Page 44 of Hot Summer

Femi stared at her. “It isn’t.”

“It could be!” She was spiraling. “She’s always hanging all over Sienna. And you!”

“Okay.” Femi sounded like he was talking to a toddler. “But there’s something different when she’s hanging all over you.”

“What’s different about it?” She sounded slightly hysterical, but she was genuinely asking. She needed perspective, someone outside herself to tell her what they were seeing, because Cas was out at sea in the middle of the night in a massive storm with no hope of finding her way back to shore.

“I can’t really put my finger on it,” Femi said. He leaned back into the headrest and crossed his ankles, the picture of perfect relaxation.

“You won’t believe me because you’re currently having a very dramatic moment, but you seem calmer when it’s just the two of you. Like everything’s easier.”

“Easier.”

Femi nodded. “Like you’re thinking about everything a little less. Just letting yourself do things.”

Cas hadn’t thought about it like that before. But now she realized that she had been thinking about the cameras a bit less recently. Hadn’t been as worried about her standing, her expressions, her words, her anything.

Honestly, she was more thinking about keeping things off camera.

“Just think about it,” Femi said. He gave her shoulder a squeeze and Cas drew in a deep, steady breath. “If you decide you’re ready to go for it, you know I’ve got your back. Now, can you hold this?”

He put his empty iced coffee cup into her hands and tore his microphone off, dumped them into her lap, and rolled off the float into the pool.

“Fucking hell, Femi!” He’d sent a wave of water up over the edge, completely soaking her. “I’m going to kill you for that!”

It was then that she noticed one of their pain au chocolats had escaped in the rocking, and before she could grab it, the Voice of God was there, chastising them.

“Cas and Femi, no pastries in the pool!”

15

“Do you think this is what actual nurses wear?” Cas asked, glancing at Ada in the mirror. They were wearing matching white bodysuits with red trim, the fabric so tight that Cas could swear it was see-through. The only nod to the fact that they were allegedly nurses was the cheap plastic stethoscopes around their necks and the floppy paper hats they’d pinned in their hair.

Ada had oscillated between tying her hair up and leaving it down, and her hair was now falling around her shoulders in loose, beach-combed waves as a result. But what was really catching Cas’s attention, though, was the way Ada was essentially trying to shove her breasts inside a top that was clearly not made for anyone with actual tits.

“I hope not. I can’t imagine it’d be easy to get blood out of white fabric like this.”

Sienna snorted. “I’d be more concerned about being on the ward with my nipples out than trying to remove bloodstains.”

After the chaos of the first week, their second and third were relatively peaceful. There was some drama going on with Lexi and Charlie and Delilah, the new girl, but Cas had more or less been avoiding it—getting involved wasn’t going to do her any favors. An approach that seemed to pay off because she and Lexi were tied for last place at the third week’s rankings.

It wasn’t really an improvement, but it felt like one.

In true Hot Summer form, though, they’d taken the first opportunity to put them all through something guaranteed to amp every single bit of drama up to eleven.

The dance challenge was notorious—every summer, they trotted the women out and got them to grind over every man in the villa in tiny outfits that aggressively threatened the possibility of a nip slip at any moment.

Gyrating in these was going to take a lot of special effort.

Ada seemed to be reading Cas’s thoughts.

“I have no idea how we’re supposed to dance in these.”

Lexi frowned as she tied her hair up into a top knot tight enough to make a ballerina jealous. “Is dancing different in tight clothes?”

“No, I just—” Ada did an experimental body roll, and Cas watched as the top slid down, nearly causing Ada’s tits to pop out.

Ada gestured down at her chest.

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