Chapter 6

The lights were on far too early the next morning.

They didn't even have the decency to turn them on gradually, just flicked them on all at once so the only thing Cas could do to protect her retinas from disintegrating was to throw her arm over her head and start groping for a pillow to hide under.

"Oh no." Cas felt more than heard Femi start laughing beside her. "You're not a morning person, are you?"

"No, I'm fucking not," Cas muttered, her head now firmly planted under the pillow. "And I'm telling you now, I will fight you if you laugh in my face before I've had coffee, something to eat, and, like, an hour to come to terms with being alive."

Femi laughed again, this time loudly enough that Cas could definitely hear it.

"Well, let me go get you a coffee, then. How do you take it?"

She loved him.

"Black. Iced. Please."

"Got it." Femi flung the duvet off and Cas shivered against the gust of freezing air that hit her legs. She was ready to yell at him, when he tucked the duvet back over her, taking extra care to wrap it in tightly around her so she was insulated.

Satisfied with his work, Femi shouted to the rest of the room, "Anyone else like a coffee?"

Cas snuggled back under the duvet as everyone else started shuffling off, her eyes falling closed again until, a few minutes later, the edge of the bed dipped followed by the sound of something being set onto the bedside table.

"Coffee's on the side table," Femi said, patting the lump of duvet that roughly aligned with Cas's right shoulder. "I've also got you a pastry. There were pain au chocolats in the cupboard."

Cas peeked out from underneath the duvet.

"Thank you." She tried to smile at him, but she was mostly squinting into the overhead lights.

"No problem." Femi patted her shoulder once more before he stood up again. "I'll see you outside in a few."

"Doubt it." Cas snaked her hand out and grabbed her coffee. Femi laughed before walking back outside.

Cas sipped at her coffee and picked flakes off her pastry for the next few minutes, all the while trying her best to listen to what everyone was talking about outside.

She should probably just get up, see what they were all on about, but the idea of leaving this bed...

Ada slid open the garden door, her face splitting into a grin when she saw Cas still snuggled under the duvet.

"How have you not gotten shouted at yet?"

Cas shrugged. "I'm awake. What else do they want from me?"

"I'd venture that they want you to get out of bed and join the rest of us in the land of the living."

"Overrated."

Ada snorted. "Okay."

And she dropped down on the end of Cas's bed. She watched as Cas tore a chunk off her pain au chocolat and stuffed it into her mouth.

"How did you sleep?"

Cas hummed and lifted her hand to cover her mouth. "Okay. It was weird being in a room with, like, nine other people, though."

She'd really only thought about how awkward it would be once people started hooking up in the bedroom, but it was weird full stop. Every exhale, rustle of the sheets, stray snore, was a reminder that Cas wasn't in her own bedroom in London anymore.

"No, yeah, that was weird," Ada said. She sounded contemplative, a little distant, like she was mulling something over. "How did you find sharing a bed with Femi?"

"Yeah, it was good," Cas said. "He didn't hog the duvet or kick me, so..." She shrugged. "Success."

"Hmm." Ada nodded absently, and Cas raised an eyebrow over another sip of coffee.

"How was sharing a bed with Brad?"

"It was okay," Ada said slowly, her eyes moving from Cas over to the garden door. "I felt like he was trying to, like... brush up against me, though."

Cas frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Like he was really close to me all night," Ada said. "And maybe that's just how he sleeps, but it was like... mate, we've literally just met, give me a bit of space."

Cas couldn't say that she was entirely surprised, especially given his behavior yesterday. Brad seemed like he was the kind of person who felt he was entitled to whatever he wanted. Attention, affection, you name it.

Still, she wanted to be careful how she worded this. She didn't want to upset Ada if she could avoid it.

"Do you feel like he was, like... trying something?"

"No, it didn't feel like that," Ada said. Her gaze drifted off over Cas's left shoulder, looking toward the bed that she and Brad had vacated half an hour before. "More like he doesn't have proper respect for boundaries. Like he expected that, just because we're sharing a bed, I was going to be all right with him trying to put his arms around me."

"No, yeah, in no way are those two things the same," Cas said. "Did he ask?"

Ada shook her head. "When I brushed him off and shifted away, he seemed to take it fine. He didn't try it again."

"But you felt like he was there the whole night."

"Yeah." Ada chewed on the inside of her lip, her gaze locked on the garden door. She didn't make eye contact with Cas for a long moment, but when she did, she plastered on a smile.

"I don't know, maybe it's fine. He was telling me about how much he liked me already and all that, like, how he feels like we have this great connection, so." She shrugged.

"Yeah, but this early? Like, less than one day in?"

Cas should probably try to keep the skepticism out of her voice, but honestly.

Ada leaned forward and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "That's what I was thinking, like... Is it weird that he's acting like this already or am I just in my head? Because, like, Sienna and Jayden seem into each other and even Charlie and Lexi—"

"Yeah, but that's clearly mutual attraction," Cas said. "Are you even into him?"

She definitely didn't seem like she was—or, if she had been, she'd gotten the ick at lightning speed—but it was probably best to keep that thought in her own head.

Ada's cheeks reddened slightly. "No, I'm— I could like him, maybe."

"So, you're not into him," Cas said flatly.

"I could be," Ada said. "If I gave it time."

"Do you want to have to force it, though?" She wanted to say, Do you really want to "give it time" with someone like Brad? but that felt a touch too aggressive.

"I don't feel like it's forcing it. More like giving it time to blossom."

It took everything Cas had not to roll her eyes.

"I don't know, maybe I'm just overreacting," Ada said before Cas could reply. "Like maybe he's just being weird because he's getting used to being here and I'm too in my head about things."

No way was that true.

Cas nodded. "Yeah, maybe."

Ada was quiet for a beat before she flashed Cas another forced smile and popped up off the end of the bed.

"I'm going to go back outside. Come with?"

Ada held out her hand. And Cas was torn.

She could say something, keep them talking about Brad, keep them inside and away from everyone else. It was easy to convince herself that she just wanted some more time away from the action, away from the conversation, but Ada was clearly ready to move on, to stop talking about this, and Cas didn't want to force Ada into a discussion she plainly didn't want.

But Cas also didn't want Ada leaving this conversation thinking that anything about Brad was going to change. He could surprise them, sure, but he probably wasn't going to.

Ada wiggled her fingers, inviting, and Cas sighed.

"Yeah, all right. But I'm not going to like it."

Cas took her hand and let Ada drag her to her feet, groaning theatrically about how cold the air-con was all the way.

Once they were outside, Ada lifted her hand to cover her own eyes. "Do you want to grab a seat under one of the umbrellas?"

Cas nodded, and after waving at the crowd in the kitchen, they started walking down to the pool deck.

They dropped all their things onto the chairs, and the moment they sat down, Ada started slathering a thick coat of sun cream over her legs.

"Can you get my back?" Ada held out the bottle, already pulling her hair over her right shoulder.

Cas stared at the bottle for a long moment, her eyes trained on but not really reading the label. She waited for a beat longer than was normal before she reached out to take the bottle.

This wasn't actually that deep. She'd put sun cream on people before. Loads of people.

"You're probably burning already, so." Her voice was thick. God. "Sure."

Ada's laugh was loud, louder than Cas expected for her terrible joke. "My best friends said the same thing to me before I left. And they're running my social media now, so I'm sure they have, like, a daily Ada Burn Watch they're posting about."

Cas snorted, grateful for the distraction she could latch on to. "Oh god. Mine are running my social media, too. Don't give them any ideas."

As happy as it made her to think about them, mentioning her friends made Cas feel strangely... sad.

She hadn't been away from Aisha and Skye in this long in, god, years. She'd known the deal coming into the villa, but now that she was actually here, the idea that she wasn't going to be able to talk to them for two whole months made her feel a little sick.

Who knew she was such a melt?

Ada turned her head a little so she was slightly facing Cas. "I'd love to meet them when we leave."

Cas squirted more sun cream onto her fingertips and, very gingerly, lifted the middle strap of Ada's bikini top. "Are you from London, too, then?"

"Brighton originally. But I moved up for university, and once I got to London I just... never wanted to go back."

Cas hummed softly. "Do you think you ever will?"

"Probably one day," Ada said. "I loved walking along the beach every morning, going for long kayaks on the water." She was quiet for a second, and Cas felt the weight of Ada's thoughts between them. All the ideas Ada had for a future that would someday come to pass. "I don't know when I'll be ready to move back, so I'm just enjoying London for now."

Cas nodded and put a final bit of sun cream on her hands. She shifted away, just far enough that she had a clear view of Ada's lower back.

"The idea that you love the place where you grew up is so bizarre to me," Cas said quietly. She was usually much more guarded about her home life—and a little voice in the back of her mind reminded her she shouldn't trust anyone a hundred percent in this game, but there was something about Ada that just seemed honest. Plus, moments of vulnerability never hurt with the viewers.

"Where did you grow up?"

"Surrey." It tasted bitter in Cas's mouth. "In some tiny village you've hopefully never heard of."

"Why ‘hopefully'?"

"It's, like, two shops and a bunch of posh arseholes."

"That explains your accent, then," Ada said, laughing.

Cas would've snapped at anyone else, but then Ada looked at Cas over her shoulder, her lips turned up in a cheeky smile, and, well...

"It also explains why I have a horrible name like Cassandra." She emphasized the vowels extra hard, and Ada laughed again, her shoulders shaking.

"Why do you hate it so much?"

Cas was quiet for a long moment, just watching as the last of the sun cream disappeared into Ada's skin. She capped the bottle, handed it over Ada's shoulder, and then leaned back against the seat of Ada's chair to indicate that she was still mulling over Ada's question. A big part of her wanted to ignore this question, shrug it off, say it was too long or too formal or some other vague approximation of the truth, but then Ada turned slowly, her eyes trailing along Cas's legs before flicking up abruptly and meeting her eyes.

"I think I just never felt like it fit me," Cas said finally. The words felt like they were tripping thoughtlessly from her lips, but Ada's little hum of understanding made it worth it. "I felt like my parents gave it to me because they imagined that I was someone I was never going to be."

Ada shifted closer, close enough that their legs touched, Ada's knee to the outside of Cas's thigh. The whole of Cas's attention felt like it zeroed in on that one spot where she and Ada were connected.

"That makes sense."

Cas breathed something like a laugh. Which was ridiculous, she shouldn't be feeling whatever was going on in her chest about something that didn't even matter anyway. But Ada was just... she had affirmed Cas so easily. So simply. No questions, no need to discuss it, just this was Cas's story and Ada was nodding along, accepting it.

Cas shrugged and slid her gaze to the gym where Lexi was throwing weights around with the boys. They kept shouting, shocked, because she was lifting heavy and somehow managing it without her tiny arms falling off. And that reminder of where they were, of the microphone around her neck and the cameras in the shrubs, was like a jolt to the system.

Cas leaned down and grabbed her water bottle from the ground, taking a drink to avoid saying anything more. Ada took her cue and grabbed her own water and took a hearty drink, seemingly nonplussed at Cas's evasion.

At that moment, someone screamed—screamed—from the gym. Lexi was shaking her phone in the air, weights long forgotten.

"I've got a text! Guys, I've got a text!"

Lexi jumped up onto the bench press and read the message at the top of her voice.

"?‘Lovers! It's time for your first challenge!'?" Lexi's words were almost impossible to understand, she was so giddy. "?‘Get ready to break the ice! #ColdFoamWarmHearts #SlidingIntoFeelings!'?"