Riley shakes her head. From the way her sly smirk widens, Charlotte can tell she loves the challenge. Riley lifts her hand to her face and lightly taps her own lips. “You come get it.”
“I don’t think so.” Charlotte’s desire to have the upper hand wins over her desire to feel Riley’s lips. Her eyes flick to the screen in the corner, displaying the slowly descending floor numbers. She mouths along: “Three… two… one…”
Up until the very last second, it looks like Riley won’t give in. But just before the doors open, she pushes herself off the elevator wall and buries her face in Charlotte’s neck, inhaling deeply.
“You’re a brat,” she murmurs against the skin, before softly nipping at her jugular and soothing the spot with a kiss. She squeezes one side of Charlotte’s ass for good measure and exits the elevator with a casual swag in her hips.
In contrast, Charlotte stumbles into the reception hall like a newborn deer, blushing up to her eyeballs.
“Are you gonna tell me where we’re going, or are you gonna blindfold me?” Riley asks her, arms crossed in a silent challenge. Charlotte blinks to get rid of the mental image of a blindfolded Riley under different circumstances, and opens her tote to look for her phone.
“Hey, where are you off to?”
Charlotte’s heart drops into her stomach when she looks up and watches Lou enter the reception hall. Her flipflops, wet hair, and damp towel around her shoulders give away the fact she’s just come from the pool.
“That’s a secret,” Charlotte says, at the exact same moment Riley replies: “Shopping for presents.”
Riley looks at Charlotte, lifts one eyebrow, and turns back to Lou. “Which is obviously a secret.”
“Obviously,” Lou agrees. “But we didn’t want any presents, you know that right? Being here in Mexico with us is more than expensive enough.”
As if we don’t already have something,Charlotte muses.
“Who said the presents were for you?” Riley says haughtily. “We gotta find a way to thank the guests for coming all the way out here. Not to mention a treat for ourselves, for sticking it out with you.”
“You are so right. What an awful thing to have asked you to do,” Lou agrees jokingly, jabbing a thumb at one of the windows. “In this awful weather and this nasty hotel? We’ve put you through hell. You’re the real ones.Never forget.” Lou holds two fingers against her temple in a mock-salute.
Riley starts laughing and pulls Lou in for a hug. “I’m kidding. Time of our lives, seriously,” she says to her friend. In response to that, Lou’s face turns so she can mumble something Charlotte can’t quite make out in Riley’s ear. Riley replies just as quietly; Charlotte strains to be able to catch any words, but she’s got nothing.
“Alright, I have to go get a new book for Gabi,” Lou eventually says, holding her fist out for Charlotte. Charlotte bumps it and asks: “Can’t she do that herself?”
“She can,” Lou grins, then shrugs. “But I’m her wife-to-be. Happy wife…”
“Ugh,lesbians,” Riley scrunches up her nose and dismisses Lou with a wave of her hand. “Go please your babe!”
“Go please yours!” Lou shouts back, evoking a death-stare from Riley and a shocked look from Charlotte. “I mean, your bud, your maid of honor in crime, you know what I mean!”
As Lou disappears from sight, Charlotte turns on her heel and stoically marches to the exit of the hotel. “I’m just gonna pretend that didn’t happen.”
“What didn’t happen?” Riley asks as she hobbles along. Charlotte isn’t sure whether she’s serious or not, so she makes that decision for her.
“Exactly.”
Charlotte gestures for Riley to get into the cab she had asked the receptionist to call for, and hands a paper with the address to the driver. As they drive along the beach to a spot a little further than where they’ve been before, Riley does not stop voicing her thoughts. Her guesses range from horseback riding to sand castle building. If her yapping hadn’t made her look so adorably nervous about the date, Charlotte would’ve shut her up long before they turned the second corner.
The driver eventually drops them off on a small road leading to the sea, and as soon as Charlotte has paid and thanked the driver in broken Spanish—with Riley beaming next to her—she gets a little self-conscious about her plans.
They follow the path and end up near a rotten dock and a small boat house with one of the windows smashed in.
“Idyllic,” Riley remarks, and Charlotte punches her in the bicep.
“It’s hard to plan something when you can’t ask the expert planner for advice.”
“Is that your way of saying you needed me?”
“I most certainly did not.” Charlotte gives her a pointed look. “C’mon, let’s go.”
Once inside, Charlotte uses her hands, feet, and a little paper with the reservation number on it to communicate what she’s there for. Riley dutifully refuses to intervene, and Charlotte immediately regrets telling her she didn’tneed her help, but she’s also too stubborn to take her words back.
