“Yeah?”
“Which bit of your hair do I need to pull for you to let me down?”
“Oh shit, sorry.” I crouch low enough for her to climb off and it’s pathetic that my first instinct is to work out if there’s anything else we can paint together. “You did a great job.”
Her eyes brighten at the praise and, slowly, the tiny pieces of what I know about her are beginning to thread together. “I couldn’t have done it without you. Literally.”
There’s a smudge of brown paint decorating her jawline; I instinctively reach out, thumb rubbing against it, but it doesn’t budge. “You’re so messy.”
“You have no idea,” she says quietly.
Now we’re alone, I want to ask about what she said this morning. I’m curious about why she thinks she needs to work on herself. From the snippets of information she’s shared during the icebreakers we’ve done and our first interaction at the party, it’s hard to believe she’s anything but the confident woman she comes across as. Yeah, she can be a little awkward occasionally, but so can I. The problem I have is that asking questions tends to invite questions back—and that’s something I’d selfishly rather avoid.
Aurora takes my silence for what it is, a closed door, and we both stand on the outside of this thing hanging between us. She drops the paintbrush into the tray and reaches for the hose I was using earlier, pressing the lever down as she points it directly at my chest.
My jaw drops as the cold water drenches me and a surprised laugh bubbles out. The look in her eyes is the exact same as the one she gave me when I found her in our kitchen: mischief.
“Au—” The spray hits me again. “Okay, you asked for it . . .”
It’s more of a squeal than a scream as I close the gap between us with a couple of strides. She tries to cling to the hose, turning her back to me to protect it. Her body is flush against my wet t-shirt, vibrating as she laughs, attempting to fight me off. It’s not hard to grab it from her and point it downward over the top of her head.
“It’s freezing!” she cries, fighting to redirect it at me. “Okay, truce! Truce!”
I let it fall to the floor and step back. The wet material is clinging to my body and she’s right; it is freezing. Grabbing the back of my t-shirt, I pull it over my head, wringing out the worst of it. “We didn’t think this through.”
She squeezes out the water from her hair, watching me. Her clothes are relatively dry. “I dunno, doesn’t feel like a bad choice to me.”
I don’t have the chance to ask what she means before I hear the signature jingle of dog collars—Xander must have run out of bacon. Fish, Salmon and Trout find me no matter where I am, but this time, they’ve brought a friend.
“Do I want to know why you have no t-shirt on?” Emilia asks as she approaches us. She turns to Aurora. “You look like a drowned rat.”
“Rude,” she mumbles. “His name is Remy.”
“I—wait, what?” Emilia says. I’m still trying to make my t-shirt dry enough to put back on and Aurora seems to still be trying to concentrate on Emilia, not me. “I’ve come to free you from your exile. Jenna asked me to take the truck and pick up the egg order from the farm near the mini golf? It wasn’t delivered or something and everyone else is too busy.”
“Why can’t Jenna go?” Aurora asks, squeezing out water from the ends of her hair. I sit on the ground cross legged and both puppies immediately settle in the gap between my thighs while I stroke Fish.
“She said the farmer is a dick and she hates him with the fire of a thousand suns. I think they had a fight when she called him about the delivery. The truck’s a stick, so I need you.”
“You know how to drive stick?” I ask, quietly impressed.
She nods, double taking when she spots me with my furry fan club. “My dad owns a car company, well kinda, and I’ve spent a lot of time in Europe. Are you going to be okay on your own?”
I don’t ask any follow up questions about the “car company” because then I would have to admit I’ve talked about her with my friends and I know her dad owns a Formula One team. I want to offer to go with her instead of Emilia, but I think that’d be weird. “I’ll be fine. Go get the eggs.”
“See you at the lake later,” she says, walking toward Emilia.
Emilia waves as she turns, wrapping an arm around Aurora’s shoulders before heading back the way she came. “That looked cozy,” I hear her say.
Just when I start to think co-existing will be easy, Aurora takes two tiny shreds of material decorated with daisies and calls it a bikini.
“It’s so cute,” Maya praises her. “I love the cut.”
The cut? How can Maya concentrate on the cut when most of Aurora’s ass is out?
“Stay strong, brother,” Xander whispers beside me. I ignore him, still attempting to not feed into his suspicions. There’s nothing to be suspicious about, but I still don’t need to tell him about what happened before we got here.
“Rory,” Jenna sighs as she approaches the six of us waiting at the end of the dock. “Where’s your one-piece?”
“It’s drying in my cabin because butterfingers over there spilled orange juice on it,” she responds, gesturing to Emilia with her head. Jenna folds her arms across her chest and Aurora mirrors her. “Nobody is going to die if they see my stomach for an hour. I know not to wear it when the kids arrive.”
Jenna pinches the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, shaking her head. If I didn’t already know otherwise, I’d assume Jenna and Aurora were sisters. They don’t look alike, Aurora is tall and blond while Jenna is short with black hair, but the way they bicker and love each other reminds me of siblings. “I only came to share that your instructor is running late. He won’t be long.”
The camp has multiple fully trained and properly qualified lifeguards, but for additional safety, counselors are also given basic water safety training to keep ourselves and each other safe, as well as any campers.
Emilia waits until Jenna is heading back to the shore before pushing an unsuspecting Xander into the water, instantly triggering a power struggle between the rest of us. Small hands dig into the base of my spine, but the force is only enough to move me an inch. I can hear Aurora huffing and puffing behind me as she tries to push me, which is why it’s so easy to grab her hands and pull her in with me as I jump from the dock.
The water is colder than I was expecting, but it’s a welcome change from the heat and, when I kick myself back to the surface, I’m greeted with pouty lips and bright eyes. “That was cruel,” Aurora says, splashing me with her hand as she treads water beside me. “I wasn’t ready!”
I push back the wet hair stuck to my forehead, laughing at how pissed she looks, which doubles when I send a wave of water in her direction with my hand. The laugh that erupts out of her is goddamn magical. Unfiltered, loud, raw. Her eyes pierce me as she smiles, droplets of water clinging to her eyelashes, freckles dusting the bridge of her nose.
She’s so fucking beautiful it hurts.
Oh, man. I’m not supposed to be this attracted to her.
Why do I love to make myself miserable?
Her hand rises out of the water and I preemptively brace, waiting for her to drench me again with water, until the horrified squeal she lets out has me grabbing her hand and pulling her toward me.
“Something touched my foot!” Her legs wrap around my waist and her chest presses flush to mine as she clings to me. “I’m going to cry.”
I’m pretty sure this isn’t the survival training anyone had in mind.
I’m pretty sure I’m not going to survive having her wrapped around me.
“It’ll be a plant or something, don’t worry.”