Cassie laughed. “In that case, definitely. The more sugar I drink, the more bearable she becomes.” Her friend gave her a gentle shove to soothe the sting of the comment and indicate she was kidding. Mostly.

After one double martini and a lot of refined sugar, Erika was starting to see herself as the annoying, stuck-up twat they thought she was. She released a deep breath. Just relax. Vacations were an excuse to vacate one’s life. She desperately needed to escape her own mind. Checking her cell phone for calls and messages from the hospital was useless as it seemed the bar killed any kind of cell reception. And she wasn’t exactly in the best frame of mind to deal with hospital stuff right now anyway. Tomorrow, she’d be more responsible. Tonight, these cranberry martinis were a lifeline.

Cassie turned on the barstool. “These martinis remind me of that party we went to in tenth grade—Kylie Fresco’s Sweet Sixteen?”

Cassie hadn’t needed to clarify. It was the one and only party Erika had attended in high school. After her father had caught her sneaking back into the house, vomiting on the hall rug at 2:00 a.m., new, stricter rules had been put in place.

But that had been good. Going to the party had been stupid. Getting drunk and acting irresponsible got no one anywhere in life.

Where the hell was her drink? She gestured for Reed to speed it up as she nodded. “I remember the aching head the next day while I studied for my biology finals.”

“I think that was the first and last time we drank together,” she said.

“Really? Are you sure?” She thought hard but another night didn’t immediately come to mind. She’d known better than to disobey her father’s no-partying rule, not that she’d gotten many invites anyway. She wasn’t fun and cool like Cassie. Other kids didn’t get her and eventually she’d stopped trying so hard to fit in. After high school, she’d gone straight into university, while Cassie had worked a bunch of part-time jobs to save money to travel to Europe. Her adventurous spirit had taken her on a three-month trip and they hadn’t seen much of one another after that...

Cassie leaned over the bar and grabbed a bottle of tequila from Reed, who had just finished pouring several shots for a group sitting at the end of the bar. “Shot glasses, please.”

He placed two on the bar with a disapproving shake of his head. “You sure about this?”

Reed hesitated, looking at Erika. Deep blueberry-colored eyes made Erika shift on the barstool. She’d always felt uncomfortable around Cassie’s older brother. He hardly hid his true feelings about her and she’d heard him call her a snob once... Not that she maybe didn’t deserve the label based on outside appearances, but she really wasn’t the person he thought she was. Or the woman her coworkers thought she was. Or the daughter her father expected her to be.

Although if everyone thought she was a certain way, could there be some validity to it?