chapter fourteen Sucked Into an Alternate Dimension
chapter fourteen
Sucked Into an Alternate Dimension
I’m more nervous about seeing Olsen again than I was on any of the dates Lex and I went on together. There’s something about
seeing Perfect Guy in the flesh after almost destroying his most prized appendage that has me debating calling the whole thing
off. The only reason I haven’t yet is because Lex has told me how excited Gabe is to see me again. He apparently doesn’t like
most people, so this is a big deal. I knew potty humour would get me in his good graces. If only adults were that easy.
When Olsen and Lex pick me up in their vehicle, I’m so sweaty from stress that I already need to change my shirt. Knowing
Lex, she probably packed a spare in her bag. Thankfully, Lex is sitting up front with Olsen and I get to be in the back with
Gabe.
“What is up, my good sir?” I ask Gabe in my posh accent, reaching across the seat to bump his knuckles. Gabe grins and graces
me with a reciprocal bump.
Unable to avoid it any longer, I look to the front and meet Olsen’s gaze in the rear-view mirror. He’s every bit as handsome as I remember: chiselled and bronzed and charismatic, and . . . oof. “Hi.” That’s it? Hi? Oh my god, please kill me now.
Lex twists in her seat and looks over her sunglasses at Gabe and me. “You two ready for some waterslides?”
I raise my hands in the air. “Woo! Let’s go!”
Olsen chuckles, smiling at me through the mirror, and shifts into gear to begin our journey. Lex gives her head a shake, twisting
back to face the front. Gabe claps his hands and chants, “Waterslides! Waterslides!” And I join in. So far, so good.
Gabe and I chat amicably in the back seat about his upcoming play, the various parts he’s struggling with memorizing, and
how excited he is about his costume makeup now that he’s had more time to practice. Once we’re on the highway the city disappears
behind us and the Fraser Valley opens, beckoning us forward with a slice of green pasture nestled between mountains on either
side. Before I know it, we’ve arrived at the cute little community of Cultus Lake and pull into a parking lot.
We grab our bags and head in, quick to find a spot on the grass where we set up our picnic area. Olsen strips off his shirt,
revealing rippling back muscles, six-pack abs, and arms that have no business belonging to a doctor. It’s not even fair.
Olsen glances up and catches me openly ogling him. I look away as fast as I can, but not quickly enough, and notice him smirk.
My face heats as I try to find something less enticing to look at, but stop in my tracks when I see Lex.
Lex is in a swimsuit, and I mean, goddamn.
Unlike her brother, Lex is soft and round, with strong, thick thighs, an envious bubble butt that most people would travel across the world to get a BBL for, and a soft tummy leading to small breasts pressed against her chest in a sports bra.
She wears grey board shorts that accentuate her black top, but somehow it’s more alluring than if she were in a bikini.
Lex runs her fingers through her short hair and pulls on a black cap, backward, before donning her sunglasses to complete the look.
Sweet baby Jesus.
Despite Lex and her brother having far different builds, I can honestly say I can’t tell who is more attractive.
“You ready?” Lex asks.
Oh, god, am I ever. I mean, what? Forcing my gaze away, I strip my loose tank top off and peel my shorts down, kicking them away, revealing a
pink bikini. “Yep!”
Lex regards me for a long moment, and I look down at myself to double-check that I am, in fact, wearing a bathing suit.
“What?” I ask. “Did I slip a nip?”
She clears her throat. “Nothing.”
Gabe points to the tallest slide. “That one first!”
I look up at the thing and nearly shit myself. “You know what? I think I’ll just watch . . .”
Gabe grabs my hand and tugs me along. “Come on! You promised you’d go watersliding with me.”
I eye the monstrosity. “I’m more of a . . . lazy river and ice cream kind of girl.”
“Please?” Gabe’s bottom lip sticks out so far that if my mother were here, she’d have told him a bird was going to poop on
it. Unfortunately, I have zero immunity to Gabe’s adorable pouting and immediately cave. Before I know it, I’m climbing billions
of stairs in the heat of summer to get to the top of a tower where I will load myself into a water cannon and, quite possibly,
die.
When we get to the top Olsen goes first so he can be at the bottom when Gabe gets off. I add “afraid of fuck-all” to Olsen’s
perfect qualities. Gabe goes next, only hesitating for a moment before climbing onto the slide, and safely makes his way to
the bottom. Damn, I’m really going to look like an asshole if I chicken out after him.
With Lex and me still at the top, plus a lifeguard and a group of complete strangers, she turns to me, takes my hands, and looks me square in the eyes. “The odds of getting hurt on a waterslide are roughly three in ten thousand.”
“Of course you’d know the odds, you adorable nerd,” I tease. But her data does make me feel a bit better.
Lex eyes me seriously. “That being said, you can turn around and go down the stairs if you don’t want to do it, okay? There
are lots of other slides and you have nothing to prove.”
“Next!” the lifeguard shouts, growing frustrated, evidently having called for Lex’s turn a few times.
With one final encouraging squeeze of my hands, Lex turns and enters the slide, disappearing from view with a blast of cold
water. I approach the banister carefully, eyeing the gut-wrenching drop, and watch as Lex makes it to the bottom, joining
two other blurry figures on the sidelines.
“Next!”
Ah, fuck. Okay. Here we go. I don’t want to let Gabe down, and I don’t want to have to go down all these stairs again—the water park equivalent of the
walk of shame. Ten seconds of bravery.
Heart in my throat and stomach in my ass, I climb into the slide, holding on to the metal bar like my life depends on it.
Knowing this curse and how much it likes to ruin my life, I’m sure I’ll become a statistic one way or another. Maybe it will
be my turn to end up in the hospital. I hold Lex’s data in the forefront of my brain, take a deep breath, and let go.
I place my arms across my chest and push myself down the slide.
My life flashes before my eyes as my body is engulfed in freezing cold water and adrenalin.
A scream belonging in a second-rate horror film is wrenched from my throat, and for a moment I sincerely believe my life is about to end.
Then, just as fast as it started, it’s over.
I’ve made it to the bottom. My limbs are intact. I did, in fact, not die.
“I did it!” I cry, standing with my fists raised above my head like Rocky after he climbed that flight of stairs. I flash
my brightest smile at the trio waiting at the bottom for me and—
Lex quickly covers Gabe’s eyes as Olsen’s mouth drops open. I look around the crowd, then down at myself. My smile isn’t the
only thing I’m flashing.
I slap my arms across my bare tits and turn in a circle, looking for my top. Where the fuck could it be?
After twirling Gabe around, Lex springs into action, wrapping an arm around me and leading me out of the bottom of the slide.
Olsen seems to snap out of his trance, too, and begins searching for my bikini top. Somehow it’s been sucked into an alternate
dimension, because despite our searching we simply cannot find the damn thing.
Lex leads me away from the crowd. “Don’t worry, they have a little shop here. I’m sure they sell swimsuits.”
While Olsen takes Gabe on more slides, Lex and I grab a towel and head to the store.
“These things are hideous.” I grimace, trying to decide between a canary yellow one-piece with far too many straps and a boxy-looking
green one.
“It’s impossible for you to look bad in anything,” Lex says, joining me on the other side of the rack.
I raise an eyebrow. “I think we’re about to put that to the test.”
“How about the yellow one?” she asks, nudging it toward me.
“Better than nothing.” I smirk. “Literally.”
Lex rolls her eyes and passes me the swimsuit before guiding me toward a change room stall, where I slide the flimsy vinyl
curtain closed and strip out of my bottoms.
“This thing is kind of tight,” I say, squeezing my butt into it.
“Do you want a bigger size?” she asks from outside the stall.
“Honey, you never need a bigger size,” I quote from one of my favourite movies.
Lex giggles from the other side of the curtain while I tug the suit up to my waist and try to finagle it over my chest, but
the straps are all crossed and confusing.
“Um . . . Lex?”
“Yeah?”
I grunt as I try to pull the thing up, but it won’t budge. “I think I’m stuck. For real.”
“Can you get it off? I can grab you something else.”
“I think it’s going to fit, but the straps are tangled.”
“Do you need help?”
I sigh. “If you don’t mind.”
There’s a long pause. Then, the curtain quickly opens and shuts as Lex steps into the tiny space with me. There’s barely room
for one person in here, let alone two, and Lex isn’t exactly a slim person—lucky her, with those delightful, plump curves.
“What do you need?” she asks, her eyes staying firmly affixed to mine.
“The straps,” I say, covering my boobs with one arm and pointing over my shoulder with the other.
“Turn around,” she commands.
I do as I’m told, my hips sliding across her front as I move in the cramped space, ending with my ass tucked against her belly.
When she doesn’t move or say anything I glance over my shoulder. “Everything okay?”
She sucks in a sharp breath. “Yep. It’s, um . . . I’m going to have to touch you.”
“Please do.”
Lex hesitates for another long moment, and just when I think she’s never going to help she reaches up and traces her fingertips along one of the straps, down my shoulder blade to the middle of my back. A shiver dances along my skin, and I tremble.
“You okay?” Lex asks, her voice low, a little hoarse.
I nod, swallowing. “Yeah. Just cold.”
But I’m not. It’s hot as hell in this cramped space meant to fit one body, with no air conditioning at all in the tiny store,
and the sun shining high in the sky outside in the middle of a July heat wave. But I don’t know what else to tell her, because
I seriously don’t understand my body right now. I don’t understand how the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as she
nimbly untangles the straps. I don’t understand how my muscles tighten and clench as she uses one hand against my waist to
ground me while the other plucks a knot free. I don’t understand why my skin tingles when her fingertips linger on my shoulders
after pulling the fabric into place.
And I especially don’t understand why I break the tension by turning around, slapping her on the shoulder, and saying, “Thanks,
partner.”
Lex blinks a few times, then shakes her head and steps out of the stall, closing the curtain behind me.
I lean against the cool metal wall and close my eyes. Thanks, partner? What the hell was that? Before I can make anything weirder, I take a few breaths and then step out of the change room, turning
in a slow circle so Lex can witness how terrible this swimsuit is.
“You look . . . Good.” Lex is rubbing her neck, which I know is her tell.
I run my hands over the material that accentuates my FUPA, while somehow simultaneously also making it look like I’m wearing
a waterlogged diaper. “I do not look good,” I state. It’s simply a fact. “But it will take the jaws of life to get me out
of it now. Nobody will care what I look like, except . . .” I trail off.
“Except, what?” Lex’s brows pinch together.
I sigh, looking down at myself. “It sort of sucks looking this ugly around Olsen. He really is so perfect.”
“Seriously? That’s what you’re worried about?”
I blush, shrugging. “Sort of?”
She shakes her head. “Nobody on this planet could ever see you topless and be disappointed by what they saw.”
I preen from her praise. “Really?”
“Yes, really. If anyone should feel self-conscious out there, it’s me.”
Lex turns to leave, but I grab her by the arm and turn her back toward me. “Hey, don’t say shit like that.” She eyes me, uncertain.
My grip on her arm softens, my thumb sliding up the inside of her wrist. “You are ridiculously stunning.”
“You really don’t have to—” She tries to turn away again, but I stop her.
“I’m serious! You are hot as shit. I’ve been checking you out all day.”
Her eyes brighten. “You have?”
“Hell yes. You’re a fucking eleven, babe.” Lex glows. I release her arm and give her ass a slap. “Now let’s go get some ice cream and make that lazy river our
bitch.”
Lex shakes her head as she laughs, my compliment and ass slap having done the trick to make her feel better, as they should.
I meant every word. Her ex-husband is an idiot for not realizing that and letting her go. Lex deserves someone who will worship
her day and night, to prove to her how beautiful she is over, and over, and over again.
After paying for the suit, I take Lex’s arm and we walk back out into the sunshine to enjoy the rest of our afternoon.
Well, for the most part. Despite me not being on a date at all, the curse isn’t taking any chances of Olsen catching feelings for me, finding new and creative ways to make my life hell—like when I dropped my ice cream onto my lap, or when I came out of the bathroom with toilet paper clinging to the bottom of my foot, or when Lex made me laugh and I choked on a hunk of corn dog, only to cough it up and launch it across the picnic blanket to snipe her right in the middle of her forehead.
Thankfully, Lex is one step behind me to mitigate every crisis, prepared with wet wipes, hand sanitizer, and a shared laugh ready at every turn.
When Olsen and Gabe have tackled every slide five times, and Lex and I have meandered between the lazy river and the snack
shack more times than I’m willing to admit, we call it a day. My skin is perfectly tanned thanks to Lex’s anxious reapplying
of sunscreen on me every thirty minutes, my tummy is satisfied from all the ice cream and corn dogs, and my heart is full
from spending a day with my favourite person. Even being around Olsen wasn’t too weird, other than all the awkward shit that
happened. He doesn’t seem to have harboured any ill feelings toward me, despite me nearly destroying his penis. Everything
seems . . . normal. Better than normal. Great.
And as we follow the setting sun along the Trans-Canada Highway back to Langley, looking between all the people who have somehow
found their way into my messy, weird life, I can honestly say I’ve never been happier.
Maybe life does get to be this good.