Maggie caught the dopey little grin spreading acrossIzzy’s face and fought the urge to groan again. Proposal Girl over there, already glowing like she hadn’t been plotting social catastrophe ten minutes ago.
Beside her, Gwen’s hand smoothed down the sheet one last time before she stood, composed and unruffled as ever. “Pool day it is,” she said softly.
Maggie flopped back against the pillow, glaring up at the ceiling.
CHAPTER 10
Gwen
Gwen feltlike she’d wandered into a fever dream. It wasn’t just a pool — it was a full production. A giant Buddha statue loomed at one end, half in shade, haloed by palm trees. The water glittered a perfect turquoise. House music pulsed from gigantic speakers over a raised stage off to one side, vibrating through the space with surprising volume. The air smelled like sunscreen, salt, and prosecco.
It was barely eleven in the morning, but the place was already buzzing. Packs of women in neon bikinis clutching sloshing cocktails, shirtless guys dancing like they’d been at it since dawn, waitresses weaving through with trays of shots balanced in increasingly concerning quantities. Gwen hadn’t been to a pool party since… ever. And she was fairly sure none of them had looked likethis.
They approached the host stand to claim their reserved table, but luck — or perhaps some god chaos — was on their side. A manager in a crisp polo appeared, effusive about an “upgrade” and leading them through the crowd to a private cabana tucked along one side of the pool
The cabana was absurd, complete with a cushioned U-shaped couch, its own plunge pool out front, and a flat-screen TV bolted to the wall even though no one was going to watch it.
And then the bottle service girl arrived, striding in with the confidence that Gwen imagined was necessary to walk in skyscraper heels poolside. She carried a tray of menus and an expression that suggested she’d seen everything.
“Holy shit,” Maggie muttered, already collapsing onto the couch. She draped an arm over her eyes, the picture of a fainting Victorian.
The rest of the group, by contrast, came alive. Izzy and Kiera dove into the menus like they were treasure maps, already debating Bloody Mary spice levels. Danica flagged the waitress down with her bright, type-A efficiency, while Pete groaned in gratitude.
“Thank god,” Pete announced, plopping onto the couch. “I love the private pool. Because youknowpeople are definitely fucking in that one.” She jabbed toward the main pool, where two strangers were indeed suspiciously entangled beneath an umbrella
Kiera gagged. Izzy cackled.
Gwen sat down carefully on the edge of the couch across from Maggie, who didn’t move. Gwen was trying not to gape at everything, the sensory overload at odds with the strange comfort of sitting this close to her wife, even if Maggie was sprawled dramatically as if she’d already died of Vegas.
Maggie wasn’t just lying down. She was sprawled in a full starfish position. One leg bent, the other dangling off the edge of the couch, her cover-up bunched around her thighs, sunglasses askew on her face even though they hadn’t been outside long enough for anyone’s retinas to fry. She’d draped an arm over her eyes like she was auditioning for a tragic heroine role — Saint of the Pool Hangover.
And Gwen… God help her, Gwen couldn’t look away.
In the middle of all this spectacle — the DJ, the women in rhinestoned bikinis, Pete already heckling the waitress about “maximum garnish” on her Bloody Mary — her gaze kept circling back to Maggie. The wild hair, the bare skin, the absolute refusal to sit upright like a normal person. Dramatic, impossible Maggie, radiating heat and exhaustion and a kind of raw presence that had always knocked Gwen a little off-balance.
She told herself to look away, to focus on anything else. The Buddha statue. The champagne buckets sweating onto the table. Izzy, beaming at Kiera.
Maggie let out another sigh — long, theatrical, and completely unnecessary — and Gwen’s chest tightened, sharp and uninvited. The urge to touch Maggie flared, ridiculous and dangerous. To push her sunglasses back up her nose, smooth her tangled hair, slide a palm over the sharp line of her shin where the sunlight hit.
Instead, Gwen folded her hands in her lap, posture straight, expression neutral, like she wasn’t teetering on the edge of something that hadn’t belonged to her in a long time.
The distraction arrived on silver trays — literally. The bottle service woman swept back in with two busboys trailing behind her, each balancing platters piled high with eggs, bacon, fruit, something suspiciously labeled “hangover fries,” and an architectural stack of pancakes that looked like it had been engineered for Instagram.
“Praise be,” Pete muttered, attempting a completely incorrect and backward sign of the cross before snatching a strip of bacon straight off the platter.
Danica swatted at her hand. “At least wait until the food hits the table?—”
“Too late,” Pete said, mouth already full.
Izzy leaned over the Bloody Mary cart the waitress rolled in, eyes wide. “Is that… shrimp? There’s shrimp on the skewers. And bacon. Oh my god, is that a slider?”
“It’s basically lunch in a glass,” Kiera said approvingly, plucking a celery stick and crunching into it.
Maggie finally cracked an eye open from her fainting-couch pose. “If one of those comes near me, I’m suing.”
Danica, ever the hostess, was divvying up fruit skewers like she was feeding children at summer camp. “Okay, someone please eat some melon before everyone devours nothing but meat and cheese.”
“Melon’s just crunchy water,” Pete argued, piling a plate like she was preparing for the apocalypse. “Why waste valuable stomach space?”
