Page 22 of Agony

We all turned to see Jess jogging down the beach toward the water.

I reached up and clenched Arsen’s hands. He wasn’t the only one who suddenly felt possessive.

“Hey, Jess,” he greeted her.

“Hey! Hi, Neve!” she said brightly to me.

“Hey,” I replied as kindly as I could.

There was nothing wrong with Jess. She had been nice to me from the very beginning. The only fault I could find with her was what she did for a living.

“This is my cousin, Adesynne. Addie this is Jess. She, um, works with Arsen,” I said.

“Nice to meet you!” Addie said with a smile.

“Yeah, same!” Jess said. She pushed her long, blonde hair behind her shoulders and put her hands on her tiny waist. “So what are you all doing?”

“Just kind of standing here at the moment,” Arsen replied.

“Neve? I forgot something on my beach towel. Come with me,” Addie said, prying me away from Arsen.

She looped an arm in mine and practically dragged me up the beach.

“What did you forget?” I asked her when we reached the towels.

“Nothing. I just want to see how they interact,” she said, sitting down and turning her full attention to Jess and Arsen.

“Why?” I asked her.

“I’ll tell you later. Just sit down,” she said.

We watched Arsen and Jess, looking for signs of… I wasn’t sure what. He had his hands crossed over his chest and she had her hands on her hips while they talked.

Finally, after another ten minutes of mindless chatter, Jess waved good-bye to Arsen and made her way back to the part of the beach she had come from. He looked around for us and when he saw us sitting on the towels, he left the water and walked over to us.

“Find what you were looking for?” he asked Addie.

“Actually, I did,” she replied, giving me a secretive look.

“Cool,” he replied with a smile, sitting down next to me.

I looked toward the water and burst into laughter. Addie’s harem was wandering around looking completely confused.

“I think your fans miss you,” I teased her.

“A girl’s work is never done!” she said with a labored sigh.

I just shook my head and laughed. I wrapped my arms around my legs and watched Addie play with her harem. She was so good at being flirtatious without looking like a slut. Not that she was a slut, I just… I admired her in a lot of ways.

“Hey, you wanna go to dinner tonight? Just the two of us?” Arsen asked suddenly.

“Depends on if Addie has plans or not,” I replied. “Only because she did fly all this way to see me; I don’t want to just leave her at home alone, you know?”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” he answered.

We were quite for a few moments. I was desperately trying to think of something to say while he seemed to just be happy sitting there.

“So. Did you ever shoot anything with Jess?” I asked curiously.

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