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If only she knew where all of this fun was heading. She might be even more excited.
Chapter 18
Despitethesun’sbestefforts, Paige did not immediately awaken as soon as it was high enough to shine past the nearby mountains, through the opened window, and right into her face. It wasn’t until her skin heated up so hot that she was forced to turn over and acknowledge that her wife was no longer right next to her.
They had gone to bed after spending the rest of the evening on the front porch overlooking the lake. Herbal tea that had been graciously left by the cabin owner was the perfect “drag me down” after an intense dinner and board game that had amounted to nothing.I don’t even remember who won. Must have been Rhea.Paige assumed her wife was now either in the kitchen or in the shower. Or maybe she was taking a late morning walk around the property without Paige, who had mentioned going for a light hike if Rhea was up for it.She didn’t go without me, did she?
Paige rubbed the back of her neck as she sat up and stretched. The humble cabin bedroom was heating up enough that she was driven out of the bed and into the attached bathroom, where she faced the uncomfortable truth that she might be alone in the house.
“Rhea?” Paige crept through the silent house out in the middle of nowhere. If she were the type with an overactive true crime imagination, she might automatically assume that her wife had been kidnapped by a crazy neighbor or had abandoned her here in a cruel jest. Yet the car was still in the front driveway, and there were no signs of a struggle anywhere in the cabin. Including the kitchen and dining area, where Paige finally found a note.
I stepped out for a short while. Breakfast is on the table.
Sure enough, Rhea had set out a bowl of cereal and a cut grapefruit, both protected by saran wrap in case Paige slept in later than anyone anticipated. She absentmindedly threaded her fingers through her tangled hair as she grabbed some milk from the fridge and fired up the coffee maker. A dirty cup was already in the sink.
“Where the hell did you go?” Paige sat down to her breakfast. “Whatever.”
She scrolled through her emails as cereal crunched between her teeth and the grapefruit taunted her tongue with the promise of more acidity. It wasn’t how she would have prepared one of her breakfast staples, but she didn’t fault Rhea for being thoughtful enough to dosomething. It wasn’t until Paige picked up the empty cereal bowl that she realized there was another note beneath it.
Now that you’re done with breakfast, you’ll find a surprise in the shower.
All right, this was getting weird. Fun weird, but weird, nonetheless.
“As it so happens…” Paige left her dirty dishes in the sink to wash later. “I was about to take a shower.” Those night sweats and the heat from the morning sunlight were exactly the kind of things to make her rinse off before officially starting her day.
She didn’t know what to expect as she took off her clothes in the bedroom and stepped into the shower, where she and Rhea had left their preferred hygiene products the night before. Yet instead of her favorite body wash, there was a red bottle she didn’t recognize calledTurn the Page.
Cute. More than once she and Rhea had seen this in the store and joked that it was perfect for Paige, whose name happened to be pronounced the same way. Had Rhea bought this in advance to give to her wife on their weekend getaway?
How far had Rhea planned things, anyway?
The unfamiliar body wash smelled of hibiscus and rose. Paige’s skin certainly didn’t disagree with it, but she wondered where her usual soap had gone. Rhea wasn’t the type to frivolously throw things away. Then again, she also wasn’t the usual type to do things likethis.
After washing and toweling off, Paige unzipped her overnight bag and discovered another note on top of her things.
All you need to wear is in the plastic bag.
How strange! Paige didn’t recall packing a plastic bag into her suitcase.How crazy is this going to get? My wife is picking out my outfits for me.
Paige had never seen the clothes in the white plastic bag before. The baggy linen overshirt was either straight from the swim section of a department store or from the men’s section of their favorite thrift place.Knowing Rhea, it’s either one.Rhea knew how to shop the men’s sections to find the perfect thing to fit her womanly body. Rhea had picked out her style in her late teens and had stuck with it ‘til the present day. She was the stereotype of a woman whose closet was half the size of her wife’s.I don’t even dress overly feminine.Paige’s sin came from needing so much athletic wear, especially back when she thought she would become the next big fitness guru on YouTube.All of the advice websites said I couldn’t wear the same outfits too close together.Which is how Paige Powell ended up with an entire dresser dedicated to her yoga pants, sports bras, and athletic shirts.
Don’t get me started on how many tennis shoes I own.
This, though? The clothes in the plastic bag? A bit different from what she normally wore, either at the gym or in her personal time. She couldn’t remember the last time she wore so much white.Whiter than a plastic bag, that’s for sure.Paige waited until her freshly washed body was dryer before putting on the bra with padded cups and the drawstring linen shorts that werewaymore comfortable than they had any right to be. They were going straight into Paige’s rotation of comfortable loungewear as soon as they were back in Santa Monica.
The last piece was a large white overshirt that wasalmostlinen enough to be from the same set as the shorts. But Paige instantly realized that the brand tag said something different, and the white wasn’t quite the same shade. Even so, once she pulled it on over her shoulders and shook her hair out over the back, she looked sporty enough to be the athletic influencer she always knew she could be.Eat your heart out, Ingrid.She referred to one of her old coworkers, who had done exactly what Paige had during lockdown and chose to keep pursuing YouTube and Patreon instead of going back to the gym. For the first time since last checking Ingrid’s profile, Paige felt like the hotter of the two.
Maybe that was because this was allRhea’splan. Wherever she was.
Paige poured herself another cup of coffee and gazed out the kitchen window. There was no view of the lake from this side of the house: instead, she caught the sweeping sights of the mountains in the distance. The empty fields between the property and where the Sierra Nevadas began painted an isolated picture. The exact kind of thing Paige hadn’t realized she needed.
Which only begged the same question again… where the hell was Rhea?
Paige took her admiration of the great outdoors to the front porch, where she sat in a wooden chair allowing the perfect view of the lake only a few yards away. The tranquil breeze tickled her bare stomach, but it was already so warm at that late in the morning that she didn’t think twice about sitting there in a ridiculous outfit picked out for her by her wife.
There she is.Coming into view from right along the lake was Rhea, her shorts and T-shirt somehow more revealing than what she normally wore. Paige certainly didn’t mind. Her wife had a nice figure, no matter how much Rhea tried to compare herself to the woman she married – a professional fitness instructor, no less. Yet the curves Rhea had only enhanced the way she walked and took in the world around her. The way she shielded her eyes even with sunglasses on her face was too cool for a jaded woman like Paige to bear.
They briefly made eye contact, but Rhea did not immediately approach the porch.
