“Oh. Well, that’s fine. I assumed it was Cameron.”
“I was behaving.”
“Lunch is ready. Can you two please get changed and get inside?”
Lacey stood up, realizing their peaceful time together was over.
“Lacey, what happened?” Jessie asked her.
Lacey looked down and saw the thin, about six-inch-long scratch.
“Oh, nothing. The board scratched me, but it’s okay. It doesn’t even hurt.”
“You should put something on that. I have a first aid kit inside.”
“Ever the prepared,” Cameron said of Jessie and stood up.
“The saltwater helps, so I should be okay, but if it would make you feel better, I’ll put something on it.”
“It would,” Jessie replied. “Come on. It’s in the kitchen because I thought if anyone got injured here, that would be the most likely place.”
They walked up the sand, carrying their clothes, towels, and boogie boards until they got inside from the downstairs. Jessie waved the cameras off, and Cameron tucked the boards back into the closet where she’d found them in, forgotten and left behind by whoever had lived there before. Cameron tossed a towel over her shoulder, Lacey pulled one over both of hers, and they headed upstairs in slightly sandy bare feet.
“Ladies, lunch is ready,” Jessie said to River and Kennedy, who were in the kitchen, looking down at a small baking pan filled with something.
Jessie’s words had interrupted their laughter, and Lacey hadn’t heard her girlfriend laugh like that in the longest time. River looked up at them, and she didn’t smile. She more just looked annoyed that they’d been interrupted. Kennedy’s face looked the same to Lacey, but she didn’t know her as well, so she could have misread that.
“Lace, what the fuck?” River asked, pointing to Lacey’s stomach with a spatula. “Are you okay?”
Lacey looked down and replied, “Yes. It’s literally the world’s smallest scratch. I’m fine.”
“We’re just in here to get the first aid kit,” Cameron said as Jessie pulled it down from a cabinet and handed it to Cameron, not Lacey, which Lacey found interesting.
“Again, I’m good. I’m only doing this because Jessie requested it.”
“What happened?” Kennedy asked.
“Board scratched her a little,” Cameron replied. “We’re going to hop in the shower and be right out for lunch, okay?”
“Hop in the–” River didn’t finish her sentence.
Lacey knew why, but she didn’t want to correct where River’s mind had gone by saying that she and Cameron would be taking showers in their own bathrooms because that could draweven more attention to this awkward situation that they had found themselves in.
“We’ll be right back,” she said instead.
“Okay,” River replied.
“Cam, can you make sure your wet clothes don’t drip on the floor?” Kennedy asked.
“I’m basically dry already, but, yeah,” Cameron replied.
“I hate that,” River said to Kennedy. “When you hang them over something, and it just drips down.”
“Yes!” Kennedy laughed.
Lacey walked out of the kitchen, with Cameron behind her, but Jessie must have stayed in there because Lacey didn’t see her following them. When she got to her bedroom door, Lacey looked over at Cameron and gave her a straight-lined smile.
“Oh, sorry. Here.”
