Page 32 of Hot Summer

“Okay, brag.”

Ada rolled her eyes and knocked her shoulder lightly against Cas’s. “It’s hardly a brag when I’m in the store trying to find anything that fits me properly.”

“You’re telling me.” Cas smacked her thighs with her palms. “It’s impossible to find trousers that don’t make me look like I’m about to go wading into the Thames and tried to dress accordingly.”

Ada snorted. “My dad always called those floods. When I was twelve and, like, really growing, he’d just look at me and go, ‘Oh hey, Noah, ready for the flood?’ I hated it.”

Cas had never had anything like that with her family. Her parents said more than their fair share of things that she hated, sure, but she never had that nostalgic tone in her voice when she talked about it.

Ada was watching her. Cas could feel her gaze like a physical touch on her skin, could follow it as it moved from her cheek, down her neck, along her shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” The word was out of her mouth automatically, but the way it broke at the end probably wasn’t doing Cas any favors.

“I can’t imagine how you must be feeling right now,” Ada said softly.

“Not great,” Cas admitted. Her tone was still defensive, the exact kind of thing Aisha would be chastising her for as she watched this play out on television tomorrow night.

It was just stupid, reacting like this, stupid that she cared, because she hadn’t come on this show for herself and who cared about a stupid marketing job at Friday anyway, but that almost made the whole thing worse. With all the effort she’d been putting in—how she’d been editing herself and making sure she said the exact right thing and trying to keep her face in check so she couldn’t be misconstrued—even then, people still didn’t like her.

She’d been walking around this house all week, playing through scenarios in her head like some kind of Hot Summer expert, and now she looked like a clown.

“It’s kind of sick, how they’re going to have the public ranking us every week.” Ada started fiddling with a long fray hanging off the end of her shorts. “It’s hard enough being in here, you know? Being watched every minute of the day. No access to our friends and family.”

“I’m not surprised they’re doing it, though,” Cas said. The move had been unexpected, sure, but the decision to rank them, to make them hyperaware of their place in the villa? It added a whole hell of a lot of drama, and that was all the producers ever wanted off this show.

Cas was almost positive the viewers would go feral over it.

“I know, but, like...” Ada shook her head, drew in a deep breath. “I hate that you’re feeling like this right now. They’re judging you off some highly edited, picked and chosen pieces of your life here. They have no idea who you really are.”

Ada probably hadn’t intended for it to, but the comment made Cas laugh a little. Because that was exactly her strategy—she knew that she’d be edited, that she’d be picked apart, and she’d tried to position herself as someone anyone could like anyway. She’d known that she hadn’t been going out of her way to stand out. That she’d been sitting on the sidelines more than was reasonable, but last place? The least liked girl in the villa when, technically, she was one of the girls who had been there the longest?

By only about fifteen minutes or so, but still.

Tia had moved in on Reece within half a second of being here. Lexi shrieked, like, constantly. And she was fourth.

“I hope you know—no, that you really feel—that this isn’t a judgment on you.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Cas hadn’t meant to sound so tragic, but there it was.

“No! They don’t know you. I know you. Femi knows you. Sienna knows you. We all love you. These people”—she gestured widely, waving her hand toward the invisible crowd watching this moment—“don’t know you. They don’t get to have an opinion on you.”

“Well, apparently, they do,” Cas muttered. She tucked her knees up into her chest, and though she wanted to wrap her arms around her shins, hide her face away, she resisted the urge.

“But they don’t get to have an opinion that has any effect on what you think about yourself,” Ada said fiercely.

For someone as soft, as easy as Ada, there was something almost menacing about her expression now. The firm set of her jaw, the square of her shoulders, the blazing look in her eyes like she’d uppercut anyone who stepped even a toe out of line.

It was a good look on her.

“You look like you could kill someone right now,” Cas said.

“I feel like I could kill someone right now,” Ada said. “I hate that you’re up here, hiding in the bathroom, because some strangers didn’t like your bikini or something this week. I guarantee that’s what they’ve based this on, something so incredibly stupid.”

“Honestly,” Cas said, and it was a bold choice of words for someone who couldn’t be completely honest, “I think it’s because I’ve just, like... stayed out of everything this week. Just sat there and probably made my little faces.” She made one of them now, all pinched eyebrows and turned-down corners of the mouth. “Apparently, I have a serious resting bitch face. I’m sure that didn’t endear me to people.”

She’d have to smile more. Laugh more. And, Christ, she hated, viscerally fucking hated, that she was giving in to an entire country that was telling her she looked so much nicer when she smiled.

---