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“Why are you laughing, dad?” Josh asked incredulously of Jensen. “You just yelled at us for doing cannonballs!”
“Dylan!” Missy shouted. “Take it to the other side of the pool!”
“Sure, Mom! I’ll just splash the women Idon’tknow, instead. Right.” He laughed, flashing white teeth. A wry grin stayed put on his mouth as he pushed his overly long wet hair out of his eyes again.
I felt like I hadn’t laid eyes on him for a hundred years and was thankful once again for my dark sunglasses as my eyes drank him in. He spent the next hour throwing my young cousins around the pool and I couldn’t rip my eyes away.
After a few minutes, my dad and Jensen got out and joined us poolside.
My parents rented a large cabana and several lounge chairs where we gathered. A waiter came by and the two of them ordered several appetizers, soda, beer, and pizza to be served for lunch. Soon we all relaxed, spending a leisurely afternoon just lazing about the pool.
“This is so nice; all of us together like this,” Chase mentioned, sitting on the foot of my mother’s lounger. He handed her a drink and took a pull on an icy cold beer of his own, placing a possessive hand on her leg.
“The only thing that would be better would be if Aunt Kat and Uncle David were here as well… and Nana and Granddad,” I murmured. “And Grandma Jean, of course.”
“Let’s plan a family trip,” Daddy said. “I know you’ve missed a couple of our big vacations, princess. Where would you like to go?”
“Location isn’t important, it just has to work with everyone’s schedule,” I said with a smile. “That’s almost impossible.”
“Maybe we can plan a ski trip over Christmas this year. Or, what about Florida?”
The parents all moved to sit around one of the tables and served the pizza, calling the three younger kids in to eat. I decided to stay where I was. I closed my eyes and tried to soak up the sun and allow my wet bikini to dry. I heard a scraping sound to my left and opened my eyes, lifting my head at the same time. Dylan sat a big plate of pizza on the end of another lounger and used one hand to scoot it closer to mine. He took a seat, then handed me one of the beers he was holding in his free hand.
“How’d it go?” I couldn’t help but ask.
Dylan’s eyes were hidden by sunglasses as mine were. “A nightmare. Sorry it took me so long.”
“Sorry, I couldn’t save your breakfast.” I desperately wanted to hear how his morning went, but I didn’t want to pry.
Dylan offered the plate containing four large pieces of pepperoni pizza, but I shook my head. “Thank you, butIhad breakfast,” I smiled.
He laughed and took a few bites before speaking. “Ha ha. You should get out of the sun soon, Remi. You’ll burn.”
“Is that a nice way of saying I look like a ghost?”
Dylan stood up and moved the remnants of the pizza over to the trash. “No. You look good, but I’m just looking out for you. Besides, if you burn like a lobster, we won’t have any fun tonight, or tomorrow, for that matter.”
“What do you have planned?”
Dylan glanced around and then leaned closer. “I can’t say it too loud because then we’d have to take the kids.”
“Oooh,” I took a sip from the frozen margarita that the waiter had set on the small table next to me just seconds before. “That sounds intriguing.”
“It can be, providing I can get your buy-in.” Dylan’s eyebrows waggled suggestively.
“What is it?” I asked, a smile tugging at my mouth.
“Well, we haven’t seen each other in years, and I was thinking on the way over here that we should take a few days and head over to Dollywood. But no brothers, sisters, or cousins. Not this time.”
My eyebrows shot up and my lips spread into a full-blown grin. Dollywood was an amusement park outside of Knoxville that we loved as kids. “They will be so mad,” I observed.
Dylan leaned back on his chaise. “That’s why we can’t tell them.”
“So, what do we say then?”
“Nothing. Just that the big kids are going on a road trip, and they can’t come. What’s the big deal?” Dylan’s hair was drying in the sun and starting to curl at his nape as he took another bite of his pizza.
“They’ll still bug us about where we’re going. What should we tell them?”
