I knew we were going to spend the night here, but I kind of refused to tell Alana because I feared she wouldn’t have come had I told her.
I opened my closet, looking for my swimming trunks. While it was fairly late, I still wanted to use the jacuzzi, and it wasn’t like my parents cared much about it.
That time when I was sixteen, and I asked Mom if I could use it at eleven at night, she said: “We didn’t buy it for nothing.” That was the whole conversation. Ever since then, I didn’t dare ask again.
“What do you meantomorrow?”
I sighed, reaching for a blue pair of swimming trunks. I had a few, but my blue ones were definitely my favorite. “We’ll stay the night.”
“When were you going to tell me?”
“I just did.” I turned around only to find Alana standing right in front of me. She held her hands on her hips, looking up at me with a very cute but furious frown. “Hi there.”
“You could’ve told me earlier.” She didn’t sound mad, if I was being honest.
“Would you have come if I told you?”
Alana hesitated, but nodded eventually. “It’s part of our deal, isn’t it?”
I drew in a deep breath, trying not to let her words sting. Of course she only came because we agreed to it weeks ago. “I guess.”
“What am I supposed to sleep in? It’s not going to be this dress.” She looked down at herself, tugging on the material of her dress as if it was suddenly way too tight. It really wasn’t.
“You can have my clothes.”
Alana cocked her head at me. “They’re too small on me.”
Not this topic again. For the life of me, I couldn’t continue listening to the most perfect person on this planet talk about how she was anything but perfect. “We’ll see about that.”
I began to make my way over to my bathroom but only took a step or two before I turned around and looked at Alana again. If I was getting ready for the jacuzzi, she had no business standing around and not getting ready as well.
Wait. I had yet to tell her thatshewas going to come with me.
Oh, she wasn’t going to like that.
And she’d hate it even more when I showed her the bathing suit Nova got her. Let’s not even begin talking about the price of that thing because, according to my credit card, Nova either bought half of the store for herself or Alana’s new bathing suit cost me a pretty penny.
Well, to be fair, Nova also bought something for Alana to wear to classes tomorrow. Still, it wasa lotof money.
Then again, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Nova didn’t buy cheap things.
“You should get changed,” I told Alana and nodded toward the plastic bag on my nightstand. “Don’t worry, though, it has a skirt.”
It wasn’t much, but at least it was fabric—more than Nova would’ve bothered with. If my sister had her way, Alana would’ve been handed two strategically placed strings and a prayer. And the skirt wasn’t even really a skirt. Just one of those scraps you wrap around your hips and hope for the best.
“Get changed?” The words came out small. She moved toward the bag like it might bite, her hands shaking as she reached for it.
The second she pulled out the first piece, her eyes flew wide open as they landed on the top.
“Eden, that’s…” she trailed off, reaching her hand back inside the bag to pull out the bottoms. “Oh, God.”
Alana stared at the skimpy bikini in her hands, her cheeks flushing a bright red. She glanced up at me with wide eyes, her lips slightly parted.
“Like I said, there should be a skirt type of thing in there as well.”
She hesitated, looking from the bikini in her hands to me and back. “I-I don’t… I can’t wear this.”
The corners of my lips pulled up into a grin. I knew she was going to say something like that, so I was prepared to argue. “You’ll look great in it.”
