Looking back over the net, I found Chloe standing there, the brightest smile on her lips.
“You missed!” she shouted.
“That doesn’t count!” I cried back, trying to wipe the rain from my face.
She shook her head, strands of hair sticking to her face. I rolled my eyes at her, instead turning my attention to cleaning up so we could get the hell off the court. I scrambled across my side, quickly picking up the balls, holding them to my chest with my racket.
I reached for the final ball at the post of the net, when her hand brushed mine, shivers running up my body at the touch.
I followed the length of her arm, her hand clasping the ball, across her shoulder, neck, until ocean eyes met mine. A teasing smilestretched across her lush pink lips. She was soaked through, her bright pink dress like a second skin. I didn’t know where to look first.
Certainly not at the dip of cleavage, down the open zip. I wondered how much lower it went.
“Let’s get out of here!” she said, pulling me out of my haze.
We dumped the balls in the cage, and Chloe rolled it into the equipment shed. I followed her off the court, but when her hand slipped against mine, fingers interlacing, Wilson following at our feet, I was sure it was a hallucination.
Thunder rumbled in the background as the rain somehow started to pound down harder. My heart stumbled as she pulled me harder, still trying to catch up.
And it wasn’t until the guesthouse came into view that I saw her plan.
“Maybe we should go to the main house,” I offered, thinking of the small space we were heading to, thinking of the soaked dress she was wearing and how it was clear that she wasn’t wearing a bra underneath. “Your parents will be waiting.”
“Don’t remind me,” she said, pushing wet strands of hair off her face. “Why do you think I want to hang out here instead?”
I gulped as we reached the double patio doors, looking back at the house in the distance.
That’s where she belonged.
But as Chloe smiled, droplets rolling down her face, everything around me stopped. The rain, the storm, my heart. And apparently I lost control of all sense of the situation because I willingly followed her inside, the door closing behind me.
And for the first time, I realized, whatever game I thought we were playing, I was already losing.
22
Inés
Guilty Pleasure—Chappell Roan
The storm rumbled around us, almost drowning out the sound of the ringing landline. Without hesitation, Chloe marched across the cozy white-clad living room, still dripping wet, and answered it.
“Yes?” she said, holding the phone in the crook of her neck. Her eyes rolled as she held her hand over the receiver, looking to me. “Do you want to grab us some towels?”
I nodded, turning as she burst out, “No, I’m going to hide out here from the storm.” Her voice carried easily from the main room, even when she spoke in hushed tones. “Send them home. It’s only across the street.”
I caught my reflection in the mirror. My hair clung to my face, soaked completely as if I’d stepped into a shower, but my dark blue dress didn’t reveal anything except curves. While Chloe was busy, I pulled it off, throwing the drenched material into the shower to deal with later.
I wrapped some towels around my hair and body, quickly looking out into the living room to make sure Chloe was still preoccupied.
“I don’t care what they are saying. We have a deal,” she hissed down the phone, her back to me as she stood beside the large French doors, the rain still pouring down outside.
Alarm bells went off in my head, but I decided to ignore them, instead heading across to the bedroom. The area was open-plan, divided up by partition walls; whoever had designed the guesthouse obviously hadn’t shown up to their interior design class on the concept of doors.
But if I was quick...
I grabbed fresh underwear, found the first pair of shorts I could, and threw all the towels on the bed as I stepped into them.
“Alright, I’ll be there when the rain stops,” I heard Chloe say, followed by the noise of the phone returning to the handset. Panic gripped my heart as I scrambled for a shirt to wear, anything to cover me up.
