“I’m going in,” Maddy suddenly announces.
I glance over at her. “Already?”
“I’m actually sweating my ass off.”
I huff a quiet laugh, because judging by the way she’s fanning her shirt away from her neck, I completely believe her. She drops her bag onto the sand and starts digging through it forher emergency bikini. She always carries one with her. Then she pauses.
“…Shit,” she mutters, glancing around the beach.
I raise an eyebrow. “What?”
She straightens slowly, looking back at me. “There’s literally nowhere to change.”
I glance around once myself, and she’s not wrong. The beach is packed. So I reach into my bag and pull out a towel. “I’ll hold this up.”
She stares at me. “What.”
“I’ll hold this up,” I repeat, already unfolding it.
Her eyes narrow. “You’re serious?”
“Completely,” I say. “I won’t look. Promise.”
There’s a brief pause as she looks around, hesitating. And I lean down a little, keeping my voice low, “Unless you want me to.”
Her eyes widen immediately and she just stares at me. “You’re impossible.”
I grin, can't helping it because seeing her looking so shocked is really amusing. “I’m joking.”
I lift the towel, holding one end up like a curtain, turning my head.
“No peeking,” she says—or commands more like.
“I wouldn’t dare.”
I hear her unzip her shorts by the rattling sound. “Not that there’s anything exciting to see anyway,” she mumbles to herself, but I still hear it.
I scuff a laugh, shaking my head while still looking towards the ocean.
“…What?”
“Come on Mads,” I add. “That’s not true. You know you look good.”
I almost hear her freezing, like I said something really weird.
“Oh, don't give me that look.”
“How do you know what look I’m giving if you are looking the other way?”
“Because I just know you are.”
She snorts softly and after a couple seconds she calls out: “Done.”
And I turn around and drop the towel. And—holy shit—my brain forgets how to function for a second. I should take back my words. Because she looks even better than good.
I mean, I’ve seen her in a bikini a thousand times, but for some reason, it just became a hundred degrees hotter here. Was that even possible? Her light-coloured bikini shapes her body, her hips, her waist—and there’s something about the contrast of her bare skin and her blonde hair falling over her shoulders that makes it impossible to look away.
She puts her shorts and T-shirt in her bag and comes back up, placing her hands on her hips.
