“Why’d you call it a pool house if there’s no pool!” Gia was really distraught about this lack of pool. Which was fair. I’d prefer a pool to flowers.
“Gia, you misunderstood. There’s no pool here. I mean, there is probably a pool somewhere in town; it’s notthatsmall. I don’t know where—”
“But I was going to spend the whole summer sunbathing by the pool!”
“I thought you were coming here to work?” I loved Gia, but I wasn’t about to pick up her slack if she just wanted to lie in the sun instead of working.
“Of course I’m going to work, but when I’m not working, I wanted to be sunbathing. But now the pool’s gone...”
“It’s not gone; it was never here! Besides, you don’t actually need a pool to sunbathe. It’s just sitting in the sun.” As a brown girl, I didn’t do a lot of intentional tanning, but as far as I knew, you needed UV rays, not water, for the process.
“You’re supposed to dive in when you get too hot!”
“Like you’d dive into a pool, Gia. Not when you spend five hours a week on your hair.”
“Seven. But seriously, I’d like the option if I wanted to.”
I laughed. “Well, maybe we can put a kiddie pool outside the granny flat.” Although, honestly, I wasn’t exactly sure there’d be space. Maybe next to the patio?
“Ugh, fine, there’s no pool, but do we seriously have to call it a ‘granny flat’? Especially since I already said ‘pool house’ on my Insta.”
“Gia, you’re being ridiculous.” From my view on the daybed, all I could see was the pine wall in front of me, brightly lit by the window behind me. All this wood didn’t scream “granny” to me. Then again, it didn’t scream “pool house,” either. It looked like a cottage in the country, but smaller. “Call it a Bunkie,” I said. “Or an outbuilding. A tiny house. A—”
“There! That.Tiny housesare cool. There’s a whole Netflix show about them. There was even this Instagram model who lived in one. Or was that a camper van? What are those silver trailer things called? Anyway, maybe I can do a whole ‘Gia in a Tiny House’ series in my Insta. Might help me finally break five thousand followers.”
I laughed. “Be warned, though: there’s a ton of pine in here.”
“Not a problem for me. Chris Pine is my favorite Chris. I love that whole dad vibe.”
I laughed again. Gia was constantly ranking actors named Chris. Today she liked Pine; tomorrow it would be Evans.
“Tell me everything about the tiny house,” Gia said. “I don’t want any more misunderstandings.”
So I did, not holding back on the extreme spatial limitations of it. Gia did perk up when I described the garden, though. She didn’t share my flower aversion.
“Ooh, that’s why you were texting about my nona’s garden! You think I should pop out and get another floral romper? I only have two.”
“Juniper and Rowan are probably the only ones who’ll see you in the garden, and they won’t care what you’re wearing,” I told her. “They—”
“Wait, what are Juniper and Rowan?”
“They’re trees, apparently. Also, the names of the neighbors. Sixteen and eighteen.”
“Wait, there areneighbor teenagers? They cool?”
“Yes and no. Juniper seems all right. Very...talkative. She’s a bit naive but nice enough. She’ll be working at the boutique, too. But Rowan, her brother, he’s another story—pretty sure he hates me.”
Gia paused a few seconds. “He cute? Single?”
I rolled my eyes. “I told you hehatesme. You can’t go after someone who hates your best friend.”
“But if we dated, then he’d have to like you, because I wouldn’t put up with any boo dissing my bestie. This is all in service to you, T.”
“Gee, thanks, G.”
“So, heiscute, then?”
“You donotwant to go there. Seriously. He hates influencers.”
