Not who you expected

The door swung open from the other side, which kinda defeated the point of knocking if they were about to open the door anyways. Lo and behold, it was Paige.

"Um, hi?" I said, a bit confused.

"Oh, hey, what're you up to?" Paige asked, a bit too calmly for my liking.

"Uh, leaving my room to go watch whatever they're watching upstairs," I answered, gesturing to the lights turned off in the room.

"Ah," she said, making a slight frown. "Can we talk?"

"Sure, I guess," I answered.

As she entered my room, she immediately sat down on the bed. I gave a sign of acceptance, knowing that she would probably be there for awhile if she was sitting down. I sat down next to her on the bed.

"Why did you just bring us 9 gals along?" she started with, getting to the big items first. "I've known you for years, and I know you don't have any ulterior motives. Plus, you have Becca here as well. But why didn't you take any of your guy friends along, like Michael or Linus?"

"I actually did try to bring Michael and Linus," I said. "I talked to them and they both cancelled at just about the last minutes a few days ago. I was also going to bring Chris too, but given the animosity between him and Mary right now, it's probably a good thing that he dropped out too".

"It's just kinda weird", Paige said. "Like, how often do you see a group of 10 on vacation where they're all girls except for one guy?"

"Not very often", I admitted. "That doesn't mean that it's weird though. I'm just done with college now, and I figured I'd treat y'all to a nice trip to the beach before I have to enter the workforce".

"I just wanted to warn you. There are a few people here who think you might have some other motives. Tread lightly around some of the more hard-headed people. They may not share in your sentiments, and might try to get time with you alone."

"Just like you?" I said, poking fun at her.

"Shut up!" she said, physically poking me.

"Anyways, thanks for the warning," I said, going back into serious mode. "I appreciate it. I don't really think about these sorts of things that much, I was just planning on having a good summer with y'all here in the beach."

"Hey, anytime," Paige said, turning serious again as well. "If you ever need someone to talk to, whether it be about this or anything else, don't be shy to let me know. I know you have Becca and all that, but I'm available to talk too."

With that, she got up and left. After she left, I thought about who she might be referring to, when she said "some of the more hard-headed people". I knew for a fact she was at least talking about Mary, but it was possible that she was talking about some other people such as Emily, Kylie, and Grace.

As I was pondering, my door swung open again, and this time, it wasn't Paige, but it was Mary.