"Help me out here, Alina."
"I'm sorry, you know how much I love you," she said. "But Kristen is right. It looks awful. Whatever possessed you to buy that?"
"I wear it to the gym all the time to swim laps."
"We're not swimming laps. We're lounging around, tanning, and flirting with strangers," Kristen said with a smile.
"Maybe you are. I brought SPF 50 sunscreen so I don't end up with skin cancer. And I'm certainly not flirting with anyone. They might see my bracelets."
"I bet there's a gift shop here that sells swimsuits," Layla said. She grabbed the pamphlet off the dresser and skimmed through it. "There's one near the Jaguar's Den. Let's go check it out and see."
"Perfect. Shopping then to the pool." Kristen linked her arm in mine and pulled me out of the room.
"Can we at least stop by the front desk first? I need to ask Javier a question." The four of us stepped onto the elevator.
"Sure. Maybe he can point us in the direction of their sexiest bathing suits."
I rolled my eyes. Getting a bikini wasn't going to help hide my bracelets at all. My best shot was blending in. But I was almost certain it wouldn't come to that. Wearing four bracelets had to violate the game's policy. Javier would let me take them off.
The elevator doors opened and I walked over to the front desk. Javier was standing just where he had been the night before.
"Good morning, ladies," he said. "Did you have a good first night?"
"Excellent," Alina said. She gave me a sympathetic smile.
"Javier, I was wondering if there was a way to remove these bracelets." I held out my wrist.
He smiled. "You seem to be enjoying the game very much."
"No. Not really. My friends pulled a prank on me. And I know that it's just a silly game, but I'm sure wearing four bracelets breaks the rules."
"The rules actually don't specify if an individual is willing to wear her friends' bracelets."
"But these were put on me by accident last night..."
"Once the bracelets are put on, they can only be removed by completing the actions on a gentleman's card."
"I know that's what you say." My friends had wandered over to the activity board. I leaned forward slightly and lowered my voice. "But between you and me, there's another way, right? Like a master key kind of thing? Maybe you could help me out?"
"I'm sorry, ma'am, the only way to remove the bracelet is to swipe a card against it."
"Could you maybe just swipe some of the cards back there against these ones then?"
Javier got a serious look on his face. "I'm an employee of this establishment. I'm not allowed to partake in the game."
"I don't mean play the game. I just mean swipe the cards against my bracelets. I'm not going to do anything on the cards. Or maybe I can just get the extra three removed? Maybe there's someone I can talk to about the rules of the game?"
"Stop harassing Javier," Kristen said. "We were wondering where to find the sexiest bikinis for sale."
"Of course." Javier seemed excited to talk to someone else.
I tuned him out and peered over the counter. I could see the stack of cards sitting right there. If I could just grab one...
"Great," Kristen said. "This way, Daphne." She grabbed my arm. "We just signed up for a ton of awesome activities."
I had forgotten all about the activities. Now I was stuck with four bracelets and I didn't have a say in anything we did all week. I wanted to be able to let all this go and have fun, but right now all I wanted to do was go home. Especially when we stopped outside a store that had the sluttiest bikinis possible displayed in the window. Apparently bachelorette parties were not my thing.
"Oh my God," Alina said.
"What?" I turned to look at her. I assumed she was going to talk about the slutty bikinis, but she was staring down the empty hall.
"I swear I just saw..." her voice trailed off. "Never mind."
"No, who do you think you saw?" I asked. This distraction was just what I needed to get out of purchasing two pieces of fabric that had no business being called a bathing suit.
Alina laughed. "That guy that just turned the corner down there looked just like Professor Hunter."
"Stop making fun of me," Kristen said and lightly shoved her shoulder.
"No, I swear, I just saw a guy that could have been his twin."
"Ha. Ha. You're just trying to get me to run down the hallway and act like a crazy person."
Alina shrugged. "I'm not saying it was him. It just looked like him. I probably just imagined it."
"Let's follow him," I said, hoping to take advantage of the distraction. "I can't believe he's here too! What a strange coincidence. It must be fate, Kristen!"
Kristen laughed. "Nice try. You're not getting out of buying an age appropriate bathing suit. That way missy," she said and pushed me into the store.
Chapter 7
Daphne
I stared in horror at my reflection in the mirror. Despite what my friends said, it seemed like the bikini was too small. It screamed "look at me" with its neon colors, skimpy material, and push-up cups. And I couldn't look at my backside in the mirror. It was dangerously close to a thong and the idea of wearing it in public made me cringe. But I didn't seem to have a choice in the matter. So now I could focus on covering up either the slutty bikini my friends had forced me to buy or the demon bracelets on my wrist. Screw it. I pulled the towel off my body and draped it over my arm. This way I could cover the bracelets and hold the towel in front of me while I walked. Besides, I'd rather have people ogle me than be able to do God knows what to me.
I grabbed the bag that now had my super sensible one-piece in it, and exited the changing room.
"You're such a hottie," Kristen said. "Why do you always insist on dressing like a forty year old virgin?"
Layla tried to hide her laugh by coughing.
"I just want to make sure that people like me for me. And I work with kids."
"You don't work with kids," Kristen said. "You work with 18 year olds that are super eager to please."
"Don't be gross." I tried to picture some of the boys in my classes, some of the ones that I was friends with on Facebook. The first thing I was going to do once I got home was delete my Facebook account.
"I'm with Momma Bear on this one," Alina said and linked her arm in mine. "Mixing work with pleasure is never a good thing." We all walked out of the store in search of the closest pool.
"I'm pretty sure mixing work with pleasure is what got us both in so much trouble," Layla said with a wink.
Alina laughed. "Fine, sometimes it's a good thing. But it doesn't work so well with guys that are barely legal."
"I'm just saying that some of the guys on Daphne's football team have abs of steel," Kristen said. "Don't pretend like you've never noticed."
I shrugged. I had noticed. But just in a way that compared guys in high school today with guys in high school when I was younger. It just made me think about how much bigger 18 year olds seemed today than back then. There must have been something in the water in New York. Or maybe steroids? Why am I thinking about this?