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“What exactly is this for?” Coco asked. “Why do you care about surfing and what you wear?”
Soph pulled her feet up under her. “Yeah, actually, I’m curious, too. I thought we were going to lounge by the pool today. Why are you going rogue on my bach party?”
The guilt nagged at me. This wasn’t me. I shouldn’t have been abandoning my sister, she was right, but I also made an impulsive decision to take a lesson with Lance and I really wanted to see it through. They had to know. So I pushed Coco over a bit to make room for myself and plopped down on the bed.
I took my sister’s hands in my own. “Soph,” I started, “I really want to do this. Please tell me it’s okay. I need to do this,” I pleaded, thinking to myself just how important it was suddenly for me to do this. It was like I needed to do this for myself, if for no other reason than to prove to myself that I could be like the girl I once was again.
Laughing, my sister pulled her hands back from mine. “Stop, of course, it’s fine. I like seeing you have fun. It’s okay. This trip is my party, technically, but I don’t mind. Look at Daphne, sneaking out to make out with a hunky stranger. She doesn’t care one iota, so why should you?”
“True.” These girls just played by a whole other set of rules than I did.
Soph resumed her speech, “But I do want to know what’s going on and you have to tell me.” She raised an eyebrow and waited.
Coco leaned around and put her chin on my shoulder, clearly getting very comfortable around me lately. “Yeah, dish.”
I looked over at Coco, then back to my sister and swallowed hard. How could I put it? “I had a somewhat of a fling with a guy when I was here last time. He’s the surf instructor.”
Bouncing up and down, Soph squealed. “Oh, my, why didn’t you tell me!”
“You little hussy,” Coco said, standing up and winking at me as though not to show Sophie that she knew before her about my fling. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Gemma. Good for you.” Then she shot a finger in the air. “Wait, this is the same twelve you ran into, right?”
I visibly cringed when my sister looked at us confused. So much for keeping the fact that she knew first between us. “Yeah. He was single then and still is now. We just ran into each other,” I explained.
“What?” my sister demanded, still bouncing, her excitement evident. “Never mind, not the point. I’m so proud of you. Coco’s right, good for you!”
Coco pointed an accusatory finger at me. “That’s why you want to take this lesson. That explains it.”
I inhaled deeply. “I just thought it might be fun,” I defended, “but I don’t know, maybe I’m losing it. This is all so wild.”
“What’s his name?”
“Yeah, tell us about him,” Coco inserted.
“Lance. He has a son. Tell me this isn’t totally random and reckless.”
“That’s the point,” Coco said, chuckling. “Life’s too short to live like a monk. Besides, he’s the one with the kid, not you, so he knows what he’s doing. You have to trust that.”
“But we’re not doing anything now. I don’t know why I’m even doing this.”
Sophie raised an eyebrow and came to stand directly in front of me so we were face to face. “You’re doing this because you deserve it and because for whatever reason this guy means something to you, otherwise we wouldn’t be standing here watching you obsess over bathing suits. Gemma, this means something and I insist you do it. You cannot back out now. It’d be like criminal and I’m the bride-to-be, I call the shots, remember.” When she finished, she turned around and sat back down on the bed picking up her bag of pretzels again and crunching down on one.
Coco nodded. “She’s right. You worry too much.”
“I’m not as young as I used to be,” I mumbled, scanning myself in the bikini. “I don’t know,” I decided, shaking my head. “Maybe this is a bad idea. It’s been three years.” I was really starting to doubt whether or not I could be trusted to make any decisions where Lance Easton was concerned.
Soph practically jumped off the bed, coming over to me and grabbing my shoulders in my obvious time of need, leading me back into the bathroom. “Look,” she instructed as we both looked in the mirror at me. “You’re beautiful.”
“There’s something I haven’t told you,” I confessed, biting my lip and turning to her. “He’s younger than me.” Maybe now she’d see why I was so worried.
She didn’t look fazed.
“A decade younger than me,” I further confessed.
Her mouth fell open, but then she closed it shut.
“I knew this was a bad idea,” I insisted, trying to undo the top and get undressed. “Get out. I’m getting undressed. I’m not going.”
Sophie shook her head, adamant about this. “You’re going.”
