No mom who just was there, 'cause mom was all that she had to be

Dani was still **** to trust the sauna, given her initial experience with the spa way back when she’d first come here on her “date” with Nick in the first round. But she only hesitated a little. While she definitely didn’t trust Dakota, she knew that the cold-hearted woman wouldn’t overtly lie about something like this. So if she was promised a consequence-free spa day, she could be fairly confident that was what she would get.

More notably though was that Vivian also seemed a little nervous. She did a very good job of hiding it; so well that Dani couldn’t actually say for sure if what she was seeing was real, or if she was just guessing.

But she took her shot anyway.

“Sorry we had to get out of the water so suddenly,” Dani said, making the towel-covered heiress jerk her head up in surprise. That was one of the signs to Dani that something was up with Vivian- she wasn’t attempting to make any small talk.

“What? Oh, no, it’s no big deal, don’t worry about it!” Vivian waved her hand dismissively and **** a smile to her lips. “It’s just, you know, one of those things… really, not worth complaining about at all! We’ve got all day to use the hot springs, better to leave things to those two, so they can get a little closer, you know?”

The wide grin on the heiress’s face could almost be called convincing. But Dani didn’t buy it.

“…Right,” Dani murmured, scratching her cheek, eyeing Vivian carefully. “Sure thing.” She didn’t want to push the subject if Vivian was determined to treat it as not a big deal. It wasn’t her place to pry into Vivian’s problems, after all. She was just here as a friend. To support Vivian and let her know there was someone on her side, someone who cared about her and wanted to be there for her.

Apparently Vivian appreciated that, because once she started talking Dani wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to stop.

“And anyway,” the heiress continued, “saunas are really good for exfoliation! I’ve got to keep up my beauty regiment, you realize! And the last time I was here, I got a little… hot under the collar, if you know what I mean!”

She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively and Dani made a face.

“Yeah… I went through that myself,” she said, shaking her head distastefully. “Only it wasn’t with Kim, I got caught in here with Nick.”

Vivian froze, and her eyes widened in surprise. Her cheeks turned a little pinker and Dani was pretty sure it wasn’t from the steam. “With… with Nick? You? Well, gee, that’s… I’m sorry, Dani, that must have been pretty rough.”

Empathy for another person? And who said Vivian was a cold-hearted rich girl who only cared about herself?

“We didn’t know what the spa could do at the time,” Dani said with a shrug. “It was our first week here. Sylvia- this was back when she was the host- had us all arrange for dates with Nick, me included. I thought a nice workout followed by a spa day would be fun, casual, and platonic. Then, well…”

“Yeah, I get it,” Vivian said, nodding sympathetically. She remembered what it was like to be under the effects of the sauna, and it wasn’t at all a pleasant sensation. “But… you’re better now, right?” She asked hopefully. “You and Nick are cool? Even after something so embarrassing?”

There was a tinge of desperation in her voice, a high-pitched squeak that could maybe be attributed to the steam and sweat, but Dani sensed otherwise. “…If you’re worried about Nick holding a grudge, then… don’t worry, he’ll get over the mess you made of his date soon enough,” Dani assured the flustered heiress. “He just needs some time and space.”

Dani knew Nick pretty well, and she had a good grasp on Vivian, too. The heiress could be troublesome but she was fundamentally a good person. Dani doubted that Nick would hold a grudge against her for very long.

But it looked like Vivian was concerned about something else. “Yeah… r-right, our… our date… well, that’s good at least…”

Dani frowned. “…Is something else bothering you, then?” She asked, wondering what could cause her roommate to make a face like that.

Vivian winced.

“It’s… no, it’s nothing… really…” she mumbled, shaking her head. An obvious lie if Dani ever saw one. And Dani really didn’t like liars.

“Vivian, it’s just the two of us here,” she pointed out. “I’m your friend. If you can’t trust someone who brought you on a free spa day, who can you trust?”

She tried to make it sound like a joke, but even her laugh came out stilted and awkward. Vivian raised her head and smiled a smile that was an attempt at gratitude, but it just made Dani feel even more self-conscious about everything. The tomboy looked down, her face burning with shame.

“Vivian-”

“You want to know what’s really bothering me?”

Dani’s head snapped up and she looked across the steamy room at Vivian, who was boring holes into her with her eyes. Normally the heiress looked pretty laid-back and her eyes reflected that, sparkling with mirth and a general joviality that Dani envied sometimes. But right now there was a depth to them that left the tomboy feeling uncomfortable.

Almost like she was daring Dani to go further, while at the same time warning her off. It left Dani feeling very at odds with what to do.

She bit her lip warily.

“Vivian…”

“No, it’s fine.” Vivian shook her head, maintaining her deep gaze into Dani’s eyes. “Do you really want to know what’s up with me?”

“…Do you want to tell me?” Dani gently asked back. That was the crux of the issue. Dani didn’t want to pry into her roommate’s problems. Not until Vivian was ready to share that part of herself, anyway.

And it really didn’t seem like she was ready for that, given the awkward way she shifted on the bench, and the fact that her gaze finally broke from Dani’s for a second before she looked back at her.

Then she smiled from ear to ear.

“It’s alright, really! I’m totally fine!” Vivian said. “Just trying some small talk, since the two of us don’t have a lot in common. But I guess I should know better than to try and bond over a guy, you know? Not the best shared experience…”

Dani scowled. Sighing, she rose to her feet, rubbing the soaked feathers on her wrists, and walked across the sauna. Vivian looked at her, stunned, not responding until Dani plopped herself right next to the heiress and turned to look her in the eyes again.

It almost made Vivian pull away. Dani was counting on the heiress’s stubbornness and intention to pretend that everything was okay to stop it. And it worked well enough. Vivian looked warily at her and chewed on her lip, clearly on edge.

“Dani-”

“You can drop the act, Vivian,” Dani said. “For a second there, I almost believed you that you were behaving so nervous because of your date. But that’s not it, is it? That’s not why you freaked out so much earlier.”

Vivian’s eyes blinked furiously and she **** another smile. “What- what do you mean?” She asked innocently. “You know it’s tough for me to admit stuff like that, Dani. What, the whole… you know, date thing. That was hard on me!”

“I know it was,” Dani said. She remembered how lost Vivian had looked in the wake of her disaster of a date with Nick. Even several days later and she still hadn’t completely returned to her normal self. She was still hesitant in a lot of ways. But these last few minutes in the sauna had helped Dani realize that what Vivian was dealing with… it wasn’t the problem.

At least, not the only problem.

Vivian shifted again, trying to scoot a little bit further from Dani without intentionally showing her that was what she was doing. Dani let her believe she was fooled.

No, the truth was, Dani should have picked up on something being wrong when Vivian used her New Style transformation to suddenly clothe herself in a bathing suit.

“That was the first time Nick saw you completely naked, wasn’t it?” Dani asked, and the heiress physically shuddered so hard it was as if they were in an ice box together and not a sauna.

It was a remarkable feat of physical pigmentation that Vivian’s face could turn pale in the sweltering heat of the steam room. But Dani was pretty sure she saw exactly that. The heiress had a haunted expression on her face as she tried to **** herself to smile, and Dani could see the wheels in her head turning as she tried to come up with some lie or way to dodge the question.

Dani didn’t let her.

“Before you say anything, just know I can see what’s written on your hand,” Dani reminded her, tapping her own feathered hand for confirmation. Vivian’s eyes shot down to see the number “73” emblazoned on her hand.

“That, I-”

“Seeing a full body naked is worth 5 VP,” Dani recalled. “If Nick sees your breasts first, that’s 2 VP, then another 3 VP when he sees the whole thing. Does that sound about right?”

“Uhm, uhuh…” Vivian jerked her head up and down like a mannequin dancing on a string, and the stunned expression on her face told Dani that if the heiress’s shields weren’t yet down, at least they’d been dented.

She softened her expression, reached out, and placed her hand over Vivian’s. She felt the heiress tremble beneath her fingers.

“I heard your scream,” she said gently. “You weren’t expecting that. Neither was I. But… that’s probably not how you wanted it to happen, right? Nick seeing you like that.”

Dani could sympathize.

Not waiting for Vivian to give an answer, she continued, “I’ve been there myself, actually.” Dani shook her head and sighed. “Thanks to one of my transformations, I don’t care if Nick sees me naked anymore. But he’s still considerate of me, because he knows how I used to feel about it… he’s a really sweet guy, you know?”

She looked wistfully around the steam room and sighed again. “…Actually, the first time he saw me naked, it was right here. And that time, I didn’t have my Just One of the Guys transformation.”

Vivian’s eyes bulged in surprise as she processed that new information. Seeing the understanding dawn on her face, Dani nodded in confirmation.

“Yeah, it’s exactly what you’re thinking,” she grumbled. “We both got really heated from the sauna’s steam, and then we tripped, and fell, my towel dropped, and, well…’

She shrugged, not needing more words to explain what had transpired.

Vivian just looked at her with a mortified expression on her face. “Wow, that’s… that must have been rough for you, Dani.”

No jokes, no attempt to make light of the situation. For once, Vivian was genuinely empathizing with what Dani had gone through.

And Dani could see the look of understanding in her eyes.

“I know you’re trying to be this cool, free-spirited person who isn’t bothered by anything, Vivian,” Dani said gently. “And that’s-”

“Excuse me, I think I’ve proven that I’m quite free-spirited and cool,” Vivian huffed, retracting her hand and crossing her arms over her chest.

Dani gave her a wry look loaded with skepticism. But Vivian didn’t take the bait.

“…It’s okay to be embarrassed that someone saw you naked,” Dani said. Honestly, she was a little surprised that Vivian was so shaken by what had happened. To hear Carly talk about their night together in the Master’s Suite with Nick, you’d think that Vivian was quite open and sexually adventurous; if Dani hadn’t seen her points increase for herself she would have assumed that Nick had already seen Vivian in the buff quite some time ago.

But evidently she’d been saving that for a special occasion; and the whole thing was ruined now.

“…It’s not right for a young lady of my standing to tart around naked in front of a boy,” Vivian said, exaggerating her natural accent into something that sounded like a cheese grater being scraped beside Dani’s ears. “Anyone would be bothered.”

Dani stared at Vivian, not sure what to say in response to that. Did Vivian think she’d actually buy the whole “classy lady” act?

“…Come on, Vivian, don’t do that,” Dani said, shaking her head. “Don’t pretend like you’re upset because your delicate sensibilities were violated. Be honest. This isn’t about anything but your own feelings.”

The way the heiress flinched confirmed it.

“…Well what do you want me to say?” Vivian finally asked, looking down. A hiss of steam broke the uncomfortable silence that resulted, and she raised her head, gazing back into Dani’s eyes. “That I was embarrassed? I’ve been on magazine covers, you know. I show off my body for a living.”

“You’re independently a billionaire, right?” Dani pointed out. “You don’t have to model your own clothes. You do it because you like it.”

Vivian nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly my point!” She said with wide eyes. “So to presume that I’d be upset that a boy saw me naked-”

“Not any boy, though,” Dani interrupted her. “It was Nick.”

Vivian flinched. “…And that’s the worst part of it,” she muttered, a shadow crossing over her face. “I had it all planned out perfectly. Tempt him with the idea of my naked body, but not showing him what I had to offer until…”

A dejected grin slowly stretched across her lips as she raised her shoulders and let them drop with a resigned sigh. “But that plan’s been dashed now, innit? Haaah… it’s what I get for trying to be clever and dragging things out, I suppose.”

Dani scrunched up her face and stared suspiciously at her roommate, trying to sus out the sincerity of the heiress’s words. Was that really why she was so upset? Because her plans to slowly seduce Nick with the idea of her naked body had now been dashed since he’d already “seen the goods” as it were?

Admittedly, Vivian had no trouble prancing around naked in front of Dani back in their room. It wasn’t like she had an inordinate amount of modesty like Mary.

But as convincing a point as Vivian seemed to be making, Dani just felt like there was something more that she was holding back.

“…Well, maybe he didn’t get a good look,” she said quietly. “I mean, you were pretty far away from the door. And there was a lot of steam, since it was a hot spring. Almost as much as there is in here.”

Dani looked around the sauna, hardly able to make out any important details.

“So maybe-”

“I got VP for it,” Vivian reminded her, holding up her hand. She smiled a small smile and shook her head. “We both know that’s right out. But… thanks for trying to comfort me all the same.”

Dani sighed. Well, she’d tried her best.

…Hey, maybe that was something.

“…Maybe it’s for the best, him seeing you naked,” Dani proposed, earning her a look of shock from the heiress.

“H-huh!? For the best?” Vivian’s jaw dropped. “How exactly does THAT work?”

Dani shrugged. “Nick wants to get to know you as a person,” she reminded the flustered girl. “That’s the kind of guy he is. Tricks and teasing is a nice way to break the ice, but he’s not trying to fall in love with a mask. Now that you can’t tease him with your body since he’s already seen it, this is your opportunity to actually get to know him and show him your real self! You can seduce him as a person!”

Yeah, Dani was basically talking out of her ass right now. Nobody would actually buy what she was selling.

But that wasn’t the point.

Dani waited to see what Vivian’s response would be. And the frustrated expression on the heiress’s face didn’t disappoint.

“That’s… not it at all,” she muttered, her cheeks reddening. She shook her head. “You just don’t get it, Dani.”

“No, you’re right, I don’t,” Dani agreed, surprising Vivian with her admission. “Because it’s not really about the teasing, is it?”

“H-huh?” Vivian’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open. Once again, her face turned that strange color it made when the blood drained away at the same time the heat made it rush back. “What… I don’t get what-”

She loudly cleared her throat and masked with a smile. “…Not quite sure what you mean by that,” she chirped.

Just as Dani anticipated. The walls were back up.

So she’d have to tear them down.

Sorry, Vivian. If this didn’t work, the rest of the spa day would be pretty uncomfortable for both of them. But Dani had to try.

“Aren’t you just upset because Nick saw you naked?” Dani bluntly laid it out on the table. “It’s not because of any schemes or tricks or ploys, is it? Nick saw you naked and you weren’t prepared for it, so you got embarrassed. That’s why you screamed like that.”

Vivian looked like she wanted to disappear. Just for a moment. A fraction of a second. But as the smile quickly returned to her face, Dani knew that she had made it through the heiress’s defenses, and for an instant, she’d seen the truth.

“Come on, now, Dani, you’re right it’s a little embarrassing, but-”

“Have you ever had a guy see you naked before?” Dani asked suddenly, wondering if her suspicion about Vivian was correct.

Vivian’s eyes bulged in shock. “That-! …My, that’s quite a personal question,” Vivian deflected, meaning the answer was definitely a no.

“…But if you must know, yes.”

“Doctors don’t count.”

Dani had to admit, seeing Vivian getting thrown off her game like this was actually kind of enjoyable. She could understand why the heiress enjoyed teasing and trolling people just a little. Though clearly Vivian didn’t like it when the shoe was on the other foot.

As Vivian was stuck between fuming with embarrassment and trying to pretend like there was nothing to be embarrassed about in the first place, Dani reached out to her.

“It’s alright if you never have, I won’t think less of you for that,” Dani assured her. She actually thought it was kind of sweet. “You’re my friend, Vivian. And you may be some big model, a famous heiress, own your own continent or whatever it is you billionaires do, but… you’re still a human. It’s okay to react like a human sometimes. You don’t need to be perfect.”

For a second, Dani thought the other woman was going to cry. Vivian looked up at her with those soulful, deep brown eyes, and her lip quivered.

“…I don’t know what to do,” she finally confessed, sinking down until she was smaller than Dani had ever seen her before. “I just… don’t know what to do…”

Dani didn’t know what to do either, to be honest. So lacking any better ideas she reached out and patted Vivian awkwardly on the shoulder, hoping at least it would help the heiress feel a little bit better.