In the morning after our shower, I sit on the bed in my underwear and a t-shirt as Josie holds me in her arms and rests her chin on my shoulder. I turn my phone on and see a few texts from Sage.

‘I’m bored.’

‘Doing anything tomorrow?’

‘Hello!?’

‘Are you ignoring me?’

‘Kat?’

“Sage wants to know what I’m doing,” I say.

“Tell her you’re busy.”

“Did she ask you too?”

“Yeah, and I blew her off.”

I respond,

‘Sorry, busy this weekend. My parents dragged me along to this lame conference.’

Josie kisses my cheek and I smile and turn my head to peck her on the lips.

‘Lame.’ Sage responds.

My phone starts ringing, it’s Carson.

“Hello?” I answer.

Josie pouts and pulls me closer.

“Hey, good morning. Didn’t hear from you last night. Just wanted to see if you want to hang out today.”

“Yeah sorry, my phone died last night. Lost my charger.” I lie.

“Happens to the best of us.”

Josie kisses me on the neck, softly at first before she starts giving me a hickey.

I sigh in pleasure.

“Anyway, wanna hang out?” he asks after a long pause in silence.

“I uh… emm, I can’t.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry, I’m super behind on my school work.”

“Well, maybe I can come over and help.”

“No, it’s okay. I focus better when I’m alone.”

“But… I see Josie’s car is still at your house.”

“Yeah, she spent the night. It’s actually a school project we are working on together.”

Josie smiles at my lie.

I elbow her.

She giggles.

“Anyway, I should probably get to work we sort of procrastinated yesterday. See you tomorrow at school okay?” I say.

“Okay,” he sounds disappointed.

With that, I hang up.

“Could you not turn me on when I’m trying to have a conversation with my boyfriend?” I turn to Josie.

“Break up with him already, he’s a loser. You can do way better than him.”

“I think I already did better, last night.” I tease.

“Damn right you did, but we can make it official. You and me. Together, out in public. Out to the world.”

My heart skips a beat at that.

“What’s the rush, maybe I just want you all to myself.” I turn in her arms to face her.

“Do you now?”

“What can I say, I don’t like to share.” I tease before kissing her.

She moans into my mouth.

“Let’s go do something fun today,” Josie whispers against my lips.

“Like what?”

“Who the hell knows, get dressed.” She pecks me on the lips.

“But I just want to cuddle you,” I pout.

“Cuddles later, come on.” She pushes me off.

I sigh.

We get dressed and go on a little road trip to nowhere in particular. We just drive with music blaring and the sunroof down. Wearing our sunglasses and letting our hair go wild. Well, my hair and the little hair Josie has left.

We stop at some random hotdog place for lunch.

“Now what?” I say around a chili dog.

“Beats me,” she shrugs.

I sigh.

She frowns.

Just then the sound of loud music greeted our ears. We both looked at each other. Then turned around to the large hotel behind the hotdog place. There is some private party and event going on. We looked back at each other and smirked.

After we finished our food we left our car at the hot dog place and walked over to the hotel. Bouncers waited by the front door.

“We have to find another way,” Josie said.

“Maybe by the pool?” I say.

She nods.

So we walk around to the pool area which is packed tight with people. A stage with a DJ, a bar, lots of people horsing around. It was a real party alright. But there were bouncers by the pool entrance too.

“Now what?” I said.

“Hmm,” she looked around for an answer.

I watched as a towel lady walked into a maintenance-only entrance with a cart of dirty towels. There were two more carts waiting to be rolled in.

“Josie,” I grabbed her arm.

“What?”

“I know how we are going to get in,” I said.

Which is how we wound up hiding in a cart of chlorine coated towels.

It wasn’t long before some guy wheeled us inside, complaining about how heavy we were. Once inside I waited until he walked away before poking my head out. We were in some kind of laundry room. I could see the previous lady loading up the washers. She walked over to the supply closet to get more soap.

“Come on,” I whisper to Josie before I carefully get out.

She does the same and we sneak over to the exit and find ourselves in some hidden maintenance-only hall. We walk over to the elevator and press the button.

“This is wild,” Josie laughs.

“Shh!” I giggle.

We step inside and let it take us to the ground floor. Once there we just casually walk to the pool. No one stops us or says anything.

“Too bad we don’t have swimsuits,” Josie sighs.

“Yeah,” I frown.

There is even a waterslide and everything. It looks super fun.

“Come on,” Josie pulls me over to the stage.

She grabs my arms and forces me to do a silly dance with her as the rasta music plays out. A waitress passes by with a tray of drinks and Josie snags us some.

“You’re driving,” I say before taking a sip.

“I drove us here, you drive back.” She pouts.

“No way, I’ll get lost. You have to drive.”

“Ugh!” she sips her drink slowly.

As I am drinking it, I notice the hotel has a little convince shop attached to it. Swimsuits displayed on the window.

“Emm!” I say around a mouth full of drink before I point.

She turns.

“We can get a swimsuit,” I say.

“How much cash you got?” she asked.

“I have my parent's emergency credit card.”

She smirks.

So we skip over to the shop and start browsing. I settle on something simple, just a blue and white striped bikini. Josie gets something a little spicier. A bikini that shows off a lot of her body, it’s black with skulls on it.

We quickly change and put our clothes in a bag and tuck that bag away on the pool deck by an empty table.

“Shoot, I got to wash my makeup off,” I say.

“Not me, waterproof today baby.” She wiggles her eyebrows.

“My foundation isn’t,” I sigh.

So I go to the bathroom and wash my face off before rejoining Josie back by the table.

“Look,” she points.

I see some people playing with boogie boards and pool noodles. While someone stands on the board, another person holds it steady. The two people standing battle it out with the noodles.

There is a line.

“Let’s do the slide first,” I say.

So we run over to the slide and wait our turn before splashing down.

“This is so fun!” Josie laughs before splashing me in the face.

“Hey!” I tackle her into the water.

She laughs and body slams me into the water.

It’s not long before she has me pinned up against the pool wall.

I look up into her eyes before kissing her.

She smiles into the kiss and kisses me back.

“This is perfect,” she says against my lips.

“Took the words out of my mouth.” I hold her by her hips.

“Let's go tan for a little bit, then boogie board and then music.” She says.

“Sounds good to me.”

So we go lay out in the sun and drink a little as the waitress brings us drinks.

As the sun goes down we wait in line for our chance on the boogie boards. There is a whole group of guys there that look strangely familiar. I don’t put my finger on it until it’s too late though. When Josie and I did finally get our turn and the guys made comments about our hot asses, it hits me.

But before I can say anything,

“Cannonball!”

“Wha!” we go flying off the boards and into the water.

When I come up for air I lock eyes with Bryson who just finished shaking the water from his hair.

Damn, even though he’s an evil prick. He is hot, I’ll give him that. Why is it always the hot guys that turn out to be evil pricks?

“Hey, you okay?” Josie swims over to me.

“Josie we should,”

“Kitty Kat, that you?”

“Oh no,” I groan.

“It is! Didn’t expect to see you here.” He swims over to me.

“Josie let’s go,” I pull on her arm.

“And you brought your secret girlfriend too,” he teases.

“No, she’s not my girlfriend,” I deny.

“Dude we saw you two making out over there earlier,” one of Bryson’s dude-bros say.

I cringe.

“Uh oh, caught red-handed.” Bryson teases.

“Back off,” Josie snarks.

“Hey, this is my party. Well, my dad’s friend's party, but the point is I was invited. You guys weren’t. Party crashers get bounced.”

“We were just leaving, come on Josie,” I pull on her arm.

“No way, we are staying. You want to bounce me, go ahead and try. You and I both know who has the bigger balls here.” Josie puffs up to him.

“Tsk,” he glares at her.

“Josie let’s go,” I plead.

“He can’t do anything to us, Kat. Let him whine all he wants. We don’t have to be afraid of him.”

“Josie!” I pull harder.

“Fine stay, do what you want. We won’t bother you, right guys?” Bryson says.

They all agree.

I stare at them in worry.

Bryson isn’t the kind of guy to let things go.

“Come on Kat,” Josie pulls me out of the pool.

“We should go,” I say as we drip dry.

Just to spite him Josie kisses me right in direct view of Bryson. I pull away and glare at her.

“No! Not cool!” I hiss.

“We are about to come out to everyone anyway, no big deal.” She says.

I get a sick feeling in my stomach. That’s a big step, a big big step that I don’t know if I want to take yet.

“I want to go home,” I complain.

Just then the DJ starts playing Josie’s favorite song.

“Oh! After this song, please, please, please.” She says.

“Fine,” I sigh as we walk away from the pool and over to the stage.

I drink another drink to calm my nerves, which was a bad call because I feel buzzed now. Must have lost count during the day.

Josie sings along at the top of her lungs and tries to get me to dance with her, but I just want to get the hell out of here now. The good feeling is definitely gone. Stupid Bryson and his hot abs always running everything.

“Come on Kat, forget about him. We were having such a moment earlier. Let’s get back to that.” Josie begs.

“I don’t know, I just want to leave now,” I say.

“You don’t have to worry about that douche bag,” she grabs my hands in her own. “I can handle him. Forget him and just enjoy the party, with me. Please.”

“But now he knows,” I say.

“What’s he gonna do? Tell his mommy?” she snorts in amusement.

“But—”

“He knows better than to try me. He won’t bother you anymore, I got your back, remember? Just relax, come back to me.” she pulls me closer.

I look down in worry, she lifts my chin and makes me meet her eyes.

“Trust me,” she says.

And though she can be crazy as hell sometimes, I’ve never not trusted Josie. So I take a deep breath and smile.

“You’re right, sorry,” I say.

She kisses me then, I deepen the kiss and wrap my arms around her. She pulls me closer by my waist. Soon one kissed turns to a steamy make-out session as she pushes me up against the fence by the stage.  

Something about doing something I know I shouldn’t be, just thrills me. About kissing my secret lover in front of my ex, about sneaking into a private party, about drinking when I know I shouldn’t. It just makes me feel wild.

No…

Wicked.