Chapter 2 The Hot Girl Committee #4
Poppy pointed at the sign. "Nash, center but not dead center.
I need the letters visible. Kit, right side, close.
No daylight between you two. Vina, front left, bring the drink because that glass is doing God's work.
Lucy, behind Nash's shoulder. Luna, between Kit and the sign edge.
Bristol, I need you shooting first, then in the final. "
No one argued.
That was when it hit me hardest. They had been moving like this all afternoon, six different women with six different kinds of heat and humor and confidence, but now they came together as if the shape had been waiting under the whole day.
Kit fit against my right side, arm around my waist.
Poppy came to my left, adjusted my shirt with one hand, then stayed tucked there, shoulder pressed to my ribs.
Vina took the front angle with a glass in hand and a smile that made the bar behind her feel closer.
Lucy claimed the space just behind my shoulder, one hand resting lightly at the back of my neck for one shot, then shifting to my shoulder when Poppy told her it read better.
Luna moved beside Kit with soft confidence, her white shorts catching the gold light, her hand settling briefly on Kit's back so the Rose/Brewster bridge became visible without anyone saying a word.
Bristol stood up-dock, phone raised, quiet as a held breath.
"Everybody stop posing," Bristol said.
We all froze.
"That includes you, Poppy."
Poppy lowered her chin. "Rude, but correct."
Bristol moved two steps left. "Talk to each other. Don't look at me."
Vina looked at me. "So, Brew, after this, do we unionize?"
Lucy laughed. "The Hot-Girl Committee demands shade breaks."
"And better snacks," Luna said.
Kit leaned against me. "And a boyfriend who stops looking like he's waiting for a trapdoor."
"I'm surrounded," I said.
"That's the point," Poppy said softly.
The way she said it did the job no caption could have done.
Surrounded. Wanted. Public. Not hidden in a cabin, not discussed in private, not managed into something smaller.
Six women around me at the end of my family's dock while the sign glowed above us and the lake did what lakes did best: watched.
Bristol's phone clicked.
Then clicked again.
"There," she said.
Poppy went still. "Show me."
Bristol walked the phone over. Poppy looked first, then Kit, then the rest of them crowded in. I stayed where I was, half afraid to see it and half desperate.
Poppy turned the screen toward me.
The photo should have looked staged. It didn't.
It looked like heat and work and laughter had gathered into one frame.
The sign glowed behind us. The lake burned gold.
Kit was at my side like the first true thing in the world.
Poppy leaned into me with bright possession and strategy still in her smile.
Vina brought motion even standing still.
Lucy looked ready to command the next hour.
Luna looked restored and at home. Bristol, though absent from the shot, had somehow made herself visible in the precision of what she chose to catch.
"That's the one," Kit said.
Poppy swallowed, and for the first time all day, she looked a little less like she was commanding the moment and a little more like the moment had gotten her too.
"Yeah," she said. "That's the one."
Bristol let Lucy pull her into the final set. Sally took the phone for the group shot with Sam holding one of the reflectors and complaining that he had been promoted without benefits.
"Everyone in," Sally ordered. "Nash, stop blinking like a hostage."
"This family is hostile."
"This family is accurate."
The final shots were looser. Poppy tucked herself back against my side.
Kit kept my hand. Vina raised her glass.
Lucy threw one arm around Bristol and dragged her fully into frame.
Luna laughed at something Sam said from behind the reflector.
The sign glowed. The string lights took over as the sun dropped.
Poppy posted from the dock, quick and clean.
No label. No claim. No announcement. Just a carousel of Brewster Bay in golden light: pool, bar, deck, sign, then the group shot. Her caption was simple.
Brewster Bay at golden hour. Two days until the Fourth.
"That's it?" Vina asked. "No fireworks?"
Poppy tapped post. "Let the lake do the fireworks."
It took less than a minute.
We had barely made it back to the deck when Sally made a sound that was pure blood in the water.
"Oh," she said. "Oh, this is delicious."
Sam leaned over her shoulder and grinned. "Read it."
"Gladly." Sally held up her phone like a town crier. "Unknown lake account says, and I quote: 'Nash's Girls understood the assignment. Brewster Bay looks like they took over and I'm one hundred percent here for it.'"
The deck noise thinned around the words.
Nash's Girls.
Not Poppy's caption. Not our phrase. Not something agreed to in a cabin or a group chat or a strategy session. An outside comment from someone who had seen the shape and named it before I could manage it back into the dark.
My body went still.
Kit's hand tightened around mine.
She didn't flinch.
That was the first thing I noticed. Not the screen.
Not Sam's delighted face or Sally's obvious joy at having a weaponized comment to repeat for the rest of the night.
Kit didn't flinch. She stood beside me, sun in her hair, the day's work on her skin, and held my hand like the label had landed somewhere she could carry it.
Poppy stepped closer to read the comment herself. Her brows lifted. She didn't smile right away.
That mattered.
She looked at the words, then at the group shot on her screen, then at me. Something moved behind her eyes: curiosity, caution, hunger, math.
"I'm not touching that yet," she said.
"Yet," Vina repeated, amused.
"Yet is doing a lot of work," Lucy said.
Luna looked across the lake toward Rosewater's clean white lights starting to blink on for evening. "They'll be saying it over there by tomorrow."
Bristol held up her phone. Her version of the shot was different.
Wider. Less polished. You could see Sam and Sally off to the side, reflector and phone in hand.
You could see Bella at the deck rail, watching with a small smile.
You could see the sign, the lights, the lake, and all of us arranged around one another in a way that looked less like a trap than a choice.
"This is the one that proves it," Bristol said.
Poppy looked at it, then nodded once. "Save that. Don't post it yet."
Good. Not yet.
The phrase kept sitting there anyway.
Nash's Girls.
I had known the lake would talk. Kit had told me not to hide. Poppy had staged the day so people would see something true instead of inventing something uglier. But knowing pressure was coming and watching it arrive weren't the same thing.
Sam clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Public claiming ritual. I accept apologies in cash."
"Nobody is apologizing to you," I said.
Sally smiled at Kit. "For the record, you all look terrifyingly good."
"Thank you," Kit said.
"Not a compliment. More of a safety report."
Poppy's phone kept lighting up. More comments. More likes. More people seeing Brewster Bay's deck, pool, bar, dock, sign, and the women around me. The resort and my love life had started blending online before dinner.
And the worst part was that it worked.
Brewster Bay looked alive. The women looked unafraid. I looked wanted. Not polished, not safe, not easy to explain, but wanted in a way that made standing there feel more honest than hiding ever had.
Kit leaned close. "You okay?"
I looked at the sign glowing down the dock, at Poppy already thinking three moves ahead, at Vina teasing Lucy, at Luna watching Rosewater, at Bristol saving the proof, at Sam and Sally acting innocent in a way neither of them had earned.
"No," I said. "But I'm here."
Kit smiled. "That'll do."
Across the water, Rosewater's lights sharpened against the falling dusk.
Brewster Bay had been the controlled stage. Poppy could angle the chairs, frame the sign, choose the caption, time the post, and hold back the photo that said too much too soon.
Rosewater's Fourth wouldn't be controlled.
In two days, there would be no committee map, no home-dock advantage, no way to make the whole lake look only where we wanted it to look. There would be a party, a crowd, phones, comments, old money, sorority heat, and whatever people decided to call us when we walked in together.
Kit's hand stayed in mine.
Poppy looked up from her screen and met my eyes, the new phrase still glowing between us without being spoken.
The dock sign burned warm behind her.
Brewster Bay had become visible.
Now July wanted the rest.