My cheeks flushed with embarrassment, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. I’ll just go on to my room now.” I hopped out of the bed and quickly exited the room, making a beeline for mine. Of course, Reese was hot on my tail.
We entered the room and Reese immediately started grilling me about what happened with Dash.
“Like he said. Nothing. We watched a movie, or started to, and I fell asleep before it was finished.”
“Uh-huh, you two looked pretty cozy all curled up together.”
I turned away from Reese to hide my face. It was cozy being curled up with him and I wanted to do it again sometime. “Well, well, well, I think little Miss Ember just might have a thing for Dash.”
I whirled around quickly, “I most certainly do not have a ‘thing’ for him. I don’t even know what a thing for him is, so I can’t possibly have one.”
“Oh don’t pull that innocent crap on me. You know exactly what I mean. You like him. I for one think it is great. Maybe they didn’t completely screw you up at that crazy ass place you grew up. Besides, Dash is smoking hot. You could do worse.”
“Are you insane? I don’t like Dash. Yeah, he’s attractive, but forming a relationship, of any kind, is not even remotely on my radar right now. My future is basically sitting on the end of a cotton swab in a lab somewhere. What’s going to happen if Phoenix is my father? What’s going to happen if he isn’t? I thought I would be well on my way to starting my new life far away from this town by now, but I’m still here, just waiting.”
Reese sat down on my bed, “Do you think you will want to stay in Croftridge if Phoenix is your father?” She sounded hopeful.
“I don’t know. I’ve been trying not to think about it too much. I don’t want to get my hopes up one way or the other, but it’s so hard not to think about it. And even if he is my biological father, that doesn’t mean he would want me to stay.”
“Ember, you saw how he reacted when he figured out there was a possibility that you’re his daughter. You know he would want you to stay, and I bet Dash would want you to stay, too.” She waggled her eyebrows at me.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore right now. Let’s go get breakfast and find something to do for the day.”
“It’s supposed to be pretty hot with clear skies today. Maybe we could go swimming,” she suggested.
“I am not swimming in that nasty water! It’s brown and who knows what kind of creatures are living in it.”
Reese laughed, “I meant the pool.”
“They have a pool?” I asked, surprised.
“Yep. Go down the left hallway and through the door at the end. It takes you out to a large patio with an in-ground pool. They also have a hot tub out there, but I’m not sure how sanitary it would be to get in that.”
“Um, I don’t have a swimsuit,” I confessed.
Reese smiled brightly, a little too brightly, “Good thing for you I have an extra.”
“Of course you do.” I could tell just by the grin on her face that she was up to something.
After breakfast, we returned to the room to change and I found out just what she was up to. “Reese!” I shrieked. “I’m not going out there in this!”
“Of course you’re not. You’re going out there wearing this.” She held up a sheer summer dress type thing. “But you’re going swimming in what you have on.” I was already shaking my head in refusal. “Ember, I know it is far different than anything you’ve ever worn before, but I promise you, you look fantastic. Just give it a go. If you hate it or are completely uncomfortable once we are out there, we’ll come back to the room and find something else to do.”
I reluctantly agreed and crossed my fingers that we wouldn’t run into anyone on our trek to the pool. There was a fine line between bravery and stupidity. I wasn’t quite sure which side this one fell on.
To my surprise, we made it out to the pool without running into anyone. Reese pulled off her cover-up without any hesitation and jumped into the pool. I stood there feeling awkward and uncomfortable. I had never shown this much skin outside of my bedroom. Ever. I started rubbing my hands together and glancing all around.
“Just take it off and get in. No one is out here.” She dove under the water and popped back up, “If you want your life to change, you have to start changing things, doing things differently. Now, take a deep breath, tell yourself you’re beautiful, take that thing off, and get in the damn pool.” She placed her hands on her hips and glared at me.
She had a point. I was trying to start a new life, and to do that, I couldn’t continue to do things the same way I always had. I just wished the swimsuit had a little more material and a little less shine to it. As it was, my breasts were barely contained in the two shiny gold triangles that made up the top and it felt like half of my rear end was on display with the small amount of material that made up the bottoms. My underwear covered more than this! Great, now I’m talking myself out of doing this instead of talking myself into it.
Okay, deep breath. Check.
Ember, you’re beautiful. Check.
Take the cover-up off.
Take the cover-up off.
