Page 59 of Hot Summer

Most everyone ran back up to the villa with Tia, but Cas held back, eyes on Jayden. He hadn’t moved from his spot by the fire pit and was watching the slow waving of the flames in the breeze.

“Are you okay?” Jayden shrugged. Didn’t say anything. Cas waited, watched him, but he was too far gone. “Okay, well, if you need anything...” She turned to go and Jayden cleared his throat.

“I’m going to go to the beach hut actually,” Jayden said quietly. “It’s not you, genuinely. Thanks for partnering up with me. I just... I need some space to think.”

Jayden was gone for one hour, two, and he still wasn’t back when it was time for everyone to start getting ready for bed. Cas had just tucked herself underneath the duvet when her phone went off and she stared at the message on her screen.

Jayden has decided to leave the villa.

20

For the first time in a month, Cas woke up by herself in bed the next morning.

Things were subdued after Jayden’s announcement last night. He had been debating leaving for a while, he said, and the re-partnering cemented it: As much as he loved them all, the format of the show just never really let him truly open up. Though Cas felt bad that he’d thought he needed to leave, she knew it was for the best and was glad for him, especially since it would be tough watching Sienna and Femi finally explore things.

She’d been enjoying all the extra bed space when Femi jumped back into bed with her.

“Good morrrrning, Cassie.”

“Ugh.” Cas buried her head under the pillow and shoved the duvet in Femi’s general direction. “I thought I was finished with this.”

“Never.” Femi lifted the pillow and pressed a quick kiss to the back of her head. At least he had enough sense to dive back into his bed with Sienna before Cas lobbed the spare pillow at his head.

Sienna laughed as he bounced back onto their mattress. “One of these days, she’s going to kill you and we’re all going to say we told you to stop messing with her.”

“She secretly likes it,” Femi said. He was grinning, arms behind his head when Cas poked her head out from under the pillow. She held her middle finger up at him.

“It was hard to sleep last night,” she mumbled, huffing as she gave up and pushed the duvet down completely. “Some people were over there grunting and moaning all night.”

Femi looked down, shy, and Sienna laughed. “Please, we are not the worst. We’re just lucky Reece and Tia were in the retreat.”

“I never hear them.”

“That’s because you’re all the way down there,” Sienna said. “You should hear the noises coming from their bed.”

“They are the worst,” Leo agreed. He was sitting up, sunglasses on, duvet tucked up to his chin. “When I was over there with Delilah, I swear my sleep was cut to, like, thirty minutes a night. And I was having the weirdest dreams.”

Ada snorted, pushing sunglasses onto her face as she propped her pillow up against the headboard.

“I bet it’s a relief being down here, then. Cas is the best person to share a bed with. She’s so peaceful.”

“Until she tries to kill you in the morning,” Femi said.

Cas glared at him, but Ada just shrugged. “She didn’t try to kill me when we shared the daybed.”

Femi cut his gaze to Cas’s, his grin far too smug for her liking. Cas rolled her eyes and tugged the duvet back over her head.

The boys rolled out of bed and, after a few minutes, started bringing morning coffees back into the bedroom and drawing the girls out from under their duvets. Femi set a coffee by Sienna with a kiss and, blissfully, one beside Cas.

Cas wrapped both hands around her mug, smiling gratefully at Femi. “I’m still on coffee rotation?”

“You’re always on coffee rotation,” Femi said. Then he ripped the duvet off her legs. “Now get up and go get dressed.”

Most everyone else was upstairs by the time Cas shuffled into the dressing room, and Cas sat down heavily into her chair and took a long, slow drink of her coffee.

She needed at least five more sips before she looked at herself in the mirror. Before she tried to do anything other than sit here.

“Tia got a text saying that we should get ready ready today,” Ada said, glancing over at Cas.

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