Chapter 2 The Hot Girl Committee
The Hot Girl Committee
Thursday afternoon hit Brewster Bay hot enough to make the dock boards smell like warm cedar and old lake water.
I had been moving since lunch, crossing the same triangle over and over: deck, pool, outdoor bar, dock.
The deck lights were half-strung above the rail.
The pool lounge had new chairs lined up in a curve that looked accidental until you saw it from the stairs.
The outdoor bar was still a mess of shelving, citrus crates, bottle bins, and one stubborn cooler that refused to sit level.
At the end of the dock, the reclaimed wood Brewster Bay sign waited against Sapphire Lake, bare for now, but ready for the warm string lights Frank swore he could hang before sunset.
Rosewater's Fourth of July bash was in two days.
That fact sat under every order Bella gave and every box I carried.
Two days until half the lake wandered into Rosewater's polished party and looked across the water to see whether Brewster Bay had become something worth talking about.
Two days until the resort had to look less like a family comeback project and more like the place everyone wished they'd booked.
Practical. That was what I kept telling myself.
A chair was a chair. A towel was a towel. A sign was a sign.
Then Kit walked past me in cutoffs and a faded Brewster Bay tank, her ponytail damp at the nape, a navy towel balanced on one shoulder and her fingers dragging across my lower back as if touching me in front of staff, guests, my mother, and a delivery guy was as routine as checking the pool gate.
My grip slipped on the lounge chair.
Kit glanced back over her shoulder and smiled. Not a private smile. Not a secret one. A bright, calm, I see you looking smile that made the whole deck feel like it had just turned its lights on.
"Careful, Brewster," she said. "Those chairs are expensive now."
"I'm careful."
"No," she said, dropping the towel onto the pool cart. "You're trying to look careful. Different thing."
Bella was beside the service table, sorting the towel delivery into clean stacks with Kit's help.
The correct navy towels had finally arrived, along with three accidental boxes of beige ones that Bella kept calling a personal attack.
Kit had adopted the towel crisis like it was a family emergency.
She folded, sorted, teased my mother, and wore the Brewster Bay shirt like she had every right to be in the center of the workday.
She did.
That was what got me. Not the shirt, not the cutoffs, not even the bikini straps tied behind her neck and visible when she lifted a box. It was the ease. Kit didn't behave like a guest. She behaved like someone who belonged to the place and to me, and didn't need either fact whispered.
Bella noticed me noticing and raised one eyebrow. "Nash, if you're done supervising your girlfriend folding towels, can you check the bar shelves?"
Kit laughed. "He's not supervising. He's buffering."
"I'm carrying furniture," I said.
"You're carrying panic in furniture form," Kit said.
Bella pointed her pen at Kit. "She's good."
"She's dangerous," I muttered.
Kit stepped close enough to take the end of the lounge chair from me. Our hands brushed over the metal frame. She didn't pull back. If anything, she let the contact linger, her thumb grazing my knuckle before she nodded toward the pool.
"Put it over there," she said. "Poppy said the west angle gets the lake behind the chairs."
"Poppy isn't here yet."
"Poppy has been here spiritually since five this morning."
Bella made a sound of agreement. "The girl sent me a shot list with emojis and lighting notes. I was afraid not to obey."
I set the chair where Kit pointed. It did look better there, which annoyed me because Poppy was right from off-site, and that was before she had even arrived to be right in person.
I was wiping sweat from the back of my neck when a car door shut in the gravel lot.
The energy on the deck changed before I turned around.
Poppy came around the lodge with a canvas tote on one shoulder, her phone already in her hand, dark curls bouncing against her neck and sunglasses pushed up in her hair.
She wore a thin white tank over a floral bikini top, denim shorts, and enough confidence to make the delivery guys straighten like they had been caught underdressed for an inspection.
Her gaze swept the deck, the pool, the bar, the dock, and the sign at the end of it. She didn't pause to ask for context. She lifted her phone, took three quick photos, and smiled like Brewster Bay had just confessed a secret.
"Oh," she said. "This is better than I hoped."
"Hello to you too," I said.
Poppy looked at me then, really looked, and the smile turned personal. "Hi, handsome. You're sweaty."
"It's July."
"I approve of July."
Kit crossed the deck and opened her arms. Poppy fell into them with a happy little sound, pressing her face against Kit's shoulder before pulling back to study her.
"You look criminally good in that shirt," Poppy said.
"Bella issued it," Kit said. "Very official."
"Then Bella has taste."
"Bella has taste and a clipboard," Bella called from the towel table. "Do not make me regret either."
Poppy blew her a kiss, then turned back to me and stepped into my space like she had measured it ahead of time.
She hugged me around the waist, cheek briefly against my chest, her body warm from the walk across the lot and smelling like strawberries, sunscreen, and hot car leather.
When she pulled back, her hands stayed on my shirt, smoothing the damp cotton over my ribs as if she were checking whether I was real.
"You're exactly the level of workday disheveled we need," she said.
"For shelves?"
"For everything."
Kit came to my side, her hand finding my wrist. She looked amused, not jealous. Grounded, not performing. If anything, she looked relieved that Poppy had arrived to make the thing obvious.
Poppy turned toward the lake and pointed at the dock sign. "That's the hero shot. Reclaimed wood, warm string lights, Sapphire Lake behind it. Golden hour is going to do obscene things to that sign."
"It's a sign," I said.
Both women looked at me.
Bella sighed from behind us. "Oh, honey."
Poppy slipped her fingers around my wrist and started pulling me toward the deck rail. "Come on, Brewster. We're fixing your imagination before sunset."
Kit followed, still smiling.
I let Poppy pull me because arguing would have required more pride than I had available. Behind us, Bella went back to the towels, Frank shouted from the dock about clips, and the resort kept clattering around us.
But the day had shifted.
Five minutes ago, Brewster Bay had been an upgrade scramble. Now Poppy was here, Kit was touching me in public, and every chair, towel, string light, and sign suddenly looked like it had been waiting for somebody to turn it into evidence.
***
Poppy didn't explain the plan.
She put me in it.
"Here," she said, stopping me beside the deck rail with the lake behind us. "No, half a step left. Kit, stay with him. Closer. Actually close, not church-directory close."
Kit slid in beside me, hip against mine, her arm looping around my waist without waiting for permission.
Poppy lifted her phone, frowned, and stepped in again. Her hands landed on my chest, palms flat, firm enough to move me. "Shoulders back. Chin down a little. No, not grim. You look like I'm asking you to identify a body."
Kit snorted.
"I'm standing," I said. "This is how I stand."
"Then your standing needs mentorship." Poppy's fingers slid to my shoulders, adjusting the angle of my body toward the light. "There. Now breathe like you aren't trying to manage an insurance claim."
"This is bullying."
"This is direction. Bullying costs extra."
Her thumbs pressed briefly into the damp cotton over my chest before she stepped back.
The touch was practical enough for witnesses and lingering enough to make my body pay attention.
That was Poppy's gift. She could make a correction look like staging, make staging look like flirtation, and make flirtation feel like a strategy no one should underestimate.
"Kit," Poppy said, "look at him."
Kit already was.
I turned my head and found her blue eyes steady on mine, warm and bright in the hard afternoon light. She lifted one hand and brushed sweat from my temple with her thumb.
"Don't make it weird, Brewster," she said softly.
"I wasn't."
"You were thinking about it."
Then she rose on her toes and kissed me.
It wasn't a shy kiss. It wasn't a staged peck for Poppy's camera. It was Kit kissing me like she had done it in bed, in the shower, on the cabin steps, and now on my family's deck with workers stringing lights and Bella absolutely pretending not to watch from the towel table.
My hand found her waist before I could overthink it. Her body leaned into mine. The camera clicked fast.
When Kit pulled back, she smiled against my mouth. "See? Easy."
Poppy made a satisfied sound. "That one goes in the maybe pile."
"Maybe?" Kit asked.
"I've got standards. Also, the light caught Nash's panic. It's cute, but we need aspirational."
"My panic isn't a filter."
"It's today." Poppy glanced at the screen, then tucked the phone against her chest. Her teasing stayed, but her eyes sharpened into field-general mode. "Okay. Now I can tell you what we're doing."
"Now?" I said.
"I had to make sure you were movable first. You are. Congratulations."
Kit leaned into my side, still not letting go.
Poppy pulled a folded page from her tote. It wasn't a list. It was a map of Brewster Bay with arrows, circles, color-coded notes, and little stars around the dock sign.
"The Hot-Girl Committee has four active stations," she said.
I stared at her. "The what?"
"Working title," she said. "Not a public label. Don't look so terrified."
Kit grinned. "I like it."