Chapter 2 The Hot Girl Committee #2
"Of course you do. You've got taste." Poppy tapped the map.
"Station one: dock-end sign. Warm string lights, reclaimed wood, lake behind it.
That's the golden-hour identity shot. Station two: pool lounge.
Navy towels, bodies, sunscreen, iced drinks, chairs that look used but not chaotic.
Lucy is captain there because if you give Lucy a layout, three umbrellas, and a whistle, she can move armies. "
"Please tell me there's no whistle," I said.
"Not unless she brought one. Station three: outdoor bar.
Vina. No explanation needed. She makes every counter look like a party is about to do something regrettable but photogenic.
Station four: Rose/Brewster bridge. Luna helps make this look like Rosewater and Brewster Bay are aligned without Brewster Bay pretending to be Rosewater. "
Kit nodded. "Good."
"Bristol handles detail capture," Poppy continued. "She sees the real stuff. Hands, glances, the exact second a staged thing stops looking staged. Kit anchors you and this place. I direct. You try not to look like I'm marching you toward public execution."
"That's a lot of roles for a resort refresh."
Poppy's expression softened. She stepped closer, lowering the map between us. "It's not just a resort refresh, Brew."
I knew it. I had known it since Kit kissed me in front of Bella and Poppy snapped the photo like she was catching a flare.
"Poppy."
"You said you wouldn't hide," she said. "Kit made you say it. We all heard the weather change after that. So this is us helping. Not an announcement. Not a brand. Not a speech. Just no hiding."
Kit's fingers tightened once at my waist, steady and calm.
Poppy's hand came up to my chest again, softer this time. "People are going to look at Brewster Bay this weekend. They're going to look at you. They were going to do that anyway. We might as well give them something true to see."
I looked past her to the pool, where navy towels stacked clean beside new chairs. To the bar, still half-built but waiting. To the sign at the end of the dock, catching the sun even without lights.
My instinct was to ask how visible, how much, how fast. My body, traitor that it was, liked the answer already. Kit against one side. Poppy's hand on my chest. The lake watching.
"You planned all of this before you got here," I said.
Poppy smiled. "I planned six versions. This is the pretty one."
"What's the ugly one?"
"Beige towels."
Kit laughed into my shoulder.
Poppy folded the map and slid it into her back pocket.
"We've got two hours before the light starts getting good.
Frank needs help with the sign lights. Bella needs the pool to stop looking like a furniture showroom.
Vina is five minutes away and already texting me cocktail emojis.
Lucy says she has a vision for the lounge, which is either promising or a threat.
Luna is bringing Rosewater notes. Bristol is here when she feels like being noticed. "
"She's already here," Kit said, nodding toward the far deck stairs.
Bristol stood there with her phone lowered at her side, watching us with quiet interest.
Poppy's smile widened. "See? Committee quorum."
She took my hand and pulled me toward the dock. Kit stayed with us, her grip warm at my waist until the last possible second.
"Stand there and look accidentally irresistible," Poppy said.
"That sounds impossible to do on purpose."
"Exactly. That's why I'm in charge."
And somehow, in the middle of a workday, under the sun, surrounded by staff and family and half-finished upgrades, I let them move me into the public story they had already started writing.
***
By midafternoon, Brewster Bay stopped pretending to be a worksite.
It became a relay.
Poppy moved through it all with her phone in one hand and her other hand on somebody at all times: my shoulder, Kit's back, Lucy's elbow, Luna's wrist, Vina's hip when she had to physically stop her from putting limes in a pattern that looked less like a garnish tray and more like a dare.
Wherever Poppy touched, the whole place seemed to snap into better shape.
Chairs angled. Towels brightened. People stood closer.
Vina claimed the outdoor bar first.
She arrived in a tied white shirt over a red bikini top, cutoffs riding low on her hips, hair piled messily on top of her head, and a portable speaker tucked under one arm. She set the speaker on the new bar, pressed play, and changed the temperature of the whole deck.
"Brew," she called. "Come here and tell me if this counter says casual lake cocktails or emotional damage with citrus."
"Those are my options?"
"Those are always your options."
I joined her behind the bar, where she had already arranged bottles, limes, mint, and clean glasses with more care than her grin suggested.
Vina made labor look dirty without ever quite crossing a line.
She leaned over the counter to check the ice well, glanced back to make sure I noticed, then handed me a knife by the safe end.
"Slice those," she said. "Thin. Pretty. Try not to bleed on the vibe."
"I run a resort. I can cut limes."
"Can you cut them hot? That's the content question."
Poppy appeared three feet away and snapped a photo.
"Absolutely not," I said.
"Absolutely yes," Poppy said.
Vina bumped her hip against mine. "Relax, Smoke Show. Nobody's asking you to dance on the bar yet."
"Yet?"
"The committee has stretch goals."
She made the bar feel alive before a single guest sat there.
Every bottle became color. Every glass caught light.
Every joke landed just loud enough for nearby workers to hear and not quite loud enough to get anyone in trouble.
She was fearless in public, but there was craft under the chaos.
She knew where the music should sit, where the citrus should flash, where the first drink of a party should be placed so people reached for it before they thought about why.
Lucy took the pool like a captain taking a field.
"No," she said to three lounge chairs, as if they had personally disappointed her. "You're not facing the trash bins. You're facing the water because people have dreams. Nash, grab that end."
I grabbed the end of the towel rack she pointed at.
Lucy wore a blue bikini under an open work shirt, ponytail high, sunglasses on top of her head, and an expression that made background girls move before she finished the sentence.
She had two Delta Omega girls rolling towels, one Kappa Rho girl shifting umbrellas, and a guest kid proudly ferrying empty plastic cups to the bin because Lucy had told him he was in charge of pool safety.
"You're terrifying," I told her.
"I'm efficient." She stepped in to adjust my grip on the towel rack, her fingers briefly covering mine. "And you're in my shot. Turn a little."
"Am I furniture now?"
"No," Lucy said, smiling up at me. "You're motivation."
The word hit harder than it should have.
She let her hand stay on my forearm, public and harmless to anyone watching, charged enough for me to feel it. "I haven't forgotten, by the way."
I knew what she meant. Real time. Her turn. Not pool-lounge choreography, not group orbit, something that belonged to her.
"Neither have I," I said.
Her smile softened for one second, then snapped bright again. "Good. Now move the umbrella two feet left before the sun commits a crime on that chair."
Luna arrived with Rosewater polish and Brewster Bay patience, which was new enough to stop me for a second.
She wore white shorts, a blue tank, and sunglasses that looked expensive without trying too hard.
She spent ten minutes on the phone with someone at Rosewater, then walked straight to Bella and translated three concerns about parking, overflow, and party sightlines into actual useful notes.
No guilt spiral. No apology loop. No old rivalry lurking under her smile.
Just Luna, competent and calm, making the bridge between the two resorts feel less like a fragile truce and more like a plank somebody could trust.
I found her by the dock stairs, helping Frank decide whether the string lights should wrap the sign or frame it.
"Frame it," Luna said. "Wrapping hides the wood. The wood is the point."
Frank looked at me. "She's right."
"She usually is," I said.
Luna lowered her sunglasses and gave me a look. "Careful, Brewster. Compliments from you still make me suspicious."
"You look good here," I said.
That caught her. Not in a dramatic way. Her shoulders eased, and the smile that came after was smaller than her public one.
"So do you," she said. "When you stop bracing for impact."
Then she turned back to Frank like she had not just put a finger on the exact bruise under my ribs.
Bristol was almost invisible until she wanted you to know she was there.
I saw her first in the reflection of the bar cooler, phone raised, catching Vina laughing with her head thrown back while Poppy adjusted a vase of flowers in the foreground.
Then she was at the pool, crouched near the corner of a lounge chair to photograph Lucy's towel rows from an angle I would never have seen.
Then she was beside Bella, quietly moving a stack of beige towels out of frame before anyone had to ask.
When I finally caught up with her near the service entrance, she lowered her phone.
"You're being studied," I said.
"You're being photographed," Bristol said. "Studied is extra."
"Should I be worried?"
She looked past me to where Kit was helping Bella label pool baskets and Poppy was trying to get Vina to stop calling the drink station a flirtation laboratory.
"No," Bristol said. "You should be grateful. Most people never get proof that the thing they're afraid to show looks better in daylight."
That left me without a clean answer.
Bristol lifted her phone again, not quite pointing it at me. "You listen when they move you. You check on your mother without making her ask twice. You let Kit touch you and don't look around afterward to see who saw."
"I look sometimes."