Page 17 of Hot Summer

Brad pumped his fist. “Score.”

If Cas made it through this summer without killing Brad, she should be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.

Femi frowned at him. “Mate. Don’t be gross.”

Brad had just opened his mouth to reply when, thankfully, Sienna swept in.

“Okay, never have I ever had a successful date off a dating app.”

“Wait, what about that app, uh...” Lexi was clicking her fingers together, trying to come up with the name she was missing. “That one where you go to live parties and stuff instead of swiping. Does that count?”

As soon as Lexi said it, Cas felt everything go still. Like she was an antelope, praying that the lion hiding in the grass wouldn’t see her.

“Friday,” Charlie said. “I went to one of their things once. I’d say it counts—it’s basically like live swiping, some of those events.”

Brad laughed. “Brutal.”

One by one, most everyone in the group raised their hands, and Cas had half a second, maybe less, to decide where she was going to fall. Her arm twitched at her side, almost rising, but it was dancing too close to the truth for Cas’s liking, the conversation. She didn’t want to get herself into a situation that she couldn’t get out of, didn’t want to accidentally cross the line in her ironclad NDA without realizing it. It hadn’t exactly forebade her from admitting that she used dating apps, but any and all suggestion that she was on the show because of her affiliation with Friday was expressly forbidden and this conversation...

It felt like a slippery slope that led straight to the courthouse.

Besides, she wasn’t technically using the app to meet people anyway—she was running the fucking events—so it wasn’t really a lie.

In the end, Cas was the only one who didn’t raise her hand.

Shit.

She’d miscalculated.

Lexi was the first to start shouting. “Never?!”

Cas half laughed, half shrugged, a piss-poor attempt at covering her arse. “I just prefer to meet people out, I guess.”

“It’s actually impressive, if you’ve just been dating casually,” Ada said. She laid a hand on Cas’s thigh, a simple gesture that made Cas feel like she was melting straight through the chair. “Are you a fairly outgoing person?”

Friday Cas was.

Cas nodded. “Yeah, I’d say so! I like being able to go up to people and, like, immediately read their energy, you know? You can’t do that as easily from a text conversation.”

“No, oh my god, I get that,” Sienna said. “I once had a guy off Hive take me to a cemetery on a date.”

Ada’s laugh shot out of her. “What?!”

Sienna was grinning, barely containing her laughter. “Yeah. He just sent me the address, and it looked like some kind of park when I googled it, so I didn’t know until I got there. And then he asked if he could have some of my blood for some ritual he was doing.”

And even though she should still be trying to read everyone’s reactions, decide if they believed her story about energy, all Cas could think about was the press of Ada’s fingertips into her thigh as she laughed, the brush of Ada’s hair against Cas’s biceps. Cas drew in a breath, and it was Ada’s perfume, peach and citrus and something almost smoky, blended perfectly with the warm sun and thick salty air.

“Jesus Christ,” Femi said, and Sienna dropped her hand onto his thigh, her own laugh finally rocking through her.

“Yeah, I definitely needed Jesus that day.”

#HotSummer—Live Updates

@HotSummer : the summer’s first couples are OFFICIAL and they are looking

@fionamccarthy: everyone except Brad who looks like a sentient bit of pavement

@niamhmurray: as;ldkfj STOP

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