Page 2 of Holiday Home 5

“Liam didn’t gawk at women at our neighborhood pool,” Tess said, meeting a look Avril sent her way.

“Notwomen,plural,” Avril said.

Tess sighed but didn’t answer, leaving Liam wavering in uncertainty. Yeah, much like Squints clearly was, now beginning to head toward the diving board, he’d been head over heels for an older woman. He’d been about that age when Tess had moved in next door. But he hadn’t beenthatobvious about it, right? Tess had said she was surprised to realize how strongly he felt about her, but she’d kind of walked it back once they’d gotten more and more intimate. She’d pretended not to notice, but she’d noticed. She’d known.

Well, it’d worked out for him, and—

Squints leaped off the diving board, and all his friends immediately panicked. Why? Because he couldn’t swim.

“Could you ever pull off something so smooth?” Avril chortled. After seeing the commotion, Wendy had dived into the pool, rescued Squints—what the hell was he doing, jumping off like that?—and began trying to resuscitate him with her breath. Only to open his eyes in between life-saving breaths, wink at his friends, and then shut his eyes tightly. Wendy hadn’t noticed. She came in for another offered breath and—

Liam snorted, which caused Avril to grin from ear to ear. Meanwhile, Squints smushed his lips against Wendy’s, who naturally freaked out, shoved him back, and then called him what he was: “a little pervert.”

“That’ssmooth?” Liam asked.

“Hey, it ends up working out in the end. They end up having a whole horde of kids.”

“Yeah, I doubt it’d work in this day and age,” he noted, aware that two other women were glancing at him. Wondering what he was going to say, were they? “Besides, I’m pretty sure mouth-to-mouth resuscitation isn’t even part of CPR anymore.”

“Ah, true. Well, I guess you’ll just have to find a cleverer way to lock lips with an older woman or two.”

There were two older women in the cabin right now, yet neither offered any suggestions on how he might accomplish such a feat. But nor did they chastise Avril for her remarks. In fact, they didn’t make any type of comment at all.

Not too long later, following another event that probably wouldn’t occur too often in modern America—a group of boys hurling after taking chunks of tobacco onto a spinning carnival ride—Smalls finally made his herculean blunder. One that left the rest of his friends standing in awe at how idiotic he’d been to do what he’d done, staring at Smalls as he broke down about having just lost his stepfather’s Babe Ruth-signed baseball to the Beast’s backyard. Where he finally learned thatshewas, in fact, a he…and that he was the most famous baseball player of all time.

Oops.

He'd only done it to be accepted by the group, not wanting the game to end, for his new friends to all head home, disappointed that their day was ruined. And in doing so, he’d potentially lost one of the most valued artifacts in baseball history. Honestly, Liam felt pretty bad for him.

As Avril nudged him in the ribs, he shot her a look. “Okay, but Iknowwho Babe Ruth is. I wouldn’t have ever tried to play with that ball.”

“Can we really be sure?” the smirking redhead asked. “I mean, you didn’t know whoIwas.”

“And you’re in the same category as fame as Babe Ruth?” asked the other woman sitting on the couch.

Leaning forward to get a slightly better look at Avril, Victoria’s piercingly pale blue eyes caught the TV’s light. They were the kind that stared into one’s very soul, that silenced a room with a look, that caused sprinters to come skidding to a halt in the middle of a race. For anyone other than Avril, who had somehow built up an immunity over the many years that they’d known one another, such a look would have quelled any refutation.

“To the right demographic, yeah,” Avril replied.

“And which would that be?” Tess asked, eyebrow raised.

“The demographic of horny men. So, pretty muchallmen.”

Tess snorted. Victoria rolled her eyes, butonlyLiam saw the fissure in the dam. Avril ought to have known better.

“So, since Ididn’tknow who you were, does that mean I’m outside of that demographic, or you’re not as well known in it as you think you are?”

Avril spun her smooth green eyes back to him. A hint of approval flashed within them, but she’d never been the type to resign after only one move. “Oh, you’reabsolutelyin that demographic. It’s just that you’re recently arrived, so you’re still catching your footing, getting the lay of the land. And it doesn’t help that so many beautiful women keep trying to spend time with you. It really muddies the waters, makes you think you’re hot stuff.”

“Which I’m not?”

Aware that he was fishing for a compliment, Avril surprised him by granting him one. “You’re in the thousand to two thousand Scoville rating range. Now, focus on the movie.”

He did… and he didn’t. He gave it an honest watch and found it enjoyable enough to see why it was so highly regarded. Had he watched it on his own, with no nostalgia attaching his childhood to it, he would have liked it—and been ready to trade quotes with Avril the next time the opportunity arose. It was worth the time spent watching.

However, he had to fight against his wandering attention, which so often wanted to move in any of three beneficial directions. Back to Avril, to his other side, toward the corner of the cabin.

While crazier and crazier attempts were made to reclaim the autographed baseball from the Beast, Liam found himself admiring a woman he’d first started admiring years before he’d met anyone else on the plane. Back then, imagining the events transpiring now, even just the ones that had begun during winter break, would have seemed downright ludicrous.

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