Page 40 of Hot Summer

Cas laughed. “They’re right, though.”

“Oh god, please don’t tell them you said that,” Ada said. Her eyes were shining with amusement, the gold vibrant against the dark brown of her irises.

Cas pointed to one of the five cameras hanging from the ceiling in the bedroom. “That ship has sailed, love.”

Ada flicked her gaze to Cas’s again. Her eyes seemed to darken, and Cas would have sworn, sworn, that she felt the featherlight touch of Ada’s fingertips against her thigh.

“But, I don’t know.” Ada tucked her right arm underneath the pillow. “I just felt like this was going to be a big summer, you know? Like, looking back, it was going to be something I wanted to remember. Anyway.” Ada exhaled, her mint breath on Cas’s neck. “I wanted to check on you. You disappeared pretty quickly earlier.”

“I needed a second,” Cas said. “I was feeling a bit overwhelmed.”

“You do that a lot,” Ada said. When Cas’s brow furrowed, she clarified. “Take time on your own when you need to process something.”

Cas looked down, watched her index finger trace a tight circle on the sheets so she didn’t have to look Ada in the eyes. “It’s one of the worst things about me. My best friend Aisha’s been trying to coach me out of it for years.”

“I mean, yeah, you can’t disappear every time something doesn’t go your way, but it can be helpful to take space sometimes. Get your head together before you do something you regret.”

That was the excuse Cas always used—she was trying to avoid making a mistake, was trying to be careful—but she knew, deep down, that she was running away before things got too hard. Before she felt vulnerable.

“I do hide out too often, though,” Cas admitted quietly. “I hate confrontation and it’s easier to just... disappear.”

Ada hummed again, thoughtfully this time, her eyes searching Cas’s face. “Why do you think that is?”

“God, I don’t know. Too much confrontation growing up, probably. As soon as I realized I could just leave the house, I never looked back.” She wasn’t smiling now, could feel emotion pricking in the corners of her eyes. She swallowed hard, tried to bury it, but it cracked her voice all the same. “Probably didn’t set me up with the best coping mechanisms.”

Lexi and Charlie walked into the bedroom then, Lexi swinging her water bottle so, every once in a while, it smacked Charlie in the side of the leg. Lexi made eye contact with Cas for half a second before she looked away, but neither of them said anything.

“I did make a nice step forward tonight, though,” Cas said, lowering her voice to a whisper. She slid a little closer to Ada in hopes they wouldn’t be overheard. If she was really lucky, even her mic wouldn’t pick it up. “Lexi was chatting shit about how I’m still here when we were upstairs.”

Ada’s expression was immediately outraged, an echo of the one from last night in the bathroom. “What the fuck?”

Cas waved her off. “It’s fine. I talked to her. I’m sure it’ll pass in a few days and we’ll be back to orbiting around each other like we have been all week.”

“Still,” Ada said, and Cas watched as her gaze flicked over to Lexi and Charlie’s bed. “If she tries anything again...”

Cas laughed. “I’ll let you know.”

“It’s probably good that this happened here. Not that she said anything rude about you, I mean,” Ada said, “but that it happened while we’re all trapped in this house. You’ve got to deal with it. No running away.”

Before Cas could reply, Femi walked in and immediately dropped his hands playfully onto his hips at the sight of them. “Now, where am I going to sleep?”

“You can go sleep in Sienna’s bed,” Ada said, her eyes flicking to Cas for the briefest moment, the flash of a grin on her face. “I’m sure she won’t mind.”

Femi raised an eyebrow. “And then where will Jayden sleep?”

“With Brad, I guess,” Ada said. “Or we can make Brad sleep outside and Jayden can have my bed all to himself.”

“Who’s to say I don’t want a bed all to myself?”

Cas rolled her eyes. “Femi, please.”

“What?”

She stared at him for a long moment. It didn’t seem like he was trying to draw her out, he seemed genuinely confused. Like he hadn’t the slightest idea what she was talking about. And she was not about to get into it in front of the bedroom, even if half of the lovers were still wandering around somewhere.

Cas sighed. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow. We can have pool float breakfast.”

They’d gotten told off by the Voice of God the last time they’d tried to have pool float breakfast, but as long as Cas didn’t drop a croissant into the water again, they’d probably be able to get away with it.

---