Chapter 150

When Wanda and I left the cabin together she finished off her outfit with a ballcap backwards on her head, grinning and biting her lower lip as I rolled my eyes a little and smiled. We went out and found the sheet was gone and Cassidy, Terra and Cattie were all sitting in the living room with the back sliding door open to let in a breeze and the sounds of the water.

“Come, Tiger,” Cassidy grinned as she shifted, making space for me between her and Cattie. I noticed Terra smile and squeeze Cassidy’s hand before sliding from the couch to go sit in one of the chairs while Wanda took the other.

“This looks like a comfy circle,” I said, taking the seat that was offered to me. “And a very pretty one, too.”

All four of the girls rolled their eyes at the compliment but also smiled a little.

“We’re just chatting, Tiger,” Cassidy said, patting my thigh and leaving her hand there. The conversation picked back up, the girls letting Wanda and I in on their weird Con and other work stories. After we got caught up, Cattie shifted in her seat and lifted her feet up into my lap with a hopeful expression on her face that was all puppy dog ‘please?’

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes playfully as I took her feet in my hands and started to massage them, leaning down and kissing her knee softly and making her smile big and broad.

We talked for a good fifteen minutes like that, the girls falling into casual playful bickering and teasing at times, then commiserating over the weird interactions they ran into. No one challenged Cattie for a right to the next foot, or whatever, massage and so I didn’t stop slowly working my fingers and thumbs around the soles of her feet and toes.

The sound of a door down by the cabins had us glancing over to the hall where Heather was walking towards us, and Cattie shifted her feet from my lap and swivelled to sit upright, but I had to pause in my head to wonder if she’d also shifted a little closer to me.

Heather, for her part, stifled her frown to a small look when she saw Cattie sitting with Cass and I as she stood just outside the circle. “Sherry is grabbing a nap,” she said. “I was thinking we should go sunbathe, baby.”

“Oh, I’m good here,” Cattie said. “You go relax.”

The rest of us didn’t move. Didn’t say anything.

Cattie just dismissed Heather. The tension was light but felt like it could build rapidly.

“I was kinda thinking we could go together,” Heather said. The look on her face was odd, almost like she was surprised more than anything.

“Actually, why don’t we all go up?” Wanda said, trying to play peacemaker. Terra agreed, and Cattie relented. Cassidy, I noted quietly, didn’t say anything, and I knew it was because she wasn’t about to make anything easier for Heather.

Soon we were all up on deck, and I left the girls to get themselves sorted out as I went and offered to take back over from JC. He accepted readily and went down to change into his swimsuit saying he wanted to try and get a bit more of a tan. He was already looking pretty dark after his days out on the water, so I wasn’t sure what his goal was. Maybe he just wanted to oil up his muscular body to try and seduce Terra out of her being annoyed at him.