Page 24 of Hot Summer

Something that, of course, didn’t stop them deciding to race and see who could build their section of the wall first.

“Holy fuck!” Cas slid into a near split, sending her blocks flying out of her arms. Sienna had just caught her around the waist, but Cas’s momentum sent the pair of them flying into Ada and, most tragically, back into the stack of ice they’d spent the last few minutes building.

“Ha!” Femi leaped over them, catching himself on the railing to keep from falling over, the final block for his section of the wall in his hands.

Reece had just announced the final question when someone else, someone new, spoke from behind them.

“Got room for one more?”

A petite brunette jumped up onto the challenge platform, her crop top barely covering her breasts, the spandex shorts tight against her perfectly full thighs. Her T-shirt featured a bomb emoji, and it only took a fraction of a second for Cas to figure out what was going on.

Everyone else, meanwhile, was still screaming.

It was rare that they brought a bombshell in this early—it was normally a few days, a week, before they threw everyone into chaos. If the producers were doing this this early, the summer was probably going to be a lot more dramatic than usual. And a lot more difficult to survive.

The brunette walked over to Reece and handed him a card. Her steps were lithe, longer than you would have expected for someone her height. There was a grace about the way she moved, like she was dancing across the stage rather than simply walking.

Reece traced his eyes over her for a long beat before he cleared his throat and looked down at the card she’d handed him.

“ ‘Last question. Bombshell Tia will kiss the person she thinks matches the statement. Tia...’ ” Reece flicked his gaze to her again. It was clearly meant to be brief, but their eyes caught and held for a long moment before Reece turned back to the card again. Maddison shifted her weight awkwardly.

“ ‘Tia,’ ” Reece continued. “ ‘Who do you think brags that he’s slept with more than three hundred women?’ ”

Cas felt her stomach turn. Not about the number, she didn’t give a shit about the number, but bragging about it? Childish.

Tia hummed thoughtfully, her hand even coming up to her chin to complete the perfect image of woman in thought. She walked along the line of people in front of her, her eyes raking over every single man as she walked past. When she reached Brad at the end of the line, he was physically vibrating, clearly desperate to be the one to get to kiss her. Tia either noticed his excitement and wanted to play into it or just felt like he was the most attractive (wrong, but Cas supposed everyone was entitled to their own opinion) because she slid her hand up his forearm and immediately stepped in for her kiss.

But Brad, apparently, wasn’t ready to let Tia control the pace. He swept down and crashed his mouth to hers so forcefully that Cas was pretty sure she heard the sound of their teeth smashing together.

Even standing at the opposite end of the line, Cas could hear how wet the kiss was. That seemed to be Brad’s style, and though the thought definitely made Cas ill, she could only imagine what it must sound like to the people standing closer, or, god, to Ada, who was standing on Brad’s right side, just trying to pretend it wasn’t happening.

Brad didn’t pay the slightest bit of attention to the way that Ada was now staring at her feet. Instead, he added salt to the wound as he disconnected from Tia and shouted, “Best kiss all day!”

8

Sienna was at Ada’s side as they left the challenge platform, and Cas jogged up right behind them. It probably looked a bit silly, running after them like she was in school, but she needed to make sure Ada was okay.

She hadn’t reacted, she had just stood there, blank-faced, until Reece’s phone pinged and announced the end of the challenge, but the small sigh she’d let out as she climbed underneath the railing and dropped into the dust...

“It’s okay,” Sienna was saying, her voice low and her mouth nearly pressed against Ada’s ear in an attempt to prevent her comment from carrying. “Come on, babe, let’s go talk. You’re okay.”

“I know.” Ada’s voice was thick, though whether with tears or suppressed anger or something else, Cas didn’t know. She didn’t have tears in her eyes, but maybe she was phenomenally good at controlling them. “Let’s just get back into the villa and then I’ll talk to you.”

Sienna steered Ada into the back garden, her steps remarkably quick now that she wasn’t wearing towering high heels. Cas could hear everyone else starting up behind them, the sound of their laughter ringing through the air, but Sienna wasn’t distracted in the least. She led the three of them down to a small seating area off in the far corner, well out of the way from the center of the action.

Sienna eased her arm from Ada’s as they approached the sofa and guided her gently to a seat in the middle of the curved white couch. Sienna and Cas sat down on either side and Ada exhaled a rough laugh.

“This feels very dramatic.”

“We just want to make sure you’re okay,” Sienna said.

Cas nodded. “It’s fine to take a minute to be upset.”

Even if Brad was disgusting and offensive on about a thousand levels, it was still callous, shouting about someone else like that in front of your partner.

“I’m not upset. I’m pissed off.” With the way she was cutting the words out on her teeth, she certainly sounded like it. “Yesterday, he comes storming in and interrupts us; last night, he’s all over me; today, he’s going feral over getting to kiss some girl right in front of the other girl”—she jabbed a finger into her chest—“he’s partnered up with!”

“He was practically frothing at the mouth,” Cas said. It was probably the wrong thing to say, but—

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