Page 39 of Best Vacation Ever

“Where are you off to?” Kellan asks.

“We’re going to go win the chicken fight. Aren’t we, Darius?”

I put my hand on Darius’s muscled arm, pressing myself closer to him and fighting the urge to glance at Kellan.

“You know it.” Darius smiles confidently, dropping the hand that was holding mine to put his arm around me.

“Hey, why don’t you guys enter too?” I exclaim like the thought hasjustcrossed my mind. “It’ll be fun!”

My eyes find Kiara’s, as if issuing a challenge, and her brown eyes narrow.

Kellan starts, “Oh, I don’t kn—”

“Let’s do it,” Kiara interrupts, never taking her gaze from mine.Challenge accepted.

“Great!” I say, my tone light. “See you there.”

“May the best couple win,” Kiara shoots back cheerfully.

As soon as we turn around, I let the fake smile slip from my face like Darius’s arm.

“So, who was that girl?” Darius asks, glancing back as we walk toward the other end of the pool. “She’s hot.”

I glare at him, and he raises his hands, palms open, in an innocent gesture. “But, you know, you’re hotter.”

My eyebrows furrow. “Right.”

The pool is large and irregularly shaped, and we’re at the round end. There’s a worker with a mic standing on the side of the pool, announcing the chicken fight currently taking place.

The DJ is set up not too far from where we are, but it’s not much louder since the speakers are spread out over the pool area.

After telling the announcer that Darius and I want to participate, we watch as the two couples in the pool try to knock the top person off the bottom person’s shoulders and into the water.

“I’m going to grab another drink. Want one?” Darius offers, and I shake my head no.

Not even five seconds after he leaves, a dark presence appears beside me, and I stiffen.

“What are you doing?” Adam asks.

I glance at my brother, who’s scowling at me. “Having fun.

One of us might as well.”

“Have you seen Kellan?” He slurs a little, and I eye him.

“Are you drunk?” I don’t think I’veeverseen my brother drunk. He rarely drinks.

“No,” he says a bit too defensively.

Whatever. Scanning the pool, I find Kellan talking with Kiara, Alessio, and Priyasha, and point them out to Adam.

“How come Olivia didn’t come?” I ask Adam, referring to Alessio’s girlfriend of five years. Maybe he didn’t invite her because he didn’t want to see Jenna’s cousin while actively trying to forget about Jenna. But surely Alessio would want her here.

“What? It’s a guys’ trip.”

“Yeah, but then Ray and Freddy canceled. How come you didn’t invite Olivia in their place? You’ve known her longer than Alessio has. You guys went to elementary school together.”

He squints as if trying to focus. “What? Faye, you’re asking too many questions. Don’t do anything stupid.” And with that he leaves me, heading toward Kellan and Alessio.