Bella tells all about her parents

The gold ring bit into my palm where my fist had clenched. A bead of sweat—not from the sun—trickled between my breasts where James' gaze had lingered earlier. "Your dad's not like that," I **** out, throat tight.

Bella arched an eyebrow, twirling her sunglasses by one stem. "What, human?" She kicked my lounger again, harder. "Face it, Flick. Dad's a bloke. You're hot. Basic biology."

My pulse roared in my ears—half panic, half exhilaration. The remnants of sunscreen felt suddenly tacky between my shoulder blades where his fingers had dug in. A bead of sweat slid down my ribcage, disappearing beneath the barely-there turquoise fabric. "Your parents are practically my guardians," I protested weakly. "That's... illegal."

Bella snorted, snapping her sunglasses onto her face. "Please. You're eighteen. Dad's forty-two, not eighty." She stretched, deliberately knocking her foot against mine. "Besides, I'm not suggesting you fuck him on the kitchen table. Just saying I wouldn't judge if you—" She waggled her eyebrows obscenely. "—accidentally flashed him in that **** trap bikini."

I rolled onto my side, shielding my expression as I tightened the strings. "Christ, Bells. He's obsessed with your mum—all those hospital charity dinners? The way he waits up for her shifts?" My laugh came out too ****. "An experienced man like that wouldn't look twice at some student teenager."

Bella's fingertip traced the condensation on her water bottle, drawing a slow, deliberate line. "Funny you mention experience." Her voice dropped. "Found mum's vibrator last month. Dusty. Still in the box." The plastic cracked under her grip. "They haven't touched each other in years."

The revelation hit like a physical blow. My back arched involuntarily, bikini ties digging into sun-warmed skin. James' rough hands on my shoulders flashed through my mind—the way his breath had hitched when I'd pressed into his touch. Not frustration. *Starvation.*

Bella stretched with feline grace, oblivious to the wildfire spreading through my veins. "Anyway," she yawned, dangling her water bottle over the grass, "enough parental horrors. Pass me that sunscreen—I'm crisping like bacon here."

The tension dissipated like steam as we fell into familiar rhythms—her complaining about revision, me pretending to listen while mentally tracing the ghost of James' fingertips down my spine. The late afternoon sun gilded the garden in honeyed light, catching the gold rings threaded through my bikini strings each time I shifted.

Bella dribbled water down her chin on purpose, cackling when it splashed onto my thigh. "Oi. Lobster," she teased, flicking droplets at my shoulders. The cold startled a laugh out of me—genuine this time—as I swatted her hand away. For a suspended hour, we were fifteen again: sneaking cider in this same garden, whispering about boys who didn't matter.