Love In Destin ✔

18 - coast

~━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━~

𝑴𝒂𝒚𝒂

~━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━~

SOMETHING WARM TINGLES the back of my foot. I turn to my side, my hand hitting the wooden bedside table, and wince. I slowly sit up, sliding my foot away from the sunlight that peaked halfway into my room. Settling my hand on my heart, I smile to myself, recollecting the dream I had last night about dancing in a massive ballroom with Leonardo DiCaprio, probably because I stayed up late last night watching Titanic.

A chime comes from my phone. I reach the ground for my tote and grab my phone where I left it the day before. I open it to find it overloaded with unread messages from a group I've been added to :'50 Shades of Slay'. When I catch Pam's profile picture I conclude that this group chat consists of the girls. I smile at the conversation that I missed out on last night. Debra even expressed how I should not have been added if I was going to ignore all their texts. My smile disappears at the message. If only I had checked my phone yesterday. I wish I hadn't been so determined to finish Titanic.

I send a text apologizing and a reason to back it up when I notice the last text: 'Meet us at Betty's Tea room tomorrow. We're all heading to the beach right after.' - Pam. She even linked the address of the coffee shop and the time, which is in thirty minutes!

I get up from the bed, grab my toiletries, and run for the shower. The minute I finish, I'm heading for the wardrobe, the towel wrapped around my figure almost slipping off due to the haste. I put on a mochi green bikini, followed by strawberry-printed white linen shorts, and the overshirt from the previous day. I tie my hair into a quick bun that turns out messy, but I don't have the time to fix it, so I grab my bag and speed down the stairs.

Downstairs, Aunty Abby has her hair up and is rocking her body to the Backstreet Boys while mixing something in a bowl.

"Morning, Aunt Abby," I greet as I stride to the fruit bowl beside the fridge and grab a banana.

"Morning, sweetie," she begins, settling the bowl and applying the green paste to her face. "I was thinking of showing you around town in my scooter. And then we can come home, dress fancy and eat dinner at a doozy restaurant tonight!"

I squeeze the hem of my overshirt and bite my lip as guilt pervades every corner of my heart. "I'm sorry, Aunt Abby, but I'm meeting a bunch of girls at ...," I check my phone for the name. "Betty's Tea room, and then we're gonna head to the beach,"

"You didn't tell me you made friends?"

"Yeah, actually I did, and this is the first time we're meeting up outside of school. I'm sorry."

"Now honey, why would you apologize? I'm not upset," she walks around the counter and wraps an arm around me, planting a kiss on my head.

Instantly, I take a step away from her and giggle, "You'll get your green stuff all over my hair," I say, rubbing a hand against my hair. "Besides, I can't help feeling bad. We haven't done anything together since I arrived."

"Don't sweat too much about it, and I'm always here, honey. We can still plan something,"

A wide grin forms on my face, and my heart swells with gratitude. I lunge toward her in a warm hug. "I love you, Aunt Abby, thank you,"

"Get off me, kid! You'll mess up your outfit," She orders sternly before falling into a fit of giggles. "Come on, get out of here. Just don't come home too late,"

Taking the bus feels like a cheaper alternative to Uber since its really been eating up money. The bus is no different except for the different turns that offer me a different view of Destin I had yet to see. Since living in Destin, I have also noticed the rarity of finding traffic. In Cali, we were always stuck in traffic every morning when Mom drove me to school and on our way back home.