- Hawaii lust - Jenna Ortega

046

They finally get to the restaurant, and Dahlia's mom is already in there at a table drinking her water. She looks up when they enter, and she instantly grins and waves them over.

"I missed my girls so much," she wraps her arms around her and squeezes tightly, and Dahlia laughs and wraps her arms around her too. "You're sunburnt! Did you wear sunscreen? Please tell me you wore sunscreen."

"Yeah, most of the time," Dahlia nods, sitting down at the table as her mom hug and squeezes Maddie too. "It's a lot better now than it was-trust me."

"I'll take your word for it," she laughs and sits down across from them, a permanent smile on her cheeks as she rubs her hands together. "I already ordered you two some Sprites."

"Thanks, Mom," they say in unison, and Dahlia feels like she can finally breathe out now. Her mom has always had this pure, positive energy around her, and it always seems to rub off on Dahlia.

"So tell me about the trip, okay? I wanna hear all about it!" she grins, clasping her hands together under her chin excitedly.

"I doubt you want to hear all about it," Maddie raises her eyebrows and looks down at the table, and Dahlia clears her throat and elbows her.

"Ow!" Maddie laughs, rubbing at her side.

"She's just talking about how boring the plane ride was," Dahlia laughs, waving away her mom's concerned look. "But the trip was great. Jenna's family is super rich, so we got this huge over-water bungalow all to ourselves. We even had our own private dock area, which was awesome. Let's see..."

And then she continues to talk about the hike, the spa, the food, and then about the karaoke, the wedding, the venue. She pretty much talks about everything except Jenna, which is a lot harder than she thought it would be-especially when she was the main part of her whole trip.

"So how is Jenna? Did you two end up getting along okay? And did you survive the pretend dating thing alright?" Her mom asks, tilting her head as she eats her noodles.

"Uh...yeah. I'd say it went well," Dahlia nods, using her chopsticks to push around her food. Maddie chokes trying not to laugh, and Dahlia rolls her eyes.

"Great! I always wished you two would get along," Her mom tells her, reaching over to put her hand on her's. "Such a great girl."

"Yeah, she's pretty cool," Dahlia nods, feeling weird describing the person she's in love with as "pretty cool." "Maddie, why don't you tell her about your trip?"

"Oh, Miss Hutton, wait until you hear about this super awesome hotel we stayed at. Okay, the lights were like chandeliers, right? But they were also swirly, too, so they would like move, you know? And-"

And then Dahlia zones out. She doesn't mean to, and he-wants to hear what Maddie's saying, but her mind is elsewhere completely.

They stay there with her mom for around two hours to catch up, and then say their goodbyes as Dahlia's mom gets in her car and they get in a taxi. She already misses her by the time she sees her car pulling onto the traffic-filled road.

Dahlia feels physically and emotionally exhausted when she gets home-lazily unpacking her suitcase and washing all of her dirty clothes. She was just gonna lay in bed and read a book while she waited for her clothes to get done in the washer so she could put them in the dryer, but she accidentally falls asleep in bed with her lamp on.

Dahlia doesn't know what time it is when she wakes up, but her light is switched off and the blanket is around her. She's disoriented and unsure of exactly where she's at, before she switches her lamp on and looks around her room. She falls back against her pillow with a sigh, before looking over and seeing her laundry basket beside her bed with her clothes dried and folded neatly in it.