Chapter 22

The villa girls and bombshell boys won the competition by one point.

Though they'd celebrated when the result had been announced, Cas knew that there were going to be some tense conversations later that evening about the games themselves.

Who had kissed who, who had rubbed up on who, what the status of people's relationships were now.

It was the same drama every year, and it was exactly why the producers continued doing it, but it was surprisingly awkward, living it in real life. She'd loved this drama when she was watching from home—the twists and turns of it, the intense reveals, the shouting rows—but now, it felt like an invasion, listening in whenever anyone got into a fight like that. They all sat in corners, heads ducked, pretending to be anywhere else.

She could feel Ada's eyes on her as they got dressed for the highlighter-themed party that evening, and felt her own gaze drawn to Ada's side of the room time and time again. But she knew she had to stay focused, just move through the motions. Choose her dress. Apply her makeup. Do her hair.

She knew that the other girls were watching them, but Cas couldn't pay attention to them when she couldn't even sort out her own feelings. Or, more accurately, what to do now that she'd acted on them.

Ada had come here with the express purpose of finding a relationship. Sure, she was going to get the same social media boost as everyone else, her small business would likely flourish, and she was a shoo-in for hundreds of collaboration requests. But those things hadn't been her goal. She'd come on Hot Summer because she thought it was a chance to meet someone she wanted to have an actual relationship with.

Cas's whole summer, on the other hand, was an ulterior motive. She wanted a promotion, her own office and subordinates, an escape from the endless cycle of clubs and pubs and "fun." The last thing on her mind had been finding someone to settle down with....

She felt itchy just thinking about it.

She was checking herself out in the mirror once more when Ada walked over.

"You look great."

Cas had decided on a neon pink sequin two-piece dress. The cropped top had one long sleeve—the left, thankfully, so she could show off her tattoos—and the skirt was a simple high-waisted bodycon that ended about mid-thigh. The sequins scratched a little, but she loved the way they caught the light.

Cas found Ada's gaze in the mirror. She'd stuck black-light stickers down her right arm, stars and hearts and rainbows that looked plain now but would be electric once they were outside. Her dress was startlingly blue, the color so bright it was almost hard to look at, and flared out at the bottom in a way that seemed almost innocent—as long as you ignored the skintight fit and the low cut.

"Thanks. You do, too."

Ada smoothed her hands down over her dress, and Cas watched the way the hemline fluttered as her hands passed over the fabric.

"You ready to head down?"

Cas nodded. "I feel like I want one of those stickers, though." She pointed at the ones on Ada's arm, and Ada brightened.

"Oh my god, yes, wait." She darted back over to the dressing table and grabbed a sticker sheet. "Stand still."

Ada selected two stickers—a small heart and a rainbow—and stepped close, until she was barely a breath away.

"Turn this way." Ada touched her fingertips to the bottom of Cas's chin, turning her face ever so slightly to the left. It was the barest touch, but it made her breath catch. Especially when Ada's eyes found hers.

"I'm going to put the heart right next to your eye, so try not to move."

With gentle fingers, Ada placed the heart at the corner of Cas's eye, right at the edge of her makeup, the perfect accent to the glitter across her lid. She placed the rainbow on Cas's cheek, taking an extra second to smooth it down.

"Your skin is so soft," Ada said. Her words were almost a whisper, but they thundered in Cas's ear.

"Moisturizer," Cas choked.

Because Ada was asking about her fucking skin care routine.

Ada's eyes sparked with amusement. "I'll keep that in mind. Now..." She took a step back and admired her handiwork, though she seemed less concerned about her sticker placement and more about the fact that she'd effectively reduced Cas to a puddle. "Are you ready to go down?"

"Oh, wait, Ades." Sienna was frowning, trying to reach the zipper at the back of her dress over in her corner of the dressing room. "Can you help me first?"

"Uh, yeah, sure." Ada flicked her gaze back to Cas. "I'll see you down there. Save a drink for me."

Cas was about two steps down the corridor before someone reached out from the bathroom door and pulled her inside.

"What the— Femi!"

"I need to talk to you," Femi said. He dragged her into the toilet cubicle and shut the door behind them. "I told them I had an emergency, so we have probably, like, thirty seconds before they start yelling at us." Cas raised her eyebrows.

"You couldn't have talked to me outside?"

"I wanted to talk to you without cameras."

"We're still miked." Cas pointed at the microphone hanging around his neck, but Femi shrugged.

"I doubt they'll use it, it's just audio. Now stop wasting time, tell me what happened in your challenge."

Cas frowned. "With... Sienna?"

"No, she and I already talked about that." He waved his hand dismissively, clearly losing his patience. "With you and Ada. Si said you kissed her."

In spite of herself, Cas felt her cheeks heat. "Yeah."

Femi made a sound that was somewhere near a laugh and a suppressed scream. He grabbed both her arms and shook her in his excitement, and Cas felt her own laugh tumble out.

"I guess you're excited."

"Of course I'm excited! What are you going to do now?"

His enthusiasm was contagious and impossible to ignore, especially when she was confined in such a small space with it.

"I don't know." Christ. She was giggling like a schoolgirl. "I guess we're going to have to talk about it. Figure out what our next step is going to be."

"I think we all know what it should be."

In that moment, Cas found herself wishing that she could explain the entire situation to Femi. There was a chance that he wouldn't be happy with her when she explained the original reason that she'd come on the show, but she thought that he would forgive her. Or, at least, she hoped he would.

But she knew it was impossible. She could practically feel the NDA she'd signed shoving the words back down her throat. It didn't stop her wanting to lay out every single complication to get his honest opinion on what she should do.

"You don't think..." She stopped, changed her mind. "Do you think she wants to partner up with me?"

"Cas." Femi squeezed her elbows, pressing his words into her skin, making sure that she couldn't forget them. "That girl is obsessed with you."

Cas groaned. "Are we sure, though?"

The fact that Cas was debating this, even after their kiss, must have made this the most sapphic moment in the history of Hot Summer. Only a moving van would make this gayer.

Femi nodded firmly and refused to let her escape his gaze even when she tried to look down at the floor. "We're sure. Now"—he threw open the loo door—"go get her! The losers will be watching you from the balcony."

"Oh great, because having an audience will definitely make me feel less nervous," Cas said. She checked her reflection in the mirror over the sink—her heart speeding up when she noticed the stickers Ada had added. They were perfectly placed.

"That's what I figured," Femi said.

He only laughed when she held her middle finger up at him on her way out the door.

The back garden was covered in UV lights when Cas walked outside, so everything had an eerie purple glow. There were neon body-paint markers in a jar on the kitchen island, more glow-in-the-dark sticker sheets scattered around, and club music blasting over the speakers. They were small changes, but Cas felt like she'd stepped out of the villa and into a disco dream.

She grabbed one of the body-paint pens—yellow, she thought, though the light was distorting the color—and started shaking it up as she walked out to the garden. Most everyone else was already dancing around in the grass, heels kicked off onto the pool deck in favor of dancing barefoot. Freddie grinned at her, his teeth a shock of white in the black light.

He grabbed her free hand and spun her around to the beat, making sure to keep a respectful distance between them. "Nice dress."

"Thanks." She held up the paint marker and shook it. "Want some tattoos?"

He held his arm out without hesitation and Cas filled his arm with stars and swirls. They weren't perfect and definitely weren't neat, but there was a reason she wasn't an artist.

Freddie beamed at them, turning his arm so he could appreciate her designs. "Stunning. Now, let's dance!"

They were less dancing as pairs, but more as a crowd, all of them jumping and spinning and grabbing one another, letting the music take them. Ada and Sienna joined a few songs later, Sienna immediately getting swept up with Tia. Freddie had taken Ada's hand when she joined them, but had just as quickly spun her into Cas with a wink in Cas's direction. Cheeky bastard.

"He seems nice," Ada said. She was loosely moving her hips to the beat, but wasn't quite dancing.

"He is," Cas agreed.

"You going to go for it?"

If there was a moment to decide, this was it. Ada was giving her an out, a very clear choice—did she want to choose Freddie? Or, unspoken, but there in her eyes, did she want to choose Ada instead?

As if there was any question about it.

Cas put her hand on Ada's waist, stepping into her so their hips very nearly brushed.

"No."

The producers played about ten songs before they switched the music off and sent a message to Ronan, one of the new boys, that the lovers from the losing group were officially allowed to come down off their perch on the balcony and join the fun.

With the UV lights switched off, they looked absurd, like club rats blinking in the sunlight of the early morning and realizing they smelled like vodka, that their hair was sticky and they had eyeliner running down their cheeks.

They were all covered in neon paint—the designs, at first intricate, and then just lines scraped across one another's skin as they twirled by. Cas's hair had been down, but she'd borrowed a hair bauble off Tia and thrown her hair up into a ponytail at song five to stop it sticking to her neck in the heat of the evening.

Now, she had paint and glitter and stickers across her chest and along her throat to show for it.

Ada bounced over from the kitchen, her hair swinging behind her. She had two water bottles in her hand and thrust one at Cas before unscrewing the lid.

"It's a thousand degrees out tonight, I swear." She dumped a handful of water into her palm and slapped it against her neck, cooling her overheated skin. It was a simple gesture, a reasonable one given how warm it was, but the water on her skin, the droplets traveling down her chest...

"Yeah." Cas's throat was the Sahara. "I don't know what's going on tonight."

"Must be the dancing," Ada said. For someone who was actively killing the woman in front of her, she seemed remarkably unbothered.

"Probably," Cas agreed.

Ada poured more water into her palm and scrubbed it across the back of her neck, moaning softly at the sensation. Cas felt that sound across every single inch of her.

"Do you want to go sit somewhere?" Ada rubbed the last drops of water on her hand up her arm, smearing the paint. "I feel like we have a few things to talk about."

"Mmm, mm-hmm." Words could not be trusted right now, so animalistic grunts were apparently going to be her response of choice.

Ada grinned and took Cas's hand, winding their fingers together. It seemed so easy for her, the way she just did it. Didn't hesitate, didn't overthink it, didn't stop herself at the last possible second. It was simple, giving herself over to what she felt, to just doing what she wanted to without a second thought for everything that would come after.

She gave Cas's hand a little tug and Cas tripped along behind her, ready to follow her off the edge of a cliff.

Ada led them down to the daybed. They weren't completely invisible should anyone really choose to look, but it gave the illusion of privacy all the same.

Ada let go of Cas's hand as they approached the bed, immediately jumping onto the mattress and sliding so that her back was pressed up against the headboard, her legs stretched out in front of her.

Cas swallowed and sat on the edge of the bed, her feet touching the grass. "So..."

"So," Ada agreed. She was smiling, grinning even, and Cas was knotting her fingers together.

Cas tried her best to frown, but her own lips were betraying her, already curling up at the corners. "What are you smiling about?"

It was really inconvenient that seeing Ada made it almost impossible for Cas not to smile, especially when she was trying to be serious.

"You," Ada admitted, her smile widening. "You seem nervous."

Cas's frown deepened. All furrowed brow and everything. She was really putting on a show here, but she didn't think it was paying off one bit.

"Of course I'm nervous."

Ada raised an eyebrow. It was one of Cas's favorite expressions of hers because she could never quite get it right. Her brow was always more of a wrinkle than a raise and it was adorable. "Why?"

"I—" It was the simplest thing in the world to say: I kissed you. It was something she'd done millions of times, but this kiss had felt...

Significant.

And if she was willing to admit it to herself—and, let's be honest, she just barely was—the very thought of that terrified her. It was easier when you didn't really care about the people you were kissing, when they didn't have the power to affect you. To hurt you.

Cas was more or less willing to sit on the daybed for the rest of the evening mulling over just how bad it was that she'd snogged Ada (and that she wanted to keep snogging Ada for as long as humanly possible), when Ada spoke.

"You kissed me."

Welp, they were in it now.

"Yup." Cas put a bit of extra pop into the p, hoping it made her sound casual. "I was thinking, you know. It was about time."

"I thought it was about time, too," Ada said. She spun in her seat, swinging her legs around behind her so she could sit almost beside Cas. "I kept trying to drop hints, but you were not picking them up."

"I thought you were just being friendly."

Ada laughed and shook her head.

"Well, for future reference"—Ada leaned closer, her hair falling forward over her right shoulder, brushing up against Cas's arm—"if I'm grinding on you like that, it's definitely not friendly."

And before Cas could even catch her breath, Ada's mouth was on hers.

It felt like a jolt to Cas's entire system. Like the main power had been switched on and every single inch of her body was humming with electricity.

Where their earlier kiss had been rushed, sped up by the pressure of the game, this kiss was languid, luxurious. It was a thousand sensations all at once—the soft press of Ada's mouth against her own, the swipe of Ada's tongue along her lower lip, the brush of Ada's hair against Cas's biceps, and all of it combined with the heat of Ada's body so near her own, the way Ada was tracing her fingers oh so lightly along the back of Cas's arm...

Cas could have sank into this moment, lived in it for the rest of her life and been totally and completely satisfied.

Where Cas felt like she was disintegrating, Ada was unhurried, and coaxed exhales and sighs and, god, hitched groans out of Cas with ease. Cas gasped as Ada scraped her teeth along her lower lip, and the smile on Ada's lips, so knowing, made Cas hum and pull Ada closer until their chests were pressed together.

It was a little awkward given how they were sitting, but it was exactly what Cas needed. To feel Ada's body against her own, to close any distance between them, to seep into her skin. Cas shifted on the bed, moving to kiss the edge of Ada's mouth, her jaw, the very top of her throat. Ada's breath caught, her hand coming to rest on Cas's thigh.

"Fuck."

Cas grinned, beamed, and let her mouth find Ada's again.

Cas wanted to feel every single plane and curve of Ada's body, and her hands weren't shy in exploring them. Ada's dress had ridden up and Cas smoothed her hands along the outside of Ada's gorgeous thighs, squeezing lightly as her fingers traveled toward the seam of her dress. Cas traced the edge of the fabric, teasing, and with each suggestion that her hands might slip underneath, Ada exhaled hard, desperate in a way that was very much going to Cas's head.

They were probably getting a little out of hand here given that there were about a dozen cameras currently pointing at them. As soon as she remembered that, Cas slowed, moved her hand, tried to calm her breath.

Ada pulled back slightly, just enough that she could rest her forehead on Cas's. "Are my intentions clear now?"

Cas exhaled a shaky laugh. "I don't know, you might need to kiss me again. So I can be sure."

Cas felt Ada's smile against her lips and she was about to lean forward when a shout from the garden forced them both to turn round.

"Yes!" Freddie and Femi were standing up on their deck chairs, fists in the air. They high-fived, the force of their excitement causing Freddie's chair to tip and send him tumbling back into the pool.