Page 9 of Hot Summer

People tended to make more dramatic decisions that way.

Cas realized what Ada was implying and laughed, though it sounded a little more like a snort. “Absolutely not. My clients talk about it a lot, though, so I’m forced to hear about it via exposure.”

“Oh?” Ada’s eyes lit up. “What do you do, then?”

“I work for F—” But, thankfully, Cas caught herself.

On the surface, the question was innocent. What do you do?, aka where do you work? The NDA Cas had signed was fairly ironclad, even down to the fact that it barred her from mentioning her employer. They hadn’t wanted to risk talking about her affiliation with Friday in case it set anyone snooping, and they’d taken great care to wipe any and all photos of Cas off their social media. But they’d known this question was coming, and Cas and Robert had spent an unnecessarily long meeting coming up with what she said next.

“I’m an event planner.” She subtly shook her hair out and brightened her smile. “I do parties and club nights and things back home in London. It’s fun, but it’s nonstop. Especially in the summer.”

That, at least, was an easy truth. She’d rather be most places than sweating it out in some pub while she watched single people drool all over one another. Yet another reason she’d agreed to this plan in the first place, the promise of a way out of all those sticky nights.

But Cas didn’t need to invite any more questions; it was time to do what she did best. Pivot.

“What do you do?”

“I’m a small business owner,” Ada said. “I do, like, stationery, stickers, things like that.”

“Do you design your own stuff, then?”

Ada nodded. “I studied graphic design in uni, and I started it then as a little side project. I got really lucky pretty quickly and it grew enough that I ran with it after I graduated.” Ada turned on her heel to follow Cas down the corridor, and immediately wobbled a little.

Cas’s hand shot out to grasp her elbow.

“We need to get you out of these shoes,” Cas said, laughing.

“It’s only a matter of time before I crack my head on this tile,” Ada agreed, tapping her heel against it.

They walked quietly for a few steps, a million questions on Cas’s tongue. It wasn’t normally this hard—or this awkward—having conversations with people, but she was suddenly viscerally aware of every single word coming out of her mouth. Whether it was the way Ada kept smiling at her or the gazes of people who, in less than twenty-four hours’ time, would be picking apart every word she said, Cas couldn’t be sure.

It was certainly easier to blame the faceless thousands for the reason her tongue was tied.

Cas peeked her head around the corner before hitching her thumb over her shoulder. “The bedroom is that way if you want to have a look.”

“Are we supposed to?” Ada’s bottom lip was between her teeth, and it was almost endearing how nervous she seemed.

Cas shrugged, but before she could speak, a deep voice boomed through the villa.

“Cas and Ada. Please proceed through the bedroom and into the back garden.”

Ada nearly jumped out of her shoes. “What the fuck was that?” Her hand was pressed to her chest, her eyes wide, and Cas couldn’t help but smile.

“Voice of God,” Cas said. They used this every summer as a way to redirect people when they weren’t doing what the producers wanted. They cut it out of the actual episodes so the audience never heard it, but every lover talked about it in their post-show interviews.

And Cas had spent hours watching said interviews and reading every online forum she could find.

There wasn’t going to be a lot of direct producer involvement this summer—in fact, there wasn’t likely to be any as long as nothing catastrophic happened. Hot Summer was pretty unique in that all of the lovers were more or less sent into the villa and let loose for an entire summer with very little to do besides making out with one another. Sure, they’d get called in for the occasional interview, had scheduled (and highly structured and unaired) mealtimes, and a series of embarrassing challenges to break up the days, but for the most part, they were left to their own devices.

“I guess we’re not moving fast enough,” Cas continued.

It was a short walk down a narrow corridor from the lounge to the bedroom. There was a small step down into the bedroom and Cas was sure someone was going to wind up tripping up before the summer was out.

The bedroom was classic Hot Summer—five crisp white Ikea beds with various neon accent pillows and throws—and yet another neon sign that Cas just glanced at before Ada opened the sliding glass door that led out into the garden.

The heat was intense as they stepped outside, especially after the short time spent indoors. It wasn’t the thick, sopping wet heat of London summer, but it still felt like Cas had opened an oven door directly into her face.

She scanned the garden as they walked along the short, trellised path that ran past the outdoor kitchen and down to the stairs into the garden. Cas’s eye was immediately drawn to the tiered deck stretching across the garden and sparkling blue water in the infinity pool that, even from this angle, seemed to touch the horizon. There was a fire pit with a curved sofa in the far corner opposite the pool—the place, Cas knew, where they’d hold all their formal ceremonies—and a gym tucked away beside the hedges at the edge of the house. There were places to gather in every corner—daybeds and beanbags and stacks of pillows scattered throughout that invited you to grab them and make yourself at home.

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