Page 21 of Hot Summer

“You’re probably burning already, so.” Her voice was thick. God. “Sure.”

Ada’s laugh was loud, louder than Cas expected for her terrible joke. “My best friends said the same thing to me before I left. And they’re running my social media now, so I’m sure they have, like, a daily Ada Burn Watch they’re posting about.”

Cas snorted, grateful for the distraction she could latch on to. “Oh god. Mine are running my social media, too. Don’t give them any ideas.”

As happy as it made her to think about them, mentioning her friends made Cas feel strangely... sad.

She hadn’t been away from Aisha and Skye in this long in, god, years. She’d known the deal coming into the villa, but now that she was actually here, the idea that she wasn’t going to be able to talk to them for two whole months made her feel a little sick.

Who knew she was such a melt?

Ada turned her head a little so she was slightly facing Cas. “I’d love to meet them when we leave.”

Cas squirted more sun cream onto her fingertips and, very gingerly, lifted the middle strap of Ada’s bikini top. “Are you from London, too, then?”

“Brighton originally. But I moved up for university, and once I got to London I just... never wanted to go back.”

Cas hummed softly. “Do you think you ever will?”

“Probably one day,” Ada said. “I loved walking along the beach every morning, going for long kayaks on the water.” She was quiet for a second, and Cas felt the weight of Ada’s thoughts between them. All the ideas Ada had for a future that would someday come to pass. “I don’t know when I’ll be ready to move back, so I’m just enjoying London for now.”

Cas nodded and put a final bit of sun cream on her hands. She shifted away, just far enough that she had a clear view of Ada’s lower back.

“The idea that you love the place where you grew up is so bizarre to me,” Cas said quietly. She was usually much more guarded about her home life—and a little voice in the back of her mind reminded her she shouldn’t trust anyone a hundred percent in this game, but there was something about Ada that just seemed honest. Plus, moments of vulnerability never hurt with the viewers.

“Where did you grow up?”

“Surrey.” It tasted bitter in Cas’s mouth. “In some tiny village you’ve hopefully never heard of.”

“Why ‘hopefully’?”

“It’s, like, two shops and a bunch of posh arseholes.”

“That explains your accent, then,” Ada said, laughing.

Cas would’ve snapped at anyone else, but then Ada looked at Cas over her shoulder, her lips turned up in a cheeky smile, and, well...

“It also explains why I have a horrible name like Cassandra.” She emphasized the vowels extra hard, and Ada laughed again, her shoulders shaking.

“Why do you hate it so much?”

Cas was quiet for a long moment, just watching as the last of the sun cream disappeared into Ada’s skin. She capped the bottle, handed it over Ada’s shoulder, and then leaned back against the seat of Ada’s chair to indicate that she was still mulling over Ada’s question. A big part of her wanted to ignore this question, shrug it off, say it was too long or too formal or some other vague approximation of the truth, but then Ada turned slowly, her eyes trailing along Cas’s legs before flicking up abruptly and meeting her eyes.

“I think I just never felt like it fit me,” Cas said finally. The words felt like they were tripping thoughtlessly from her lips, but Ada’s little hum of understanding made it worth it. “I felt like my parents gave it to me because they imagined that I was someone I was never going to be.”

Ada shifted closer, close enough that their legs touched, Ada’s knee to the outside of Cas’s thigh. The whole of Cas’s attention felt like it zeroed in on that one spot where she and Ada were connected.

“That makes sense.”

Cas breathed something like a laugh. Which was ridiculous, she shouldn’t be feeling whatever was going on in her chest about something that didn’t even matter anyway. But Ada was just... she had affirmed Cas so easily. So simply. No questions, no need to discuss it, just this was Cas’s story and Ada was nodding along, accepting it.

Cas shrugged and slid her gaze to the gym where Lexi was throwing weights around with the boys. They kept shouting, shocked, because she was lifting heavy and somehow managing it without her tiny arms falling off. And that reminder of where they were, of the microphone around her neck and the cameras in the shrubs, was like a jolt to the system.

Cas leaned down and grabbed her water bottle from the ground, taking a drink to avoid saying anything more. Ada took her cue and grabbed her own water and took a hearty drink, seemingly nonplussed at Cas’s evasion.

At that moment, someone screamed—screamed—from the gym. Lexi was shaking her phone in the air, weights long forgotten.

“I’ve got a text! Guys, I’ve got a text!”

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