Chapter 13 What We Choose to Show
What We Choose to Show
Vina was waiting beside Lucy's canvas contingency tote like she'd caught it trying to escape.
She stood at the edge of the Brewster Bay lot in cutoff shorts and an oversized Delta tank, iced coffee in one hand, the ridiculous bag at her feet. Her sunglasses were pushed into her red hair. Her grin appeared the second my Jeep rounded the lodge.
Lucy's hand stayed on my thigh until I parked.
She saw Vina. She saw the tote. Then she turned to me and made both of them wait.
Her fingers slid around the back of my neck, and she kissed me across the console with the calm, thorough hunger of a woman who knew exactly where she belonged.
Her mouth was warm and mint-sweet. I caught her waist and pulled her closer until the console stopped us, and the little sound she breathed against my tongue tightened my whole body.
When she eased back, her lips were damp and her blue eyes stayed on mine.
"Morning, Ace."
"Morning, Brew."
She kissed me once more, softer, then climbed out before I could reach her door.
Vina looked from Lucy to me and whistled. "The emergency tote and I suddenly feel like we're interrupting."
"You were watching before we parked," Lucy said.
"Of course I was. You came home with an audience. That's on you."
Lucy crossed the gravel without touching the tote. Vina's joke was still sitting between them when Lucy wrapped both arms around her and held on.
The hug caught Vina by surprise. Her coffee hand lifted out of danger, then her free arm closed around Lucy's waist. Lucy pressed her cheek against Vina's hair. Vina's teasing grin disappeared for one quiet second, and she held Lucy with the full warmth she usually hid behind a filthy line.
I got Lucy's practical navy duffel from the back seat and gave them the moment.
When they separated, Vina studied Lucy's face. Lucy let her. She didn't straighten, offer an update, or reach for the bag. She stood there in a soft blue tank, white shorts, and sneakers, her shoulders loose from the night and the drive.
Vina nudged the tote with one shoe. "Everything survived. Protein bars, ponchos, emergency blanket, portable civilization."
"Multitool?"
"Still in the side pocket."
Lucy glanced down. "You looped the shoulder strap backward."
Vina looked at it. "There she is."
Lucy laughed but didn't fix it.
Vina's expression softened again. "You good?"
Two words. No request for details hiding inside them.
Lucy looked at me, then back at her. "Yeah. Really good."
Vina nodded once. "Then I'm good."
She bent for the tote, but Lucy caught the strap first.
"Thank you for keeping it."
"I protected it with my life."
"You ate the chocolate."
"I protected most of it with my life."
Lucy slung the canvas tote over one shoulder without opening it. I joined them with the navy duffel, and her free hand found mine before we'd taken three steps. She leaned into my side, her hip brushing mine, and made no effort to loosen her grip when two guests crossed the lot toward the dock.
Vina fell into step on Lucy's other side.
"I'm impressed," she said. "You made it almost a full minute without checking the inventory."
"I can see the zipper is closed."
"Growth."
"Don't push it."
Their shoulders bumped. Vina smiled into her coffee, and Lucy's thumb moved once across my knuckles.
My body remembered far too much from the night before, but I kept the memory where it belonged.
Private. Lucy didn't owe the resort a report, and Vina had already proved she wasn't going to ask for one.
At the deck steps, Lucy stopped and looked at Vina.
"You really only wanted to know if I was okay?"
Vina's mouth curved. "I also wanted to make fun of your bag. Women contain multitudes."
"V."
"Yeah." Vina reached up and brushed a loose strand of dark hair from Lucy's cheek. "That's all I needed."
Lucy held her gaze. Something quiet passed between them, warmer than the joke and sharper than ordinary friendship. Then Lucy slipped her arm around my waist and climbed the steps with Vina close enough that their shoulders kept touching.
She walked back into Brewster Bay without releasing either of us.
***
Harper crossed the deck the next afternoon holding her phone away from her body like it had personally offended her.
The unfinished outdoor bar had half the resort working around it. Raw framing threw striped shadows over the deck. Tools covered one worktable, temporary coolers lined another, and the new pool and path lights waited for evening beneath the July sun.
Kit stood beside me with one hand hooked through my belt loop. Poppy had been sorting drink cups with Sally and Sam. Luna and Bristol were measuring a trim board while Vina and Lucy stained a finished section of bar top. Mackenzie followed Harper through the work zone, already watching our faces.
"Somebody decided the lake needed a vote," Harper said.
She turned the screen toward us.
RANK NASH'S GIRLS: KIT, POPPY, LUNA, brISTOL, VINA, OR LUCY?
Six public pictures sat under the question. Six percentages climbed beside them.
The comments were the usual mixture of harmless thirst and strangers talking as though the women belonged to the crowd.
Some argued about who was hottest. Others guessed which relationships were real and which existed for attention.
Beneath the poll, people were tagging Brewster Bay and asking whether they could visit, book, or come up for a college weekend.
Kit's fingers tightened at my hip.
"At least they counted correctly," Poppy said. The brightness in her voice had an edge.
"That's a low bar," Bristol said.
Luna crossed her arms. "They couldn't put six women in one post without making us compete."
Sally leaned over Sam's shoulder to read. "Half these people would lose a fight with a fitted sheet."
"Most people lose fights with fitted sheets," Sam said.
"Not helping, boyfriend."
"I wasn't defending them."
Lucy already had her phone out.
"We should answer before this becomes the only version people see." Her thumb moved as she spoke. "Harper, send me the clean images. Mackenzie, pull the main account numbers. Kit, Poppy, if we post together around three, we can redirect the traffic before dinner and then..."
Vina stepped close enough for their shoulders to touch. She rested two fingers against Lucy's wrist. She didn't lower the phone or interrupt the movement. She simply gave Lucy something physical to notice.
"Do you want to handle this, Ace," Vina asked, "or did they make it feel like your job?"
Lucy's thumb stopped.
"Both."
"Only one matters."
The deck noise carried on around us. A blender ran at the temporary drink station. Kids screamed from the pool. Somewhere below, a boat horn answered another boat horn for reasons known only to lake people.
Lucy looked at the poll again. Then she looked at Vina.
"I want to answer," she said. "I don't want to spend the afternoon proving we're real to strangers."
"Then don't," Kit said. She left my side long enough to set her palm between Lucy's shoulder blades. "Give them what you choose."
Poppy took Harper's phone, scrolled once, and shook her head.
"No statement. No counter-ranking. And absolutely no posed photograph where we stand in a line like swimsuit finalists."
"What does that leave?" Harper asked.
Poppy turned slowly, taking in the unfinished bar, crowded deck, lodge doors, pool, docks, and water beyond them.
"Us," she said. "Follow us for an afternoon. Kit with Bella. Luna on the water. Bristol deciding what the camera gets to keep. Ace choosing the pace. Vina turning every boring job into a party. All of us doing the thing they're pretending is staged."
Mackenzie lifted her phone. "A moving reel."
"A Brewster Bay reel," Poppy corrected. "They want to know which woman matters most? Show them what happens when all six of us are here."
Lucy looked around the group. Her phone remained in her hand, but the unfinished response vanished from the screen.
"I want in," she said. "And I want control of when I'm in the frame."
Vina's fingers slipped away from her wrist. "Done."
Bristol nodded. "Nobody identifiable goes into the final cut without agreeing."
Luna set down the tape measure. "I have a pontoon leaving in twenty minutes."
Kit kissed my cheek on her way toward the lodge. "Try to keep up, baby."
Poppy grinned. "He loves it when we give him impossible jobs."
"I love some of the benefits," I said.
Six smiles turned toward me, each carrying its own kind of trouble.
Then Poppy clapped once. "Good. Don't pose. Move."
Harper's camera followed Kit through the lodge doors.
Mom had the front desk running at full summer speed, keys changing hands while two families tried to ask questions at once.
Kit moved beside her as though she'd been doing it for years.
She found a missing reservation envelope, directed a couple toward Lakeview cabin, then crouched to tell a little girl where the best shallow water started.
I came through with a stack of clean towels against my chest.
"Desk, baby," Kit said.
I set them where she pointed. She caught my shirt before I could turn away, pulled me down, and kissed me in front of Mom, Harper, and the family waiting for their keys.
It wasn't a content kiss. Her mouth opened against mine because she wanted it to. Her hand settled at the back of my neck. I tasted lemonade on her tongue before she let me go.
Mom smiled without looking up from the register. "Towels first. Newlywed behavior second."
Kit's cheeks warmed. "We're not newlyweds."
"I said behavior."
Harper caught Kit laughing as she returned to the desk. The family laughed with her. That was the clip.
Poppy kept the reel moving without spending the afternoon behind a phone. She sent Mackenzie toward the deck, redirected Harper toward the grill, then slipped between tables with water, napkins, and the kind of attention that made every guest feel like the one she'd been looking for.
When an umbrella jammed above a family near the pool, Poppy climbed onto the bench to free it. I steadied her by the waist.