beer pong, but Lucas’s face is beaming hopefully at her like sunshine and roses. Plus, she has to be the most sober person here. Maybe she’ll be able to use that to her advantage and narrow Marcia’s margin of victory. So: “Sure,” she agrees, taking his hand.

Lucas pulls her easily to her feet. His hand drops from hers as soon as she’s standing, but then it’s big and warm and flat against her lower back as he guides her toward where Marcia and Hamil are standing by the beer pong table.

“Hamil,” Lucas growls faux-menacingly. “You guys want to play?”

Marcia smiles at Sarah, a seemingly innocuous look that she knows is actually full of snark and unsaid teases. “Sarah, wow. Been a while since you’ve played beer pong. Do you think Jack’s shoulder has recovered?”

“Ha ha,” Sarah says dryly, shooting Marcia a look. “She was fine.”

Lucas looks between them. “Something happen?"

“Yes,” Marcia says at the same time as Sarah proclaims, “No.”

Hamil crosses his arms over his chest and grins widely. “There’s a story here.”

“There’s no story,” Sarah insists. “I’m just - I can be a little competitive, and it backfired once.”

“A little competitive,” Marcia repeats, doubling over with laughter. “Okay, Sarah.”

Sarah rubs the bridge of her nose, exasperated. “Look, it’s fine. I’ve evolved since then. Let’s play.”

She’s lying. She has absolutely not evolved since the time two years ago when she’d launched herself at innocent bystander Jack in celebration of winning a point over Marcia, accidentally causing Jack to strain her shoulder. She has probably actually regressed, if anything; now that the only person she competes with is herself, she can be as tough as she wants without the pesky addition of acknowledging how the other person is feeling.

But hey, Lucas and Hamil don’t need to know that.

So Sarah tightens her ponytail, hoping that the sun isn’t illuminating too much of the grey streak at the front that she’s given up on hiding, and beats Marcia in rock-paper-scissors.

On the upside, it turns out that Lucas is also a bit of a liar. He’s not terrible at beer pong at all. About ten tosses in, he and Sarah have three cups left to Marcia and Hamil’s four. Both of the points they have against the other team were scored by Lucas.

It’s Sarah’s turn to throw next; she lines herself up a perfect shot with the closest cup, takes a deep breath, and tosses the ball. It hits the rim, slides along the edge, and then funnels itself into the cup, landing with a silent splash in the half-filled beer.

“Yes!” she exclaims, followed quickly by a loud whoop from Lucas. She pumps her fists in the air in celebration and turns to him, expecting a high-five.

Instead, she finds herself hoisted in the air, Lucas’s strong arms around her waist. She lets out a quick yelp and grabs at his shoulders. “Yes, Sarah!” he’s saying excitedly, likely not even realizing that he’s swinging her a bit to the side until her left foot finds the ground and she nearly stumbles. Immediately, he steadies her with a big hand on her hip, one of his fingers brushing against the soft skin of her stomach where her tank top has ridden up slightly in the excitement. “Oops, I got you!”

Sarah laughs and looks up at him, suddenly glad she’s wearing sunglasses because god knows what sort of dumb look is on her face right now. “Thanks, Lucas.”

“No casualties on my watch, babe, don’t worry,” he proclaims. Then, with a flip of his middle finger across the table, he grins. “Eat our dust, Hamil!”

“We’re only tied now, Lucas,” Hamil fires back. “Don’t count your chickens!”

“Your chickens,” Marcia cuts in, giggling. “My god-”

Sarah hands Lucas the ball, reluctantly stepping out from his grasp to allow him to line up his shot. The ball flies past the end of the table. “Ooh, damn.”

“I’ll get you next time, Hamil!” Lucas promises. “Sorry, Sarah.”

“Oh, it’s okay.” A lie. It’s not okay. Marcia and Hamil must be destroyed.

As Marcia preps for her turn, Lucas slings a casual arm over Sarah’s shoulder and leans against her gently. Curiously, Sarah finds herself suddenly a bit more willing to forgive him for his bad shot.