Page 99 of Holiday Home 3
BORA, BORA
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TAHITI
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MALDIVES
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BAHAMAS
The grinning redhead let them all spend a few moments absorbing the information on the board. Still somewhat in the dark, Liam spent most of that time glancing at his neighbors, where he was relieved to find them looking about as perplexed as he was.
“So, we’re voting on your spring break choice?” Tess asked.
“What, no!” Avril huffed, examining them before realizing no one had quite caught on as she’d hoped. “It’s voting forourspring break destination. You can all ante up points for whatever location strikes your fancy. Whichever place has the most points put in when voting closes, that’s where we’ll go.”
“Ourspring break destination,” Victoria repeated. “The five of us?”
“Unless there’s someone else any of you want to bring along when spring break hits, that was the plan. But well, six years and all…”
As Victoria glared at Avril, Anna called for a bit more clarification.
“So, we would just jot down a number of points we want to use to try and get a certain destination?”
“Yep, exactly. Each point anted up counts as a vote for that place. You can bet it all on one destination, split votes among multiple places, update your votes, all that. Basically, any points left over after you all get anything here you want, those will be what you can vote with until we have a winner.”
Tess pursed her lips and stared at the board. “Mathematically speaking, Liam could practically outvoteallof us, even if we all voted on the same place.”
“Yeah, he could,” Avril agreed. “That’s why you all shouldn’t have let him win so much.”
“It wasn’t intentional,” Victoria said flatly.
“Do you have a place you’d be interested in?” Tess asked him. “Assuming you’re even on board with Avril’s newest scheme.”
“I’ve never been to any of those places,” he admitted. “But I’ve heard great things about them all. And… yeah, I’m up for it if all of you are. I hardly think I could do better for spring break than to spend it on some exotic beach with all of you. I didn’t even have any plans formed yet.”
“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds kind of naughty,” Avril sniggered, which he promptly ignored.
“I’ve only been to the Bahamas,” Tess said, smiling at him. “It was a wonderful time.”
“Victoria, Anna, she’s already getting to work,” Avril whispered loudly. “Spring break will be here before you know it, and whoever gets Liam’s ear will probably get their way.”
Like he had just a moment ago, Victoria ignored Avril’s jibes. Staring at the board, her mouth subtly moved to one side.
“All right,” she then said. “I’ll go along with this. If we want to change our vote, do we just have you scrub it out?”
“Nope, you’ll have to come over and do it yourself,” Avril said. “I’ll set it up in our apartment, so you can drop by and change your voting whenever you want. We’ll say… voting ends the final week of February. That’ll give me time to make our travel arrangements.”
“All right,” the tall brunette said. Stepping forward, she held her hand out. After a moment, Avril realized what she was after. She handed over the green marker in her hand, and then she laid the whiteboard back on the table. Victoria popped off the cap and added fifteen votes to Fiji. Next, she strolled toward the house appliances, which she’d not yet looked over.
“The first vote is cast!” Avril grinned, nodding toward other colored markers sitting on the table. “How about you three?”
He and Anna remained wholly undecided for the rest of the night, though his reason was ignorance, while hers was indecision. Tess put down ten votes for Maldives and five for Fiji before she joined Victoria near the espresso machines.
“I’ll be here if either of you change your mind,” Avril said, still sitting on the table. “I can give good insights into all the beaches too.”