In the crack of dawn, I'm awoken from my slumber both by the sound of loud birds singing merrily outside my window as well as the annoying knocking on the door of the cabin. When my eyes flutter open, they burn from the sliver of light sneaking in through the blinds.
Did I not close them before going to bed? With an irritable groan ringing in the back of my throat, I vigorously rub a hand up and down my face and then I quickly turn over, covering myself with the blanket. The darkness provides me with some form of relief from the bright glare of the sun.
When Edward and Damien's muffled shouting comes through the door of our cabin, I mentally cuss them out for being so annoying. What the hell are they doing? It's way too early for this kind of shit.
When my door creeks open, I hear Dominic's unimpressed tone as he says, "Please get rid of your annoying friends, Seong Jin."
"Why don't you tell them to leave?" I muse, my voice gritty from having just woken up.
When he doesn't respond, I turn around to face him, blinking against the bright glare of the sunlight. He's peeking his head in through the door and when he pushes said door open fully, I immediately notice how put together he looks.
He definitely didn't just wake up like me. It's no surprise there. Dominic does give off the persona of an early bird. I wouldn't be shocked to find out that he woke up a couple of hours ago. When my idiotic friends keep yelling my name, he crosses his arms over his chest and stares at me flatly.
With a loud sigh heaving from my chest, I irritably push the covers off my body and hop out of bed into my goat slippers. I don't miss the humour shining in Dominic's dark browns when I slip past him to aggressively pull the cabin door open. With venomous daggers burning harshly in my eyes, I glower at both my friends as they innocently grin at me.
Can I even call them friends after such an audacious stunt? Do they not know to never mess with a man's sleep?
"What?" I demand in a no-nonsense tone.
"Taylor is going to sneak us into the lodge," Edward is the first to speak through my scornful gaze. "Do you wanna come with us?"
Before I can ask why, Damien cuts in to say, "They have a jacuzzi and not just some small thing but like a whole arse hot tub. Why did Dominic not mention that, by the way, because I would've snatched that shit up faster than you could say jacuzzi."
"He probably wanted to make sure he ended up alone with Seong Jin in a cabin."
"Oh, you're right. What did you two do all night anyway?" Damien questions me, but then he backtracks and says, "Actually, I take that back. I don't want to know what you two did all night."
"That's kind of homophobic, isn't it?" Edward muses out loud.
"Is it? I don't think not wanting to hear about how my friend got dicked down by some guy is homophobic."
Before I can reprimand them for assuming that I got dicked down by some guy, Dominic appears behind me and warningly says, "Both of you, shut the fuck up."
Sheepishly, they smile at him over my shoulder and when I glance over him too, his gaze meets mine for a second until his eyes awkwardly flicker away and he rushes back into the cabin, leaving with a comment about making us breakfast under his breath.
"Anyway," Edward drawls out after quirking his brows up, "are you coming to the jacuzzi with us?"
"I don't know, guys," I respond uncertainly scratching my arm. "Doesn't it seem a bit creepy of us, sneaking into the girl's lodge without their knowledge?"
"No, because Taylor's in on it," Edward says and beside him, Damien bobs his head up and down in agreement.
Why does it matter that Taylor is in on it?
"Besides, it's not like we're sneaking in to do some weird shit. Everyone here is either in a committed relationship with someone else or uninterested in tits."
After he has broken that down for me, sneaking into the lodge doesn't seem like such a bad idea anymore. So, after agreeing to join them, I run back into my room to retrieve a towel and change into the shorts I hung out to dry after saving a certain someone from drowning yesterday.
I jog back to the door and when Dominic asks me what about breakfast, I hurriedly tell him that I don't tend to eat breakfast after dinner. Then I shut the door and together with Damien and Edward, we walk in the direction of the lodge.
When Taylor opens the door after receiving a text from Edward, she warningly places her index finger on her mouth and quickly waves us in. Damien, behind his palm, giggles like a little girl and the three of us urgently hush him with our eyes narrowed irately.
Once submerged within the steaming, bubbling jacuzzi in a part of the lodge that is in the far corner and hopefully, far away enough that we can speak without waking anyone up, Taylor whispers that we have about an hour before the girls start waking up.
She even sets a timer on her phone just in case we forget ourselves. Then after she has quietly shut the sliding door, I find my eyes fluttering shut as I relax in the warm water, the sound of it bubbling against my skin massaging my ears.
This is nice.
I can see why Damien and Edward wanted to sneak in here.
"Wait," I open my eyes to look at them in confusion and I muse, "Why did we need to sneak in here? Couldn't we have just asked them to use the jacuzzi?"
"No, we already tried that," Edward responds.
"Savannah said she doesn't want the scent of male in her space. Whatever the fuck that means. Why did you invite her on this trip, by the way?"
"Yeah, I thought you hated her."
"I did not invite Savannah. What do you take me for?" I narrow my eyes at them, offended that they think I would do such an unimaginable thing. "Dominic invited her. Well, he didn't invite her. He invited Jodie who invited Savannah."
"Why did he invite Jodie? Aren't they broken up?"
"I don't know. They seem pretty close still."
"Mate, don't say that in front of Seong Jin," Damien chastises, nudging Edward. "You're gonna break his heart. He has feelings for him, remember?"
"No, he has a point," I say as nonchalantly as possible, wearing a blank look on my face to feign indifference on my expression as well. "They do seem pretty close for being exes."
"Well, I mean, can you really blame him?" Edward muses, sinking down into the water with his eyes closing in relaxation.
Curiously, I ask, "What do you mean?"
"You have been spending all your time with Kai. Even when we went canoeing yesterday, you two went off to do your own thing together."
"Yeah, I'm not surprised Dominic's putting his focus on Jodie. I would too if the person I liked seemed more interested in another guy."
"Okay, so am I not allowed to have friends?"
"Seong Jin, I'm your friend. Damien's your friend." Edward ends by adamantly stating and beside him, Damien nods in agreement, "Kai is definitely not your friend. Don't think we haven't noticed how you both look at each other or how you smile at him."
"I don't know what you're on about. Besides, I didn't come here to be badgered. I'm here to relax in a jacuzzi with my two pals."
"Oh, Seong Jin," Damien suddenly exclaims, and an excitement stains his face when I furrow my eyebrows in question, silently conveying to him that I'm paying attention, "I want to sleep on the beach all day because I'm lay-sea."
I burst out chuckling, having to palm my mouth to prevent myself from being too loud lest I wake the girls up and Savannah discovers male in the jacuzzi she claimed.
"Oh, my days. That was so bad," Edward mutters under his breath, shaking his head with his face scrunched up in distaste.
"Oh, I have more like that. What do you say when you want to spend your time hanging at the beach while you work remotely?" He pauses, building up the anticipation. "Seas the day."
Again, I uncontrollably guffaw in laughter.
"Please stop," Edward pleads while venomously staring daggers at Damien who smirks in amusement and again, I chortle behind my hand.