Jane arrived a half hour late, as per her usual, especially when she was going to see her "rock-n-roll Jesus". We were all going to Virginia Beach to see Ryan's (that be the aforementioned rock-n-roll Jesus) best friend for the week. I was the first pick up and I, literally hated being late even for a road trip, but was thrumming with excitement. If I remember right this was my first trip out of state without family of any kind! My memory is a little unreliable sometimes. Anyway, I throw my bag into the back of her silver VW beetle; I swear I can't make this up, my best friend was a hippy-type 20 year old named Jane who drove a real life VW bug that almost always had the Beatles playing loudly from the speakers and her 39 year old boyfriend, Ryan, looked like a mix between Rob Zombie and Jesus, hence "Rock-n-Roll Jesus". I know what you might be thinking, 20 and 39?!? Yup that's completely true, at first I was skeeved out by it but Ryan grew on me, he was a pretty decent guy. How many dudes do you know take their girl on a week long vacation in December, without interfering with family obligations, and really take care of her in all of the important ways? Not many I'd think.
"Girl, you're late again, I am beyond excited, let's get Ryan and blow this popsicle stand," I say as I pop into the passenger seat and buckle up.
She just rolled her eyes, "shut up, it's vacation, you don't always have to be so timely."
"True enough," I look in her direction as she pulls out of my parents driveway, "so are you like hella excited to get a whole week to be with Ryan?" I wiggle my eyebrows for emphasis, they had a HEALTHY sex life.
I may or may not be a little jealous of that part, I hadn't had a lot of sex or sex partners, I was on a dry spell that felt like it was a year long. Whenever we hung out it was almost always with other people so Ryan and Jane could sneak off for 30-50 minutes of alone time without abandoning me. Then I'd get all the juicy deets later.
She had a really wide grin when she nodded, "absolutely, Kyle's RV has plenty of space to test out. Don't worry, we won't do anything on the pull out bed until the last day so you don't have to sleep there!" She snickered as she propped her left foot up on the dash by the steering wheel. She did this all the time and it finally didn't terrify me every time she did. It should have been cold outside, like it usually would be in central Ohio a couple of days into December, but it was still like 65, really the perfect weather for a road trip.
Ryan's house was closer to downtown, Jane and I live deeper into the suburbs; a place city people call the boonies, but people who live in the boonies call the city. The usually 45 minute trip took no time, probably because we were both so excited.
She pulled up to the front of Ryan's place and rolled down the windows, she sticks her thumb out the window indicating she's going inside to get him and I grin, knowing what that meant, luckily I planned for such an instant and brought the book I'd been reading. I know, who brings a book on a college beach vacation? Like I said, dry spell, and we were headed to Virginia Beach to stay at Ryan's buddy, Kyle's house, well, his RV on his property. It's not like there was going to be a kegger every night or tons of people to socialize with. Just Jane, Ryan, Kyle, his 14 year old daughter Morgan, and his fiancΓ©e Kelly. It sounded a lot less fun when you spelled it all out like that but we were 20, hadn't been on a vacation without family, and definitely not on a vacation that supplied copious amounts of alcohol at no cost to ourselves. Plus it's a beach, albeit in December on the east coast.
With a couple of stops to pee and some ran-do stops to roadside stands/shops we made it to Kyle's in record time.
We pulled up to a nice little one-story house, with white siding and a small grey porch next to the gravel driveway.
Ryan checked his phone, "they're out back."
He unfolds his 6'4" lanky frame out of the car, stretching after being in the confines of a "toy car" (that's what he calls her car) and goes to open Jane's door for her. He offers her a hand and she takes it, stepping out of the car slow enough that Ryan looks down at her long, tanned legs that she's clearly putting on display for him. When she's got both legs out she hops out and scrunches herself close to him searching for warmth. As soon as Ryan opened his door we both felt the chilling air waft in.
"I know it's December but Ohio was so nice, here it's damn near cold as ice," she says moving her arms in between herself and Ryan.
Ryan snickered, "it's not that cold, I think you just want to be close to me." He winked before kissing her like they hadn't made out at every stop.
By this point I'm out of the car waiting on directions because I'm a wee-bit cold but also excited to get my drink on. We could hear light music coming from behind the house. I lightly clear my throat, I'm not trying to be a cock-block but it's cold and alcohol heats you up and Kyle already told Ryan that he and Kelly were pregaming waiting for us to arrive. I was always nervous about meeting new people but it was only two people and it came with free booze.
He took hold of Jane's hand and led us around back, I'm assuming Kyle, stood up in his hot tub and was like, "bout time y'all got here! It's almost ten!" He picks up a pitcher of brown liquid with ice in it and pours more into his glass.
With the way Jane was still plastered to Ryan because she was "cold" Kyle said, "you must be Jane, I'm Kyle, this is Kelly," he pointed to a tiny blonde woman who was clearly already drunk as hell, but she smiled and waved.
"Hi guys! I'm so glad you made it safe! Have a drink!" She says pointing to the pitcher and cups with a swing of her whole hand, "I made Long Island Iced Tea."
Now, being 20 and a relatively "good kid" I did not know what I was in for when Kyle handed me a full glass, "you must be Jane's friend."