Page 166 of Headstrong Like Us
All of SFO, Charlie, and Beckett rotate their backs to the sea. Farrow and I stand up and take a few paces away from the ladder and turn too.
“Anyone who’s wearing a shirt,” Sulli states. “Take the fucking thing off.”
Only a handful of us are even wearing shirts. I ran out of the villa before putting one on. Farrow pulls his black tee out of his waistband and tugs the fabric off over his head. Akara, Banks, Oscar, and Charlie follow suit.
Those four guys hand their shirts to me, since I’m closer to the girls, and I pass them to Sulli.
“Listen to me, are any of you girls hurt?” Farrow asks, his voice more stern this time.
“Just some scrapes,” Kinney says.
He bends down to his med bag, unzipping and digging for supplies.
I cross my arms over my chest, speaking more to the left so they can hear me. “Can you start explaining?”
“Yes, why did you sneak out?” Jane asks.
“We were just going to take a walk. We’refifteen,” Winona emphasizes like they’re so damn old. I remember being that young, thinking I was wise and ancient and could do anything in the world. There’s something about being a teenager that makes you feel invincible.
“Two of you are fourteen,” Farrow mentions, procuring antiseptic wipes.
“How’d you end up in the water?” I ask before my sister combats him.
“So yeah,” Winona continues. “We may have run into some guys that dared us to come down to the cove and skinny dip.”
You’ve got to be shitting me.
“You all can turn around,” Jane says softly.
I spin and my red-hot gaze lands on my little sister. Her hair drips on Banks’ white T-shirt that engulfs her small frame. “You took a fucking dare from strangers?”
“They were very handsome strangers,” Audrey says, hugging her arms around her chest.
“They were hot,” Vada rephrases and wrings out her hair.
Winona finishes re-knotting her bun. “Like super hot gravy. You know, best on top. Except they turned into total douche-canoes.”
I give my sister a look. She’s gay.
Farrow raises his brows at Kinney. “Some random hot boys seduced you too?”
“No,” she snaps, then sighs. “I’m afraid of nothing—I couldn’t turn down a dare.”
I go cold.
She stripped and swam in a cove because she’s prideful and impetuous—not because she wanted to impress anyone.Great.Just great.
You will never know this happened. This won’t reach the media. This can’t follow them forever. It stays here.
“These assholes stole your clothes,” I say, putting the pieces together.
“And our phones,” Vada says.
The security team goes rigid at those words.
“We saw them go over there.” Winona points up to the top of a much higher cliff. “They threw them off.”
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