The two soccer captains and the girls dashed out of the house to the outdoor pool. Sarah dropped Elly’s mother’s jewelry into the crystal jewelry box. Elly had placed the jewelry box on the kitchen counter. She didn’t want the girls swimming in her mother’s diamonds — in case they lost one.Sarah could see the girls stripping off their borrowed clothes. They jumped into the pool in their sexy sleepwear. Sarah stepped out onto the pool deck. She dropped into a lounge chair. The boys had girls on their shoulders, playing a chicken fight. Elly was on Bent’s shoulders, fighting against Kimber who was on Dan’s. It was pretty funny to watch Elly try to keep a straight face. Kimber was practically pulling Elly’s hair to get her to fall off Bent. Dan was having a rough time holding up Kimber. She was wildly throwing her arms out to knock Elly into the water. But Bent didn’t seem at all affected by Elly’s weight on his shoulders. While Dan was just as muscular as Bent, it seemed Bent was actually stronger than Dan. Kimber and Elly were, in fact, almost the same body size. Sarah felt her eyelids grow heavy. She tried to keep herself awake. But she must have fallen asleep in the chair. When she awoke, it was early Saturday morning. Someone had thrown a comforter over her. And, she noticed, tucked a feather-down pillow under her head. As she got up off the lounge chair, she saw another blanket was folded on the ground beside her chair. Stretching her arms, she quickly walked across the grass to the guest house.The other girls’ bags were scattered around the room. She could hear a few of them snoring softly from the two rooms down the hall. The bathroom door opened as Sarah collected her things, having changed out of Elly’s mother’s clothes and back into her own. She frowned at her broken phone. She’d have to get that fixed today.Dalia strolled into the small living room. She had a green robe wrapped around her little body. “Oh, you’re awake, Sarah. It’s still early. The others probably won’t be up for another couple of hours.” Sarah threw her overnight bag over her shoulder. “Yeah, I might head on home. I fell asleep on the lounge chair. So my back sort of hurts.” Her back didn’t really hurt. She just wanted an excuse to leave. “Oh, that’s right,” Dalia said. She rummaged through her purse for her toothbrush. “It was so sweet. Bent noticed you’d fallen asleep in the chair. He ran and got you a blanket and pillow. And then…” Dalia started to laugh now. “…then he insisted on sleeping on the ground next to you! He didn’t want you to be scared if you woke up in the dark all alone.” Dalia looked at Sarah with a dreamy-eyed expression. Sarah now realized the folded blanket on the ground must have been where Bent slept. A warm, fuzzy feeling tickled her heart at the thought. “You should have seen Elly’s face when Bent told us he was going to do that,” Dalia said. “A word of warning. Elly might be kind of mad at you. I mean, technically, Bent slept with you last night instead of Elly.”Sarah felt her mouth pull down into an awkward slant. Oooooh myyyy gawwwwd. Then she shrugged her shoulders. “Well, I’m sure Bent and Elly can hash that out on their own. I don’t want to get into the middle of it. And besides, there’s nothing going on between us.”Dalia found her toothpaste. She straightened, gazing at Sarah. “Well, you are really pretty, Sarah. I’m sure Bent must like you a little bit.” Dalia had no idea how wonderful those words sounded to Sarah. Hearing them out loud from another person!!!!Sarah shook her head quickly. “No. It’s nothing. Bent is a nice guy. Nicer than most, I’d say. He was just being a gentleman. We don’t have enough of those in the world.” Sarah headed for the door. “Please make sure Elly knows that. She has a good guy. A great guy. Bent and I. We’re just friends. And that’s all we’ll ever be…”Well, hopefully not. But who really knows????? Sarah thought. She just wanted to get out of there before she melted into a puddle of happy goo.