Over It (The Kiss Off #2) (6 page)

"Then I'd have like,
no
fun."

"Bye, smart ass."

We ended the call and I was happy to see a missed call and two texts waiting in my inbox. One was from my phone, telling me I had a missed call. I don't get why they have that special notification
and
text you about it too. The other text was from Ty.

Yes! You're here! :) We're at the hotel. Get here. Now.

I giggled and smiled at the sky. I'd missed him. I'd missed him a lot. Who cared about the tents and getting ourselves settled? New plan: go and find my boyfriend and kiss his freaking face off.

I skipped all the way back down Row A.

As I skipped excitedly back to our site, ready to jump in the car and head for the hotel this minute, I stopped mid–skip. One tent was already up and the other just about to be. A couple of girls our age were erecting poles and hammering in pegs. Hamish was nowhere to be seen.

Who…what…? As I walked toward them, I spotted something on the side of the path, stuck in the grass. Was that a twenty dollar note? Score!

I glanced around, hurried over and bent down to pick it up but suddenly it fluttered away a foot, on the breeze. I hurried after it, bent down again and just as my fingers grazed the edges of the note it blew away again.

“Come back here you little…” I muttered as I scurried after it, eye on the prize.

Before I could reach down again, a sneakered foot slammed down on top of the note. I looked up the bare leg to find a girl my age in green mini shorts. She crouched down, picked up the note and wrenched at it, like she was pulling it off something.

Wait…there
was
something. It was clear, I hadn’t even noticed it. Was that a fishing line?

There was a groan from a tent nearby and she turned a withering look in its direction. I followed her gaze to find, huddled in the doorway of a two–man tent, three boys, one of them reaching forward to retrieve a fishing rod which had clearly just been yanked from his grasp.

My eyes widened with alarm and I self–consciously pulled my shorts lower, covering my legs and placing my hands on my ass. I hadn’t noticed there being a breeze so it was weird the money had moved like that. Turned out there was a good reason.

“Get a good look, did you?” the girl asked, scowling at them again. She made a show of placing the twenty dollars in her bra for safe keeping.

Guess it was hers now.

The three boys alternated between giggling and looking alarmed at getting busted being giant pervs. Creative ones, but huge, giant pervs. The boy at the front grabbed the fishing rod and pulled it inside the tent before zipping it up completely. There was silence for a moment before they all started laughing.

I closed my eyes in embarrassment.

“They caught me out an hour ago,” the girl said. That made me feel a little better. She pushed her thick mass of light brown hair over one shoulder. “I’m surprised they tried it
again
.”

“Well it worked again, didn’t it?” I said.

“At least they’re not cheap,” she said with a smirk. My gaze automatically flicked to her tits and my money. I mean, her money. I wondered if she’d gotten to keep the last note as well and was actually doing alright out of their butt fetish, but decided not to ask. She played with the fishing hook between her fingers.

“Hey A,” she called out, “you won’t believe it, those little creeps did the fishing line thing again.” She started walking toward my tent so I fell into step with her. A head popped up from behind one of our (somehow) already erected tents. Someone unfamiliar, a tall, slim girl with straight, creamy blonde hair.

She made a disgusted face and said, “Eeeeeew.”

Mads handed her some tent pegs before she disappeared again.

What was going on here? Who were these people?

"I said set up the tents, I didn't expect you'd actually be able to
do
it," I said, stopping beside Nikki as she and two other girls hammered pegs into the ground.  I looked around. “Where’s Hamish?”

“Went to look for his frat brothers,” Mads said.

“Frat boys?” The girl in the green shorts asked, exchanging a devious smile with one of her friends. “I hope they’re coming back.”

I hoped they weren’t. Actually, no. I hoped Hamish came back. He had the car keys. I hoped he came back really soon, or else I’d have to go looking for him and drag him back to the car.

“Nice of him to help,” I said. Not that I was helping, either. Not that I’d really been given the chance to. How long had I been on the phone?

The blond girl got to her feet with a satisfied smile. She wiped her hands on her khaki shorts. "Done," she said. She noticed me and I stepped forward to say hello.

"Are you sure we don't need this?" Mads asked, frowning as she held up a stray tent peg.

The blond girl shook her head. "That's just a spare, I promise."

"Perfect," Nikki beamed. "Home sweet home."

"While you were gone, Poppy,” Nikki said, gesturing around at the four girls, “we made some friends.”

We all introduced each other and just like that, it seemed, we had four new girlfriends: Astrid, Spencer, Kat and Gabby.

Gabby was reading something on her phone and it chimed a new text message. A smile crept onto her lips and she nudged Spencer, the brunette with my money, in the ribs. Her eyes lit up and she squeezed Kat’s shoulders with an excited squeal. The blond one, Astrid’s shoulders slumped.

I had no idea what was going on.

“We gotta go,” Gabby said, pulling at Kat who in turn pulled Spencer away from our camp site with an excited squeal. O–kay…

The only one who didn’t move was Astrid who, with a resigned sigh, watched them go.

She tucked her hair behind her ear and said with a shrug, “They met boys last night.”

It all made sense now.

"Sucks for you," I said.

"I know, right? We've been here all of twelve hours and they meet some boys and take off already," Astrid said, shaking her head. She was trying to hide her annoyance, but her face gave her away, the taut forehead and downward turn to her lips that she carefully pulled back up again into a nonchalant smile. "I'm not surprised," she said, "I'm just surprised it happened so fast."

"You can hang with us until they get back, no problem," Nikki said.

"Really?" Astrid asked with delight.

"Definitely," Nikki said. She looked at Mads pointedly and Mads nodded. Was this progress, or just more politeness among strangers? I couldn’t tell. Either way, Astrid's cheeks pinkened with pleasure.

A mosquito buzzed around my face and I slapped at it – I missed the mosquito, but I slapped myself in the face. Astrid flinched at my random face–slapping and tried not to laugh. That was embarrassing.

Hamish snorted.

I looked behind me and found him sauntering back to the camp site, alone. "Nice one, Douglas," he said. He reached down into one of the eco bags and tossed me a bottle of insect repellent. The first of many things I’d forgotten to bring myself, I’m sure. “Good, you’re back,” I said, screwing up my nose as I sniffed the bottle. That stuff was always so rank.

His eyebrows shot up above his sunglasses. “Are you talking to me?”

“Are your frat brothers here yet?” Mads asked.

Hamish’s jaw set, grim.

“Bunch of dicks,” he muttered, turning to look behind him again. A muscle in his jaw tensed. “They flaked. Went to Hawaii instead.”

“Seriously?” I held my breath and sprayed the repellent on my arms and neck. “All of them went? And they didn’t even tell you?”

He didn’t answer.

Wow, that was cold. No one said anything for a minute, not sure what we could say; Hamish oozed with humiliation.

“Their loss,” Nikki said.

“Yeah. They don’t know what they’re missing,” Mads agreed. She walked over to him and linked her arm with his with a big smile.

Nikki frowned.

“Whatever, I suppose you can stay,” I said.

“You only want me around for my wheels.”

I shrugged and he smiled at me gratefully.

Not looking, I sprayed the repellent toward my throat and noticed too late the movement beside me. Astrid was beside me and suddenly bent at the waist, coughing. I had just sprayed her in the mouth with insect repellent.

“Oh–my–God–I’m–so–sorry!”

“Jesus, Poppy!” Mads said as she stepped toward Astrid.

Astrid held a hand up to signify she was okay. Her eyes watered and she wheezed a couple of times before saying, “I’m fine.” She turned away and coughed a couple more times and wiped her mouth with the back of her arm.

I threw the repellent bottle back at the eco bag. I could not believe that had just happened. We stood looking at each other in increasingly awkward silence.

"I can’t believe-”

“I’m alright.”

“I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s fine, really. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have-”

“It was not your fault, it was
my
fault,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Astrid insisted, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I sprayed air freshener in my sister’s mouth one time, so this feels like karma.”

We were all quiet, looking around at each other, trying to overcome what had just happened. I didn’t know what to say; I was embarrassed. What was wrong with me? Were my ‘small talk with strangers’ conversation and ‘don’t humiliate yourself and others’ reserves running low?

“I swear, I’m usually better at life than this,” Astrid said.

I stared at her, not quite sure if the words had come out of her mouth or mine, and then I laughed. I couldn't help it. She had just gone to the top of my awesome acquaintances list. If I had a list like that, I mean. I understood her well.

There was a flurry of movement and suddenly the girls were back.

“Astrid, what the hell?” Spencer asked, waving for her to come and join them. “We got halfway down the dunes and were like, ‘where’s A? She was just here’.”

“Yeah, you coming?”

Astrid looked from them and back to us, like she felt guilty. Guilty she was going with her friends rather than staying with the peeps she had just met. It was kind of sweet, really.

I made the decision for her. “You know where to find us.”

“Thanks for your help.” Nikki smiled.

“See you around?” Mads said.

“Yeah, come around for Uno later. I brought my deck,” Hamish said. We all looked at him. He shrugged under our scrutiny. “What? You don’t like Uno?”

“I love Uno,” Mads said brightly.

“Me too,” Nikki added.

Blergh.

“Okay,” Astrid said as she backed away from us toward her friends. “See you later.”

The four of us stood there waving as she ran off to catch up with them.

“I like them,” I announced. “We should hang out with them.”

“Agreed.” Nikki nodded.

“I know, right?” Mads said.

“Yeah,” Hamish added. “They’re hot.”

“Who are you, really?” I said.

His lips curled up, though he tried not to smile. “What?”

“Hamish doesn’t talk like that.”

“Oh really?”

“Hamish does so talk that that,” he said.

I rolled my eyes.

He crossed his arms and cocked his head back. “Okay then, how does Hamish talk?”

“You know, like ‘those are some extraordinarily fetching young-”

“I would
never
have said that. Not even…” He stopped and glanced uncomfortably at Mads and Nikki. Seemed he wanted to keep his epic nerd–dom on the down low.

“…in high school,” he finished.

“Yeah you would have.”

“Do you two need a time out?” Mads asked, promptly ending our argument.

"So I just talked to Ty,” I said, changing the subject. “Can I have your keys? I'm going to the hotel."

“You
do
only want me for my car.” Hamish snorted. "Fat chance."

"What do you mean?” I said. “Give me the keys."

"Yeah, that’s not happening."

"I'm a good driver!"

"No way,” Hamish said. “You’re never driving Cheryl.
I’m
driving so suck it up. And we're coming too. I'm going to meet famous people."

"But..."

"Hop in, girls," Hamish said. Mads and Nikki scurried excitedly toward the car. It was settled.

Hamish was really starting to be a pain in my ass.

He hauled the cooler, pillows and sleeping bags into one of the tents, zipped it up and threaded a small combination lock through the zippers. I didn't know where that had come from, but it was a smart idea.

Nikki and Mads were already in the car. Hamish and I climbed in and he eased the car along the gravel path. I narrowed my eyes at the tent with the fishing rod. It was zipped up, but there were no shadows or movement inside. Guess they must have given up or moved the game elsewhere.

"So long, suckers," Hamish said as we turned out through the archway and waved to the gridlocked traffic we had been in only half an hour ago.

I bounced in my seat with excitement and even behind Hamish's sunglasses, I could tell he rolled his eyes. He could roll his eyes all he wanted – it was his fault he was even here.

“So where are we going?”

"The Burlington Grand in Grosvenor Point."

"Which is...?"

"Five miles out of the Bay,” I said, “I saw the turn off when we came in. I'll tell you when to turn."