At his place, the quiet didn’t help the way he’d expected it to. He missed Candy as if something had been cut out of him. He stayed clear of the bedroom where the sheets were tangled from all their lovemaking, but he could still smell her perfume everywhere.

He fought the urge to chase her down, kiss away their doubts, make love until it all made sense again.

What about when we break up? She’d said it as though it were inevitable, just part of the package. It angered him that she could be so casual about something that was so big to him.

That was the point, wasn’t it? To Candy it was casual, not life-altering.

She was Heather all over again. Crazy fun, then the crash that hurt like hell. Maturity would not lessen his pain. How had he even thought that?

He’d been an idiot. He knew better. Stick to your strengths, don’t take chances. If you had too much fun, there was hell to pay-like that Tsunami for Two he’d paid for with a hangover. He was paying again, all right. This time, the lesson would stick.

CANDY WOKE THE NEXT morning to a fuzzy brain and the sound of someone snoring. She turned her head and saw two big, sand-streaked feet sticking up from beneath the sheet.

Whoops. She whipped back the covers and found Carter asleep on his belly, stark naked, his head at the foot of her foldout bed.

Omigod. Had she? She looked down at herself, relieved she still wore her dress. She would have remembered sex, of course, regardless of how much alcohol she’d drunk. They’d had winner shots of tequila after they’d won the darts contest and she’d downed a blue martini to further numb her sadness.

As a result, her head was killing her, but she had no regrets. She’d been pure party girl-danced on the bar, on a table, even on Carter’s shoulders while he loped down the beach to burn off the booze. She’d laughed a lot. Whenever she reminded herself she was having a good time, anyway.

She peeked again at her snoring bedmate. What a golden male specimen he was. Normally, she’d wake him and screw his brains out.

But not today. Today, the idea was so wrong it made her feel queasy. She covered him up.

It’ll be fine, she told herself. There would be plenty of Carters around when she was ready again. But Matts? Where would she find another Matt? Despair made her sink into the mattress. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to get out of bed.

She heard steps on the stairs and looked up to see Sara descending in a beaded minidress-obviously from the night before. Her friend looked as miserable as Candy felt. Her eyes were red, her hair tangled.

When she caught sight of Candy in bed, she pointed at the feet and mouthed, “Matt?”

Candy shook her head, fingers to her lips, then motioned Sara toward the kitchen, where she would join her to talk. She didn’t want to wake Carter-couldn’t take his eager energy at the moment. What do we do now? Huh? Huh? He was the human version of Radar, always ready to play. And she was pretty sure sex would be his top-of-mind idea.

She climbed out of bed, sweaty and sandy, her dress a wrinkled mess and followed Sara to the kitchen, where she would make her hangover mix, though she knew it would take more than protein powder and B vitamins to ease her pain.

“What happened, Sara?”

“Never mind me. Who’s that?” She pointed toward the bed.

“That’s Carter. We hung out last night after…Matt and I broke up.” The words hurt to say. “We won a bunch of points playing darts, though.” Candy reached into her bodice for the voucher slip, which she handed to Sara.

“Forget the points,” Sara said, tossing the paper on the counter. “Can you and Matt straighten things out?”

Tears welled in Candy’s eyes and she could only shake her head.

“Oh, hon. I’m so sorry.” Sara hugged her.

“It was impossible from the start and we both knew it.” Candy tried to collect herself. “Listen, can I borrow your laptop?” She’d saved all her files on her key drive, so she could do some work, despite everything.

Sara hesitated. “I guess so. Sure. I’ll leave it here.” She turned, looking confused. “Look, I’ve gotta go…” She motioned toward the stairs, then headed off.

“Wait. What’s wrong?” she whispered, but Sara waved her away. Something was upsetting her. Candy would find out once she’d taken her hangover cure.

Footsteps on the stairs made her look up to see Ellie barreling down to her. “Hey, girl! What happened to you two?”

Candy put her finger to her lips and motioned at the bed.

Carter let out a loud snore, not bothered by the noise.

Ellie tiptoed into the kitchen. “Sorry,” she said. “What’s up? Hangover?” She nodded at the cure ingredients Candy was combining.

“Yeah.”

“Poor Matt.” Ellie nodded affectionately toward Carter’s feet.

“That’s not Matt, Ellie.” She turned to her friend. “Matt and I broke up.”

“No!” Ellie looked horrified. “Was it because I told Matt about the teams? I’m so sorry. I know better than getting into other people’s lives too much. I-”

“No. It was not you, Ellie. Matt wouldn’t even consider me for the team-leader spot. He doesn’t respect me.”

“Sure he does,” Ellie said. “This is just a misunderstanding. Let me talk to him. I’ll straighten this out.”

“No, you won’t. It’s our problem. We should never have gotten involved. It was a mistake to bring work out here. It didn’t change a thing.”

“I’m so sorry, Candy,” Ellie said. “It was my idea.”

“You were just trying to help me, Ellie. At least now I know where I stand.” She drank the mix she’d made.

“Do you want me to stick around today? Hang with you?”

“No. Go enjoy yourself. Enjoy Bill. I’ve got work to do.”

“Work? Don’t get crazy with all that now.”

“I’m not. I’ll be fine. I’m sorry I crapped out on the party events. At least I got the darts points.”

“We’ll be fine, don’t worry,” Ellie said.

“Maybe I’ll try to draft the essay about why we deserve the time-share.”

“How can you do that? Your heart is broken.” Ellie’s face was so full of empathy, Candy feared she might cry. “You’ll never want to come to Malibu again.”

Very possible, but she pushed past that thought. “Of course I will. To be with you and Sara? We’ll have fun no matter what our love lives are like, right?”

Ellie smiled. “That’s true.”

“So, there you go,” she said, her heart aching in her chest. “The essay will be something fun to concentrate on.”

“I hope so,” Ellie said.

A moan from the bed drew their attention and Carter emerged, pulling the sheet around his body. She introduced him to Ellie and offered him some hangover cure.

She’d just walked Carter to the door and told him good-bye, when Sara came downstairs lugging her suitcase. It turned out she and Drew had quarreled-was last night bust-up night or what?-and she was ready to run home and bail out Uncle Spence with some crisis or other. Candy and Ellie managed to talk her into staying for the surf competition, at least.

Eventually, Candy was on her own again. She was headed for Sara’s computer when there was a bang at the door.

She opened it to find Radar looking eagerly up at her, ready to play. “Sorry, guy. Better find Carter.”

The dog didn’t move.

“Don’t you give up? I have to work.” In fact, she looked forward to it. She intended to finish what she’d started, even if she left SyncUp because of the Matt fiasco. The one good thing about this trip was that she’d realized she was more capable than she’d thought she was.

For all her sorrow, this cheered her a little.

“Can’t you tell I’m a new girl?” she asked the dog.

But Radar just whined. He’d played with her before and that was all he needed to know.

The truth hit her like a Frisbee in the forehead. People’s perceptions of you had to do with them, too, not just you. To Radar, Candy was a playmate. At SyncUp, people saw her as a jokester. That wouldn’t change, even if she did show more maturity and self-discipline. They wouldn’t notice the subtle improvements she’d made in herself.