Girls in one room, boys in the rest

“Aaaaaaaaaaand there it is! Chez Ravers!” Heather pointed at the cottage, having missed surprisingly too many turn-offs for someone whose family had owned this cottage for ten years.

“Okay, okay, and pulling into the driveway now,” Zack did just that and parked on the gravel marked parking spot.

“Alrighty, the master bedroom is enormous and I never get to sleep there when I’m here with my dad, so us girls are taking it. Fellas, there’s three other single bedrooms, first come, first serve.” Heather announced to the crowd.”

“I want closest to the kitchen!” Kurt yelled, grabbing his backpack and running into the house.

“He’s so helpful,” Heather rolled her eyes, “Honestly, that’s probably the smallest room, so his loss.”

“Hey, Gavin, look alive!” Zack said, prodding his friend to look up from his phone game.

“Yeah yeah, I’m in my combat phase, gimme a sec.” Gavin kept his head down, intently looking at the game and staying in his seat.

Zack grimaced as the girls started opening the trunk.

“Dude, we are going to be up here for a week; might be nice to befriend Heather and Ashley, no? C’mon, didn’t your mom tell you to carry Chloe’s bags out to the car?” He said in a low voice, hoping only Gavin heard him

“Yeah, and now they are leaving the car. My job was done three-and-a-half hours ago.”

“You’re an idiot. Alright girls, lemme come carry something!” Zack said the first part under his breath before hopping out of the van and moving towards the trunk.

“Okay, Mr. Big Strong Manly Man, the cooler is all yours,” Ashley winked at Zack.

*************

Chloe was worried about sharing a bedroom with two of most popular girls from her high school, but when she got to the room, at least the sleeping situation wasn’t going to be an issue. There were two King-sized beds on opposite walls, with beautiful throw rug in between, so Chloe figured she’d have one to herself while the friends shared the other bed. A large glass sliding door opened up to a balcony with a view of the lake, with the trees nicely cleared away. A desk was along the other wall, where Heather was already at work setting up a make-up station and touching up the apparent make-up flaws caused by the van ride, though Chloe couldn’t see any. To be fair, she had never seen any flaws in Heather, at least not her looks. Heather always seemed to be the picture-perfect cheerleader, with large breasts that stayed perky, insanely long legs, and a well-crafted nose that miiiiiight have had plastic surgery.

“Uh, so Heather, Ashley, which bed do you want?” Chloe asked.

Heather turned from the desk and gave her a quizzical look. “What? Girl no, do you not see the size of these beds? No, we’re bonding this week. Those boys out there suck and Ashley here is determined to snatch up the only one that’s even close to half-decent, so get ready to have another friend.”

Ashley turned and gave Heather a withering look that quickly shrank when Heather rolled her eyes at Ashley.

“Pfft, this is our new friend, Chloe, who is super close with Zack. She’s an asset; you want to get with Zack, she’s your test run.”

Chloe wasn’t sure how to feel about this. On one hand, this sounded exactly like being used. But on the other, it was intoxicating being in with the cool kids! After Heather had mostly slept on the drive up and Ashley had pulled out a magazine, this was the first she’d really interacted with them and it felt kind of great. If being used was such a bad thing, Heather would never be so open about it, right? Besides, Zack had crushed on Hannah forever and Ashley was like a Hannah that he had a chance with, so this was basically helping him out anyway. It was like being a spy undercover!

Plus, Chloe could honestly use the practice having female friends. Her soccer team was great and all, but she didn’t really see those girls outside of the pitch or school. She was going to college on a partial athletic scholarship and wanted to have at least a couple close girlfriends. Zack and Gavin were great and all, but sometimes they were such boys.

“Yeah, yeah, of course! Um well, I think the most help I can provide is that you definitely have a shot. He was super excited you invited him out and he always does this stupid smile when he gets a text from you. It’s kind of annoying when we’re playing a game and he pauses to message you back right away, haha,” Chloe nervously chuckled, hoping she was gossiping right.

“Okay see, yes!” Heather ran over and tackled Ashley onto the bed and started tickling her, “I fucking told you! Alright, now that we know, you can play it a little cool and let him come to you.”

Chloe didn’t think this was a great idea, since Zack was hopelessly hesitant to approach women romantically, but she’d also never even kissed a boy, whereas even she knew that Heather had slept with half the football team and a bunch of college boys. She also didn’t want to jeopardize this new friendship, so she kept quiet.

Ashley laughed as she was tickled before throwing Heather off. “Sorry Chloe, we jumped right to my stupid crush, which, that is very helpful, thank you. I was just going to touch up my face before we hit the beach, but you can have at the mirror if you want to go first.”

“I, uh, don’t own any make-up.” Chloe blushed, worried this budding friendship was about to hit the rocks before it left the harbour.

“Those are your real eyelashes? Fuck me, you’re pretty,” Heather whistled.

“Yeah, I uh, grew them myself, I guess,” Chloe offered shyly.

“What about prom? You went right?” Ashley asked

“Yeah, my mom got me a stylist to do it. They asked if I wanted to buy any products, but it was all so intimidating and at the end, I didn’t even look like myself.”

“Haha, yeah I haven’t looked like myself in public for at least four years, especially at prom!” Ashley chuckled. “Still, I know what you mean, and Heather’s right, you are pretty. If you’d like, can I take a very subtle crack at your face? That “no make-up” look? Look, this is a sunscreen, but it gives you a glowy complexion. We’re going to need sun protection anyway.”

With that, Chloe sat down in front of the mirror and the two other girls delicately fussed over her. It was… nice, Chloe had to admit. And despite some trepidation along the way, when they were done, Chloe really liked the way she looked.

*************

With the girls taking a surprisingly long time to unpack and Gavin desperately trying to find Wi-Fi, Zack was stuck stocking the fridge with Kurt.

“So, Zacky boy, what’s your plan here?”

“Uh, put the sausages, vegetables, and drinks in the fridge. Hamburgers in the—”

“Yeah, not talking about the food, shitbrains. Make sure you leave the ground beef out to thaw though, we’re having nachos tomorrow,” Kurt rolled his eyes. “No, I mean which one are you gonna be fucking? The decent looking redhead you brought, I’m guessing?”

“Uh, Chloe and I grew up together. She’s my friend, that’s it.”

“My cousin, then?”

“Uh, Heather is great, but I’m actually pretty close to something with Ashley…” Zack’s voice trailed off.

“Oh, you’re in a relationship?”

“No.”

“You’ve gone on a couple dates?”

“No.”

“A date?”

“No.”

“I get it, I’m not much of the dating type myself, more about the fucking. You guys are fucking, right?”

“What? No!”

“Okay, but you’ve fucked before? Gotten a blowy, a little under the pants handsy, gone down on her?”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I don’t think I need to tell you shit.” Zack was furious, but he’d never had someone be so forthright with him and the questions were coming so quickly.

“No, I get it, you guys make out at parties.” Kurt paused to read Zack’s face and quickly caught the way his cheeks flushed. “Jesus Christ, you haven’t even kissed yet, have you?”

“We go way back and we’ve been texting a lot, alright? And, and she invited me out here, that’s not nothing!” Zack was slowly recovering his tongue, not yet realizing how the older boy had him on the back foot.

“Yeah, sorry dude, she’s up for grabs. I’m not gonna fuck my cousin and your friend Chloe seems cute, but ol’ Ash is a certified ten outta ten. Good luck and may the best man win and all. I usually do.”

At that, Gavin rounded the corner. “Fuuuuuuuck, Heather was right,” he moaned, “there’s no Wi-Fi here.”

This was enough to get Zack fully back to his senses, filing away the conversation with Kurt for later. “Yeah man, we told you before we left. Weird that you didn’t believe me.”

“I believed you, I was just hoping I could find a signal,” Gavin replied.

“Well man, that’s honestly for the best. Come on, it’s July and you look like a fucking ghost. Let’s go get some sun,” Kurt interjected.