By The Beach ✔

Part 24. Victoria's Not-So-Secret

VICTORIAS SECRET. NOW I KNEW WHY SHE wanted to keep it a secret.

Walking through the underwear aisle had me blushing like a teen buying her first bra, I remember that I used to throw my bras and underwear into the shopping cart my mother would be at and take off running hearing her laugh behind me; I wonder when I will come out of the uncomfortableness of this like I did buy Tampons?

Dinah was a couple of feet ahead of me, she held up a cheetah print pair of panties and grinned "Sawyer seems like a cheetah type" she told me, a woman beside me raised an eyebrow making me blush harder and march towards Dini.

I grabbed the cheetah print she was holding and threw them up on the rack with the rest of the animal underwear.

"I am not buying cheetah print panties to impress a man."

She then started to look at a thong "Hm. Your right, maybe this is better."

"Dinah!"

She started laughing, "Lighten up, Lil. I am just teasing you," she said making me growl and cross my arms, she jerked her thumb behind us as lacy ones. "You heard what he said, he is a lacy kind of man. Now I will leave it up to you if you get new underwear or if you wear those granny panties for the rest of your life."

Dinah then turned on her heel and walked away causing me to roll my eyes. Maybe I like wearing my granny panties, I thought as I stared at the underwear for a moment. That little voice in the back of my head kept nagging at me about it, funny, it sounded a lot like Dinah.

I stomped my foot and grabbed a pair of red lacy panties before hurrying to the check out counter and slapping my card down, I looked up at the woman and shrugged "Please tell me your bags aren't see through" I said.

She laughed, "If you want a matching bra, those are buy-one-get-one fifty percent off," she told me, motioning to racks holding boulder holders. I made a face as I looked at the woman and the racks of bras.

I marched over to them, found one in my size which was a matching red, and handed it to her as she rang up the sale.

Damn the buy one get one for so much, shit.

As I was paying, I heard a ruckus behind me, I turned and saw Dinah fighting a woman over a push-up bra. When I sent her a disproving look she yelled: "It's the last white one!"

My only reply was: "I don't see why you need white!" Then I walked out of Victorias Secret to wait on Dini to finish fighting the woman over a bra.

She lost.

She had to buy a pink one, which she bitched about as we ate ice cream outside an ice cream parlor at a picnic table.

I scooped up a spoonful of strawberry ice cream out of my bowl while Dinah tried to eat her chocolate-dipped ice cream cone, I sighed as I looked out at the people walking in the sun.

"I wish this was my everyday life. No college, no worries."

She nodded her head as she reached for the coke we were sharing in a big foam cup "Hakuna Matata" she mumbled around a mouth full of ice cream then put a hand to her head wide-eyed "Brain freezer!"

I laughed as she beat her hand on the table causing glances from the other people around us, I put my hand to my mouth to keep from continuing to laugh as she had a fit.

Yeah, this was the life.

Dinah glared at me as her brain freeze calmed down "I hate brain freezers." Instead of 'brain freeze' growing up we could only get out 'brain freezer's as kids. It is one of our words that we laugh at and everyone gets confused by.

"What are you going to do tonight?" I asked as I stole the drink away from her, she shrugged and looked at her ice cream cone.

"I don't know. Probably just lay around and be lazy," she said, looking at her phone, I raised an eyebrow in confusion, and when she looked up and saw my face she was confused herself "What?"

"You? Lay around on a night instead of going to a bar to dance with some guy that would wind up with your bra on his doorknob?" She almost choked on her ice cream when I said it, I nodded my head "Who are you and what have you done to my cousin?"

Dinah rolled her eyes at me and shot me a middle finger, which I smacked down to the table before any kids could see it.

"I am tired of living life like a ... cheap whore, Lil. I am thinking about going back to plain old Dinah Patton who takes school seriously instead of being Dinah Patton the girl in every guy's bed."

Here is a short story about Dini.

Before twelfth grade, Dinah was an A-plus student who was looking at Yale or Harvard University. She went around wearing black-framed glasses, band, or comic shirts with jeans never took off her converse sneakers, and she was a virgin.

Yeah, I know, shocking that she was a virgin after hitting sixteen.

Anyway, Dinah got a really bad prank pulled on her by the teen popular girls and almost switched school. I tried to tell her that running away wouldn't solve any problems; she took my advice back then.

When the last year of school came around, Dinah was thin as a board, had long wavy brown hair, ditched the glasses for contacts, wore nice clothing that her mom had always tried to get her to wear before, and lost her virginity at prom.

Ever since then, Dinah has lived her life like that, went to college with me but not to pay attention to the work, more like to pay attention to the guys ... you get where I am going right? Good.

I guess that was why I was shocked to hear her say she was thinking about becoming the old her again instead of this one. And being perfectly honest, I miss the old Dinah every single day. She wasn't as, well ...

Pushy. Arrogant. Bitchy. And trying to meddle in my love life. The list could go on but because she is my cousin I will stop for now.

After finishing up at the ice cream parlor, we headed back to the hotel. We dumped our bags on the beds and sighed before sitting down. When I looked at the clock I realized it was getting close to Sawyer Time- I mean Pizza Time.

Yeah, Pizza time.

I shook my head and stood up to grab clothes, Dinah was glancing at the bag. I gave her a look and reached for my tan T-shirt-bra and regular undies.

"No. We are just two people casually eating pizza in his room" I told her as she rolled her eyes and grabbed the room service menu, I gave her a look as I snatched up a Batman shirt and started for the bathroom.

I closed the door behind me and started to change when she called: "I am going to see if Doug wants to spend some sibling bonding time!"

"Don't get in trouble!" I called back as I heard the door slam, I looked in the mirror at myself.

I was tanning a little bit now because of being out in the sun, my hair looked like it had soaked in sun thanks to the sun-in stuff Dini put on my hair, my face showed laugh lines just a little.

That was when I realized something.

I have been around Will for years and laugh lines never showed up on my face, yet here I am around Sawyer for the last week and here they are on my face. I reached my hand up and touched my face, a slight smile forming.

Dini complained about these all the time, I never got to. Was I being truly happy around Sawyer? I think it was possible that I liked it. Liked him. Maybe I should ... my eyes wandered towards the door handle.

Aw, screw it.

I opened the bathroom door and stormed out to the bed where I had set my bags at, I opened them up and got out the bra and panties I bought at Victorias Secret along with a new shirt and shorts Dini made me get.

What the hell? Might as well enjoy this while it lasted ... right?

(Question of the day: Your Favorite Summer Read?)