I wake up to find the sun shining through a little strip of the blackout curtains that didn’t quite get closed. A glance at the clock by the bed tells me I slept in. It’s almost ten!
Needless to say, after Chase left my room last night, I was feeling a little irritated. So, I ate all the cake, drank all the milk, and then sat there and fumed.
I get up, pull the curtains open, and see what everyone is doing.
One of the boats is gone, and no one is in the backyard or by the pool. The house is quiet. I glance at the boathouse, wondering what Mr. Know-It-All Chase and my brother are up to.
I put my hair up in a messy bun and throw on a bikini, jean shorts, and a tee. Then, I make my way downstairs.
Literally, no one is around. Even the dogs are nowhere to be found, and I’m feeling slightly abandoned.
I find homemade chocolate chip muffins on the counter that weren’t here last night.
At least they were here this morning.
I grab one along with a glass of OJ and decide to enjoy the quiet time. I can’t imagine there will be much of it during this trip.
I consider sitting on the deck but decide to go down to the boathouse, a cute swinging chair calling my name.
I’m almost down there when one of the chairs spins toward me, scaring the crap out of me and almost causing me to spill my juice.
Chase is in one of the egg-shaped chairs, his long legs in criss-cross applesauce—much like mine were last night during the cake episode—a book in his hands.
“You didn’t wake me up this morning.” I pout.
A smile lights up his face as he raises an eyebrow in my direction. “You didn’t tell me to.”
“I didn’t tell you to yesterday either, but you did. Where is everyone anyway?”
“Remember that board I showed you?”
“Yes, but I didn’t look at it.”
“Well, if you had, you’d know that most everyone is golfing. My dad is out in the boat, pulling my brothers around. They were wakeboarding earlier and are now tubing. The pups are with them. They go by every so often. Mom and Jennifer and the babies are at baby swim lessons up at the resort.”
“And how come you’re not with everyone?”
“I had a video interview at eight this morning, went for a run, lifted, and then came back. I made myself a protein shake and had some fruit. Thought I’d enjoy the quiet.”
I take a seat in one of the swings next to him.
“What do you think we should do today?” I ask him.
“What time is it?”
“Like, ten.”
“I’m hungry, so I’ll probably go up and make an omelet first, but I was thinking today should be the day you learn to slalom ski.”
“I already know how,” I counter.
“Sorry, the day you learn how to get up on one ski as opposed to kicking one off.”
“Thank you.”
“But, by the time I cook breakfast and then eat it, you’ll have your call with Hunter,” he says, the corners of his mouth turning down.
“Shit, I almost forgot,” I mutter.
“Already? Nice.”
“I didn’t forget. I just—I just got up, okay? I’m still not really awake.”
“Well, obviously, you weren’t dreaming about Hunter, or he’d be fresh on your mind.” He’s full-on grinning now.
I grab the book in his lap. “What are you reading anyway? Thoughts of a Champion?”
“Yeah, it’s actually pretty interesting.”
I read the synopsis on the back. “So, this will help you become an elite athlete?”
“No, it won’t do that, but it can help teach me to have the mind-set of one.”
“Hmm, and the video call this morning, what’s up with that? I thought we aren’t allowed technology.”
“We aren’t. I had to go to the business office at the hotel, and since it was for a modeling job, my mom said it was okay.”
“So, I could go up there and video-chat with Hunter if I wanted to,” I say, grinning back at him. I can’t let him think that just because I got a little jealous last night, I like him in that way.
“Yep. I. Suppose. You. Can.” And just like that, a flip switches, and Chase’s easygoing demeanor is gone. “I got the job, thanks for asking,” he says curtly and then adds, “I’m gonna go make my eggs. See ya later.”
I sit on the swing, eat my muffin, drink my juice, stare at the water, and contemplate my life.
Unfortunately, the water doesn’t seem to have any answers, so I think about what I want.
Hunter.
Which answers my question.
I take one of the golf carts from out front, go to the resort’s business office, log in to a social media site, and send him a direct message.
Hey, Hunter, good news! The hotel has a business office with computers, so we can video-chat today. Hope your workout was good. I’m here, so call me as soon as you’re done.
I check my email, finding one for a sale at my favorite store, and spend my time browsing their selection while I wait. Then, I start looking at the new fall handbag lineup from my favorite designer label.
After killing time for forty-five minutes, I look at Hunter’s profile, trying to see if he’s posted anything—or any sign that he’s still alive—in the roughly forty-eight hours I’ve been gone.
There’s nothing.
I sigh, and my mind wanders back to Chase this morning, how he was waiting for me but then got mad.
Well, not mad.
We hardly ever fight, but I could tell he was irritated. Which irritates me.
I pull up a photo of a shirtless Hunter. He’s shorter than Chase, and he carries more bulk. Particularly around his middle. He jokes that he’s got a dad bod, but he looks nothing like my dad, who calls himself a lean, mean, fighting machine. Hunter says it’s ’cause he likes to drink beer, but I know better. My dad has beer and is, well, still on billboards in his underwear. Which was horrifying to me a few years ago but is now actually pretty cool.
Thoughts of a Champion? I swear, Chase is so much like my dad. Probably got that stupid book from him. I thought we were supposed to be on vacation. Shouldn’t he be reading for pleasure?
By twelve fifteen, I’m thoroughly pissed.
I want to send Hunter a scathing message, but for some reason, I don’t. The last thing I need is to sound like a jealous girlfriend.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t say anything.
Hey, sorry we didn’t connect again today. Just so you know, I have a thing tomorrow, here at the hotel, and won’t be able to make our call time. Actually, it’s a bikini contest. Do you think I’ll win?
I send a pic of me on the dock that Haley took our first night here and posted on her profile before our phones were taken away. I’m not in a swimsuit, but my flirty skirt and tube top leave just enough to the imagination.
I log off the computer.
Decide to check out the pools here at the resort.
As I’m wandering around, I suddenly stop and turn back upon hearing the sound of my name being called.
Jennifer waves at me from a cabana, so I head that way and sit down by her and Jadyn, who are happily sipping margaritas next to two sleeping babies.
Weston is all curled up in a ball, her pacifier hanging out of her mouth. Emersyn is flat on her back, arms up in the air.
“How were swim lessons?” I ask.
“Fun,” Jadyn says.
“And wore them out,” Jennifer adds. “You know what they say—never wake a sleeping baby. So, we decided to order lunch here. Phillip has the boys out skiing and is in charge of making burgers for lunch today, so why not?” She hands me a menu. “We’re just getting ready to order. You want to join us?”
I look over the menu, nod my head, and then strip down to my swimsuit. Jennifer presses a little button on the table next to her drink that must work like magic because moments later, a dark-haired guy in uniform is at our tent.
He has sunglasses shading his eyes, but based on his head movements and the feel of his eyes running up and down my body, I’m pretty sure I just got checked out.
“Apollo,” Jadyn says. How she knows his name already, I have no idea. “This is Dani, Jennifer’s stepdaughter.”
“I can see the resemblance. Beauty must run in the family,” he stupidly says, and I can’t help but laugh out loud.
Sure, he’s pretty, but …
“Wait,” he says, taking off his glasses and revealing a guy in his early twenties with a sultry face of possibly Greek descent. “I’m still working on my English. It means—”
“I married her dad,” Jennifer says politely.
“I apologize,” he says to me. “What do you desire?”
I stare at him blankly, my mind scrolling through all the things I desire right now—the top of the list being for Hunter to actually be there when I freaking call.
“Uh …” Jennifer giggles and waves the menu in front of my face.
“Oh, yeah. I’ll have the Cobb salad with grilled salmon, please.”
“Make that two,” Jadyn says, holding up two fingers and then twirling one to signal for another round of drinks.
“I should make it three,” Jennifer says, looking down at her flat stomach. She’s actually in better shape now than before the baby. The result of working out with my father, I suppose. “But I’m starving, and I feel like today is going to be one massive cheat day. So, if I’m gonna do it, I might as well do it up right. And since I’m already having a margarita—”
“With only a half-shot of tequila,” Apollo reminds her, indicating that he doesn’t consider that to be bad.
“I’ll have the honey cornbread to start and then the chicken fried steak sandwich with pickles and cheese only, onion rings—oh, and I have to try the resort’s famous apple pecan cobbler. Does it come with both the caramel and custard? Or do I have to choose?”
“For you, I will bring both,” Apollo states.
“Perfect,” Jennifer says.
Jadyn gives Jennifer a seemingly knowing side-glance, but I have no idea what it means.
Based on Jennifer’s look, she doesn’t either, so I don’t say anything other than, “So Weston enjoyed the water?”
“Only screams of delight,” Jadyn confirms.
“And Emers loves the water already, so she was having a ball,” Jennifer adds.
“I can’t believe she’s going to turn one while we’re here. It’s gone so fast,” Jadyn says, glancing down at her.
“Are we having a party?” I ask.
“It’s Jadyn’s baby,” Jennifer jokes, “so of course we are.” She tosses me a tabloid magazine. “It’s not the internet, but we can keep up with the gossip.”
“I thought you hated these?”
She laughs out loud. “Well, I did when I was in them. I didn’t buy these. I would never support them. But it was in the cabana when we got here.”
“We did purchase a few magazines though,” Jadyn says, pulling a stack out of a tote and setting them on the table.
I paw through them, finding magazines covering everything from interior design to food to parenting and fashion. But at the bottom of the stack, I see a wedding one.
“What’s this for?” I ask.
“Me,” Jadyn says. “Phillip has been talking about renewing our vows.”
“So romantic,” Jennifer swoons.
I take the bridal magazine and flip through it, wondering if I’ll even have a boyfriend when I get back home. So far, Hunter’s not exactly batting a thousand. More like he keeps striking out—or maybe I do.
I do, I think, flipping the pages some more, trying to imagine my perfect groom.
If my mom had her way, my future husband would come from a good family, have a good social upbringing, and probably have a trust fund. She doesn’t want me to marry anyone local, preferring I go to an Ivy League college and fall for a senator’s son or something. She says power and money are the way to go. And I half-wonder if she’s planning to trade up from Richard soon.
I will admit, when my parents divorced, it sort of ruined my idea of a happily ever after. I glance at Jadyn, who is folding pages of a magazine to remember some small, inspirational details, and think about her and Phillip’s relationship.
Then about my parents.
Then about my dad and Jennifer.
Both my parents are happier than ever, and I should take comfort in that. But I don’t. I have no idea how I’ll ever choose the right guy to marry because, if I’m being honest, I don’t want to go through what my parents did, but the thought of being with the same guy for the rest of my life seems so limiting, it scares me.
Throw in my mother’s expectations and my dad just wanting me to be with a good man, and finding a guy is probably going to be impossible. How could I possibly make them both happy?
“Do you like that dress?” Jennifer asks, pointing at the page I’ve been staring at of a real-life couple.
“Oh, no. Not really. I was just thinking, they look happy.”
“Well, you definitely want to be happy on your wedding day,” she quips.
“Yeah, I guess she found the one.”
“That’s the key,” she agrees.
Which is no help.
Fortunately, our food comes, and I can focus on that and not on how my perfect guy just virtually stood me up two days in a row now.
After we finish lunch, Jennifer managing to destroy everything in her wake and declaring it one of the most delicious meals she’s ever had, we go back to the house.
The backyard is bustling now, much different than when I was here a few hours ago.
Ryder is throwing sticks into the water for the dogs, and I’m amazed at how he makes one sit at his side and wait her turn while the other gets the stick. I can barely get Angel to sit for a treat. Usually, she jumps up and chomps it straight out of my hand.
Papa appears to be teaching Madden and Haley how to play washers, and the grandmothers coo when they see the babies and immediately take them away to dote on them.
Jadyn kisses Phillip, who is manning the grill, flipping burgers, while Grandpa Mac is doing I don’t know what with some sort of contraption.
Jennifer sees my dad floating in the lake on a raft and runs out to the dock, leaping out in the water to join him.
“Where are Damon and Chase?” I ask Papa.
“Resort,” he says, not giving me much else.
“Hitting a couple of buckets of balls,” Haley adds. She always knows everything that’s going on even though she acts like she doesn’t care. “And Damon mentioned something about them hanging out with some girl he met yesterday. Where have you been?”
“Wanna sit on the swings?” I ask her.
“Sure.” She turns to her brother and says, “Don’t let Papa win.”
Once we’re a little bit away from all the prying ears, I tell her, “I was up at the hotel business office. They have internet there. Computers.”
“Yeah, Chase said you were going to video-chat with Hunter. How is he? Missing you terribly, I’m sure.”
I let out a dramatic sigh. “I haven’t heard from him since we got here,” I finally admit. “But don’t you dare tell your brother. He will tell me that he told me so.”
“Like, haven’t heard from him at all?”
“Nope.”
“Did you check his feeds? See if he was tagged? Anything?”
“Yes, I did. And nothing.”
“What about Taylor’s? Did you look at hers?”
I sigh again and nod, feeling ashamed to admit that I was stalking his ex’s feed.
“Well,” Haley says, “no news is good news. I’m sure workouts are just taking longer than expected. He has the house number, right? He could call when he’s free though, and even if we don’t answer, he could leave a message.”
“Wait. A message? How?”
“There’s one of those old-fashioned voice-messenger machine thingies. If it’s got a flashing red dot, it means there is a message.”
My eyes get huge. “Has anyone checked it? Maybe he has called, and I just don’t know it.”
She holds her hand up in the air to stop me from saying more. “I’m sorry. I just checked it when I got back. There was only one message from the front desk, regarding a package they were delivering for my mom. Flooring samples.”
“Crap. Tell me the truth, what do you think it means?”
“Burgers are ready!” Phillip calls out, and then Grandpa Mac adds, “And my homemade Parmesan truffle fries!”
“Oh gosh, I’m starving. Golf made me hungry,” Haley says. “But to answer your question, I don’t know what it means. Boys confuse the heck out of me. I haven’t told anyone, but the Hottie God is Jeremy Waters, by the way.”
“Oh, he is really cute.”
“And he knows it. I didn’t want to say anything in the car with my brother there, but we weren’t just talking. He asked me to be his girlfriend the night before we left. But then he broke up with me our first night here.”
“Oh, Hay, why?”
“Who knows why boys do what boys do? One minute, he’s in love with me, wanting to go to second base and almost in tears that I’m leaving for three weeks, and the next, he’s breaking up with me.”
“And what about third base?” I ask delicately.
“It’s not like I was going off to war or something. It’s pretty much a given that I’ll be coming back from the family vacay. But you’d think, based on his reaction, it was our last opportunity to be together and we should make the most of it. That whole spiel. Probably why he asked me to be his girlfriend that night. At least, that’s what Kassie heard. So, screw him,” she says.
“Or not.” I giggle.
“Oh, I see what you did there.” She laughs. “Let’s go get some food, and then I plan to spend the rest of the day by the pool, forgetting about stupid boys.”
“I already ate, but I’ll meet you at the pool. We’ll forget together.”
She brings her food to the pool, nibbling on it as we lie in the sun for the rest of the afternoon.
At five o’clock on the dot, Mimi brings out a big wooden board full of bruschetta along with multiple bottles of wine.
“We’re wine tasting before dinner,” she tells Haley and me. “Obviously, I don’t want you drinking much, but it’s good for you to taste and learn about different types of wines. You’ll appreciate it when you’re older.”
“I’ll appreciate it now,” Damon says from behind us.
Haley rolls her eyes at him. “Figures you two would show up just in time for drinks.”
“And food,” Chase says.
Haley turns around to face my brother, eyeing him carefully. “You weren’t hitting golf balls,” she proclaims.
“Yeah, we were. We hit a bucket.”
“And then what?”
“Sand volleyball. You should come play with us, Hay. You’ve got a killer serve, and we’d kick some ass. Chase was too busy flirting to play properly.”
Now, it’s Chase’s turn to roll his eyes.
“More like the other way around,” Haley teases Damon.
It’s funny. The older she gets, the closer she and Damon become. Not that she needs another big brother.
“Plus, Mimi is making her world-famous spaghetti and meatballs tonight,” Chase says.
“Don’t forget the garlic-cheese rolls dipped in warm butter,” Damon counters.
“Or the salted-caramel cheesecake for dessert,” Haley adds.
“I really need to start looking at that stupid board,” I say before we go to taste some wine.
As we’re walking over to the table where it’s all set up, I hear Haley whisper to Damon, “Remember when you told me if any guy hurt me, you’d kick his ass?”
“Yeah.”
“I might take you up on that when we get back.”
“Who is it?”
“Jeremy Waters.”
“Douche,” he says. “But, by the time we get home, it will be too late. How about I do you one better? There’s this little hottie over at the resort that I want to hang out with under more private circumstances, but she has to stay with her not-so-little brother.”
“Keep talking,” Haley says.
“He’s going to be a freshman.”
“Is he cute?”
“About five-ten, dark hair, good teeth—I think you would approve,” Damon says.
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll pay you fifty bucks.”
Haley stops and shakes Damon’s hand. “Deal.”
After another long meal, Damon, Chase, Haley, and I go down on the dock to watch the sunset.
“I confiscated a bottle of that good wine,” Haley tells us. “Two options. Hang out in the boathouse and compete against each other. Or take the wine, go make some popcorn, and then watch a movie in the theater.”
“I vote for the movies,” my brother surprises me by saying.
“Sounds like a perfect night,” I agree. “What about you, Chase?”
He glances at his watch and says, “I’m in. Why don’t you guys pick out a movie, get the popcorn started, and I’ll meet you there?”
As I watch him walk away, I wonder out loud, “Where’s he going?”
“To call the hottie, Kelsey. Where else?” Damon says.
We watch two movies, staying up late and drinking a little too much wine.
“Walk me to my room,” I tell Chase when I decide it’s time for bed.
When we get to my door, I stand with my back against it. “Chase, do you think we’ll always be friends?”
“I hope so. I can’t imagine you not being in my life.”
I get tears in my eyes, kiss him on the cheek, and then go into my room and cry.
Because I hate that he’s talking to Kelsey.
