Jessie swam up next, and Brock took the longest to arrive. He’d swum half the length of the pool after his spectacular dive.
“That was incredible,” I said as they all looked up at me.
“Glad you think so,” Jessie said. I lowered myself down and sat on the edge of the pool, my legs dipping into the water.
Jessie took one hand and Kincade the other, and they pulled me into the water with them. “Absolutely incredible,” I repeated.
“Does that mean you’ll try on the bikini?” Kincade asked.
“Yes,” I said without hesitation. No matter what reservations I held about that, we’d made a deal and they’d help up their end in a spectacular way.
“Good,” Kincade said simply, and Jessie nodded.
Then Brock cracked one of his rare smiles. “And good to know we can still do that.” The others grinned, and I let them have their moment of glory.
They’d earned it.
15
Maddie
“How come you’re not eating?” Gina asked later as we sat out by the pool eating salads. Or at least she was eating a salad. My stomach wasn’t in much of a food mood.
“Not hungry,” I said truthfully. Still, it was nice being out here. Lunch wasn’t a formal affair. The resort provided different kinds of food and people could eat it wherever they wanted or take it back to their room. After everything that had gone on lately, it was nice to sit in relative quiet and solitude with my sister. It dawned on me that this was one of the last times we’d do that as two single women.
“I can’t believe that this time next week, you’ll be a married woman.”
“A married woman on her honeymoon,” Gina said with a grin. Doug was taking her to Paris after the wedding.
“It really is the end of an era, isn’t it?”
My sister shrugged. “You’ll still have Emma to do wild and crazy single-girl things with.”
I raised my eyebrows for a moment, forgetting that Gina didn’t know much about Emma’s relationship status.
In general, my relationship with Gina was good, and I was genuinely thrilled for her about the wedding, about this trip, and about her future life with Doug. But things hadn’t always gone this smoothly between us. We’d had some problems in our teen years, serious problems. Ones that had left a deep scar inside me—possibly in her, too.
Now, things were much better, but every once in a while, I held my tongue, not wanting to risk rocking the boat. Then I grinned inwardly, my mood lightening a little. It was pretty funny to think about rocking boats while on an island in the middle of the ocean.
“What are you up to this afternoon?” I asked.
“Doug and I are meeting with his uncle.” She wrinkled her nose slightly. “He wants to talk to us about our future.” She made air quotes for those last two words. “I think he thinks he’s some kind of marriage counselor.” That was pretty ironic considering Kincade’s father was on his second wife. I’d only seen her once—apparently, she wasn’t an “outdoors person”—but she seemed to be an older version of her horrible daughters. “What are you up to this afternoon?”
My stomach dropped as I thought about the real reason I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything. “The, uh, guys wanted to hang out.”
Gina smiled. “That sounds like fun.” She raised an eyebrow. “Is there any one of the three you particularly have your eye on?”
I wondered what she’d do if I said, “all three.” But instead, I said, “No. They’re just fun, friendly guys.”
Gina studied me for a moment. “If they’re so much fun, why do you look miserable?”
I took a sip of water before answering. “Because sometimes, their idea of fun doesn’t match mine.”
“What does that mean?”
I sighed. “It means they’re taking me surfing this afternoon.”
If Gina had thought I looked miserable at lunch, she should’ve seen me now. I was wet. I was sandy. My skin stung from the salt water.
And I couldn’t seem to stay on the fucking surfboard for more than a nanosecond.
“Just try one more time,” Jessie said encouragingly. I half hoped a passing whale would swallow him up like Jonah or Pinocchio.
“It’s easy,” Kincade shouted as he glided over the waves, making it indeed look easy. I had a quick, vivid fantasy of a shark mistaking his yellow board for a banana and taking a bite out of them both.
“Come on, climb up on the board again,” Jessie urged.
We were in chest deep water, or at least it came up to my chest. Which meant everything from my breasts on down was covered in scratchy salt. Worst of all, my wet hair clung to my face and neck, giving me the charming look of a wet mop.
“You can do it. Let me help.”
The next moment Jessie’s hand was on my ass, which might have been enjoyable under other circumstances. But for now, it just reminded me of how uncoordinated I was—and how heavy I must be—as he hoisted me onto the slippery, constantly moving surfboard.