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!”