F I V E .

F I V E .

Dahlia.

I blink five times faster, staring at my bag.

“Hey, what are you looking at?” Lola nudges my back. In this class, Lola always sits right behind me. Atlas sits on her right, and Hades and Valerian sit at the far back.

Before I could stop myself, my gaze flits to the guys at the back. As if they could feel my gaze, their eyes snap in my direction.

Valerian tosses me a smirk while Hades' lips tugged upward into a smile.

Quickly, I turn my gaze to the front.

This cannot be happening.

"What's wrong with you?" Lola asked me after class.

"Nothing." Bullshit. What I saw in that bag is anything but.

Lola sighs. For once, I'd hoped she'd let it slide.

"So, what do you say about this pool party after grad?"

"Huh?"

"The pool party. Come on, everyone is talking about it."

"I'm not."

Lola rolled her eyes, not amused.

Lola here loves parties. I, on the other hand, loves spending my time with books and N*****x during the night.

Sometimes I wonder how we managed to be best friends.

"It's going to be at the hot brothers' house, you know? Remember, the guys you always fantasize ab--"

"Lola!" I snap.

But it was too late. Everyone is looking at me like I was the creep.

Fuck it.

"I need to show you something." I whisper to Lola, dragging her out back. We end up in an empty room. I hurried over to the blinds and shut them so no one could see us.

"Oh, my God! Dahlia!" Lola squeals.

"This is...hot!"

Then she pouts and turns to me, pinning me with a hard glare.

"You went shopping without me?!" She bursts out. "What? No!"

I grab the one piece swimsuit from her and raise it to her eye-level.

It's a sexy yellow one-piece swimsuit that leaves almost nothing to the imagination. If I'd wear this, no doubt I'd feel naked.

"Hades and Valerian gave it to me."

She looks at me like I grew two heads.

"Why would they give you something like this? Unless..."

Lola slowly turned her gaze to me, wiggling her eyebrows. "They must have the hots for you."

"Stop!" I walked out of the room we'vd been hiding in and she turns on her heels, following right behind me.

How could she say that? And to say that not one, but two of them...

Lola nagged me all day and all week to go to the pool party together. I realized my only weakness besides books and all that, had to be Lola. Because eventually, she managed to make me say yes.

Graduation came and gone. Lola and I are now getting ready for the pool party held in the guys' house. I had been thinking of a way out, hoping to get a stomach ache or the flu the same day of the party, but I didn't. Transportation didn't work too because Lola already took care of it by getting my brother and the future alpha to be our chauffeur. Don't even start. The two bickered like cat and dog all the way here.

I had no interest in buying my own swimsuit, so the little present I got from Hades and Valerian had to do.

The backless yellow swimsuit exposed my good qualities. Over the years, my body kept growing. My breasts are slowly getting fuller, so is my ass, but my waist got slimmer.

I step out with nothing but the flimsy swimsuit on, feeling naked. Isn't it a little tight?

A gasp tore me from my thoughts and I turn to Lola. Her jaw dropped.

"You look hot!"