Cyrus was stretching and gazing out the window at the lake when his phone buzzed with a text message from his girlfriend, Jennifer. She was visiting another cottage in the area.
"Hi honey, I hope studying is going well! Thanks for dropping me off this morning. It's so good to see Rachel again. I can't believe I haven't been to her family's cottage in six years. The last time I saw her brothers they were shorter than me, and now look how tall they are! They're 18 and heading off to university in the fall."
The accompanying picture showed Jenn standing outside a two-storey lakeside property with her childhood best friend and Rachel's identical twin brothers, Jake and Gabriel. The family of athletes towered over his much shorter girlfriend. They were all dressed for summer: tank tops and jean shorts for Jenn and Rachel, and t-shirts and board shorts for the boys.
Cyrus grinned and replied with a photo of his constitutional law textbook. "I'm glad you're getting to spend the day with them! Here's my companion for today. I hear he knows how to party."
She wrote back: "Don't get too comfortable with him, babe! Remember, you're all mine after you write the bar exam. Oh, and don't worry about picking me up this evening, I'll get Rachel to give me a ride back after dinner. Love you!"
*
Cyrus was glad to see Jenn spending time in the sun with old friends, even if he wasn't able to join them. She needed a break from work. They had both been working punishing hours this summer, she as a junior associate at an investment bank in Toronto and he as a law student at one of the city's understaffed legal clinics.
He found his work fulfilling, if exhausting, but he knew Jenn was feeling disillusioned after two years at the bank. The business school graduate had always been good with numbers, and she had worked hard to learn the technical side of commercial banking. So it had seemed like a great opportunity when she got a job in the asset management wing of one of the country's largest banks.
But Jenn hadn't realized how much of the work involved networking and building relationships with potential clients. She had struggled to make the kinds of connections the rest of her team--all young men from well-connected families--seemed to have no trouble making on the squash court or the golf course.
When Cyrus told her he was planning to take a few days off work to study for the bar exam, Jenn had jumped at the chance for a mini vacation. She suggested they rent a small cottage in the Muskoka region, roughly two hours north of Toronto. Cyrus would have all the quiet he needed to review his textbooks and notes from law school, she promised, while she relaxed and went swimming.
Jenn had grown up in a nearby town and spent every summer of her childhood exploring the many lakes in the area. Her parents' jobs had eventually pulled the family south to the big city, but Cyrus knew Jenn missed life on the water. He hoped heading back to familiar surroundings would help her cut loose and clear her head after all the pressure she was feeling at work.
So far, it seemed to be working. Cyrus smiled as he thought back to their drive up to the cottage the previous day. Jenn had shown up outside their apartment building in downtown Toronto driving her parents' old pickup truck. The Saturday morning brunch crowd on the patio next door had gawked as the five-foot-four brunette slid the enormous machine deftly into a tight parking space, leaned on the horn to get Cyrus' attention, and jumped out to help him load their bags.
Gone were the tailored pantsuit and silk blouse the 24-year-old had worn to the office on Friday. In their place were an old trucker hat, aviator sunglasses, a bright red bikini top, a pair of low-rise jean shorts, and hiking boots. Cyrus had grinned when he noticed the strings from her matching red bikini bottoms spilling out over the waistband of her shorts. Jenn had declared, while packing on Friday night, that she intended to spend so much time in the water that there was no point bringing any underwear. She'd grabbed a tangled mess of extra bathing suits instead.
Noticing that Cyrus was taking his time admiring how the bikini top cuddled her perky, b-cup breasts, Jenn had spun around on the sidewalk and put her hand on her curvy hips for a quick pose. He had allowed himself another moment to drink in her healthy bubble butt and thick thighs before hurrying forward when she stuck her tongue out at him and threatened to give the horn another blast.
By the time she got them onto the highway on Saturday morning, Jenn had rolled down all the truck's windows and was belting out the words to her favourite summer playlist, her ponytail whipping in the wind and the sun shining on her bare shoulders.
*
Cyrus' phone buzzed again at midday on Sunday, just as he was making himself a sandwich in the kitchen of the rented cottage. It was a selfie from his girlfriend, showing herself in the foreground and Rachel's family behind her. They were sitting down to lunch on a wooden deck that looked out over the water.
Jenn was wearing her red string bikini and gesturing toward the table. Her wavy brown hair looked slightly damp, and her skin was already showing the beginnings of a rich tan.
"Hi hun!" she wrote. "I hope you found the fresh bread in the kitchen. It's been a beautiful morning here. We spent most of the time swimming, and then Rachel's mom made us lunch."
"I had to hang my tank top and jean shorts up to dry, though. Remember how I told you earlier that the boys look so much more grown up now? Well, it turns out they're still very much teenagers at heart. A few minutes after we took that nice group photo this morning, the two of them picked me up and threw me into the lake. I was soaked! It's a good thing I was wearing my bathing suit underneath, because that white tank top of mine is basically transparent when it gets wet. Rachel's parents were not happy, but the two little rascals looked pretty proud of themselves," Jenn recalled.
"Anyway, since I was already wet, the others got changed too and we jumped into the lake. Here's a picture Rachel's dad took for us earlier in the day. The water feels lovely. I'm sorry you're missing out!"