𝐃𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐈𝐍 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐀𝐓 𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄 | 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝟏

𝚃𝚆𝙴𝙽𝚃𝚈 | 𝚆𝙷𝙴𝚁𝙴 𝙳𝙾 𝚆𝙴 𝚂𝚃𝙰𝙽𝙳. 𝙿𝙰𝚁𝚃 𝚃𝚆𝙾.

RECAP ON LAST EPISODE :

"Yeah but could you blame me? This thing between us is just confusing." I slipped out without thinking and sat up straight to slap a hand over my mouth.

Way to go, it's no point of trying to avoid this conversation forever and rip the bandaid off now.

"What's confusing?" Pauly asked.

"You know. This. Us." I said pointing between the two of us and looked directly towards him.

"Like I don't know what this is but I want to know if this could ever turn serious maybe or not." I continued to ramble on the entire time as Pauly kept quiet.

But I stopped realizing he hasn't said a single thing just only kept looking at me and looking unsure.

We stayed like this for what felt like hours but probably was only 10 minutes and kept looking to see who would be the first to break the silence again.

"Honestly Hazel..."

| 𝙷𝙰𝚉𝙴𝙻 𝙿𝙾𝚅 |

"I feel the same but I don't wanna rush into things so quickly—I wanna keep it like this until we can figure it out later." He continues looking nervous and tense by talking about this right now after last night.

In a way I did feel reassured by Pauly feeling the same way I do and understand he doesn't want to rush into anything serious just for it fall apart later; things like this do take time and it's not likely to find some kind serious relationship in this house.

"I understand." I told him with a reassuring smile and reached over to grab ahold on his hand to help relax.

"I'm glad because I didn't want to go back to not talking." Pauly says with a relieved look on his face and squeezed my hand as a sign of comfort.

The two of us stayed outside enjoying our little company together and it was kinda nice, although I was expecting this conversation to go differently than I hoped for it to be but I'm not upset either way.

I was happy in a way that I wasn't going to go on bad terms with Pauly whether we did go further with this little situation or leave each other alone, flat out.

Who knows maybe Pauly and I will try it out once we leave Seaside and possibly try this whole dating scene and see if it works out together for us—or if that doesn't workout I hope we can be adults and be friends despite our little history together here.

But for now I'm enjoying this while it lasts here in Seaside and in the house with the other roomies, but it's a guarantee I'll keep in touch with girls and few of the guys excluding Mike and depends on Ronnie.

✯

| Hazel : I am not going to confront Mike for trying to start problems with Pauly for what reason? I don't know but it's not worth my time or his. *rolls her eyes* like you are a grown man. Act like it. |

✯

The two of us walked back inside the house and Pauly went back to his room while I walked back to my spot on the couch where my black fuzzy blanket was left and immediately curled up under it as soon as I threw myself on to the couch feeling 10x better now.

Nicole sits down at the table with her food that she ordered from the boardwalk which happened to be some burger and fries but had some pouty look.

"I'm so ashamed," She says sounding very sad and looking down while she eats her fries from her plate. "This is not my proudest moment."

I looked at her with a questioning look and wondered how much did I miss while I was outside talking to Pauly about the status of our current...whatever.

But from what it looks like, it was a lot.

"Nicole I'm gonna talk to Roger right now," Jenni tells Nicole as she walks over to the duck phone and sits down on the red bean bag. "I'm gonna ask if he heard from Nick."

From that information it took me a minute to piece together the context and figured it had to do with one of Nicole's recent hookups and one of them is Nick.

I sit up on the couch to get comfortable and invested on figuring out why Nick is not talking to Nicole.

Eventually Ronnie and Nicole came over to join me on the couch as we listened to the phone call between Jenni and Roger about the Nick situation.

"It's his cousin?" Jenni asked acting half shocked but not really shocked by the information.

All three of us on the couch looked at each other with a surprised but shocked look not knowing who is cousin with who and whatsoever—all we know it's hot tea.

Everything came into place as I pieced together that Nicole hooked up with this guy Jeff who was engaged before and it upset Nicole so she was introduced to Nick by Jenni and Roger, and later met Nick's friend's cousin Jionni at Karma but now all of them know about each other somehow and well...

NICOLE WAS BUSTED BIG TIME.