Page 64 of XX Love Affair
“Convincing?”
“Even if it naturally bubbles up from your bones, you still have to convince the world of what you’re selling.”
“Suppose that’s true. Which is why I don’t have a lot of friends. I’m too busy convincing everyone that I should be allowed to be who I am.”
“You’ll always have me, Whitfield. I believe you.”
Mira rolled her eyes. “How comforting. My former lover and landlord believing in me.”
Delia brought her mimosa up to her lips. “If you don’t mind,” she said before taking a sip, “I have a few ideas already. You’re the pro, but I know what gets my girl off.”
Another person sneezed as they came into the cocktail bar. Delia held in laughter. Mira remained mildly amused that one of her oldest connections could still be as silly as she had been when they were twenty-one and dumb.
She’d hear Delia out. No promises, but neither of them had anywhere to be for the next few hours.
Chapter 20
The pool water rippled every time someone jumped in or pulled themselves out near Helena, who soaked her feet and leaned back along the edge. The Bulgari sunglasses on her face were a recent acquisition after another excursion to New York, where Delia went shopping for new work clothes and Helena couldn’t help but try on these beauties.
They were hers within five minutes.
Soon, all of this will be gone. She was returning to Washington in two more months. Less than that. She had received her dorm move-in information for that September, but first, Helena had promised her mother she would go back to Olympia in August. To visit. To go through her things. To get reacquainted with the good, obedient girl she would have to be again once she was attending classes and playing soccer games.
She gave a swift penalty kick to the water, splashing chlorinated liquid across the length of the pool. One of the topless guys flirting with a local heiress turned around and flashed Helena a wink. She ignored him.
Yes, this would all be gone soon. The shopping trips. The getting into whatever locale her date desired. Effortlessly making friends with local girls who wanted her in their group. Helena detached herself from that, but it was more difficult to imagine a world where she couldn’t spend her weekends at a different kind of club from her classmates.
“You need anything from inside? I’m getting a drink.”
Helena craned her head back, untamed hair getting wet in the puddles lining the pool. Above her, Tara stood in a silver bikini that matched her hair and a peachy sarong that covered her ass.
“I’m good, thanks.”
“Cool.” Tara ignored the whistles of the guys on the other side of the pool as she walked into the clubhouse, where nobody could see her, even with adjusted eyesight.
Yet Helena could easily see the woman sitting beneath a shady umbrella. It was hard to miss Blair’s freshly bleached hair. While it wasn’t the same bright blond as Delia’s current lemony look, Blair’s bohemian style made her stand out among the crowd of heiresses, popstars, and kept girlfriends like them.
“If we want to fuck with them,” Blair said loudly enough for the breeze to carry her voice to Helena, “we could start rubbing sunscreen on each other. See which one of them drowns himself trying to get to us first.”
Helena cracked her first smile since they arrived. “I’m good.” Those boys had been in the pool for so long that they were about to pack up anyway. Helena preferred to not call further attention to herself. Or Blair, who was better at blowing off guys hitting on her than Helena was. Unless I give them my best resting bitch face. Between her, Blair, and Tara, Helena had the best bitch face. But she knew that already.
She also knew that she attracted attention sitting out in the open. Was she about to tell people they could boss her around? No. If she wouldn’t let people bully her out of a room in the nightclub, she wouldn’t let them see her as anything but belonging by a country club pool.
“You’ll have to tell us how Delia is doing,” Tara said when she returned with a refreshing drink for herself and Blair. When Tara sat on her chair, she pulled one of the club’s bleach-white towels over her lap to protect it from spills. “Unlike Blair here, I never get to hear about that side of the social scene around here.”
“Since Tara doesn’t work like me, she’s got plenty of time to wonder what people are getting up to.”
Helena turned her head upside down, catching glimpses of both women from a new vantage. “I don’t work either.”
“Because you’re already making money from existing,” Blair said with a cheeky grin. “Your talents are out of the box, whereas I had to learn all of mine.”
Helena was incredulous. “With that figure?”
“Trust me, I had to learn how to work this figure to get money.”
“Now look at her,” Tara whispered. “Living in a manor and traveling the world.”
“So are you.”