✅🎊✂️ Hypnosis Won't Take Me There!! [alternative cut]

Chapter 489: Contented

Lily didn't know how to put up a tent. That had been the biggest worry on her mind as they turned down a little gravel track with a sign at the end indicating that a campsite lay somewhere along this road. She'd heard Vicky and Reg mention a tent, so she was sure she would have to put one up. Maybe there would be a whole row of tents down the beach, heads at one end and flaps at the other like fish lined up for a barbecue.

Then they had arrived on the beach, and she couldn't think about anything but how many people were there. There were big kids like Vicky, and babies wearing only diapers, running all up and down the sand. There must have been a million people there, and Lily had only met two of them. For once in her life, she hadn't known how to fit in.

But they were just kids. Everyone wanted to play with her. Vicky had grabbed her hand and dragged her through the knots of people to the edge of the water, where they'd splashed around trying to spell words with their footprints in the wet sand until their dresses were soaked.

The second morning, she struggled with the zipper on her tent, and then stuck her head out into the little clearing where the tents were all set up. There weren't as many tents as she'd expected, because most of the people there were in big family groups where it was hard to see who was little and who were the grown-ups. There were four big family tents, which Lily counted on her fingers to make sure she got it right, including one that belonged to Reg and Vicky. She'd got a smaller tent, a long triangular one that looked more like the tent in a cartoon, because she wanted it to feel like she was properly camping. It was a camo-pattern tent too, printed with blobby pink-and-green spots that helped this to feel even more like an adventure.

There were more little tents than Lily could count on both hands, but that didn't matter because that just meant there were lots of littles who might like to play exploring. And with a short trek to the shed that contained the restrooms, and a thin strip of woodland between the cliff and the dunes, there were more than enough places to explore even before you reached the beach itself.

As she watched the sun rise, Belle started to feel a little more adult. Enough to realise that this really would be a perfect place to take kids on a trip; and the whole cove was private enough to do as they liked for a few days, with a locked gate at the end of the only path down. She was free to think and act like a child if she wanted to

And she did.

* * *

Adi woke, and spent a minute of two watching the wooden mobile spinning above her crib. She'd never expected to, but she was starting to get used to them now. Getting used to the crib now, and she'd occasionally noticed that she enjoyed spending time here. For want of a better word, she was somehow feeling content. She was still trapped between a rock and a hard place, when the need to be adult enough to earn a living conflicted with the hypnotic training that would have her acting like a helpless baby. But with everything that Dean had done for her, and what Chastaine was now doing, she found that she was actually feeling happy. In the middle of a situation that could have been a nightmare, he'd found out how to make her feel good about it.

After a diaper change, she felt more awake. She was refreshed and comfortable, ready to face the day. Chastaine was in the kitchen now fixing his breakfast. Adi didn't know if he would be cooking something for both of them, or if she would be having cereal today. But she didn't want to be in the way while he was still in the kitchen, so she had the tough choice of what to do with the next few minutes. She could see her laptop now, and she was pretty sure there was no longer any parental control software set up to censor her use of the Internet. So if she really wanted to, she could have caught up with a summer of messages waiting for her on Critical Mass. But Dean and Chastaine had said she should ask before going online, and she wasn't going to abuse their trust. She had too much respect for the guys who were protecting her. She knew that she wasn't really responsible enough to go on that forum without supervision.

So she went through to the lounge and waited patiently for Chastaine to finish cooking. She had her favourite cereal, which probably wasn't the healthiest choice, but she was allowed to steal a few pieces of fried goodness off the edge of his plate. The best of both worlds, so she had a satisfied grin on her face when Dean came to the door.

"Looking good today, Adelaide," he greeted her, and got a pout in response. Even when it was redundant, he had to keep on saying that name. But it didn't take long for her to get over the surprise, and the three of them were chatting as happily as ever.

Adi was just starting to sip her second large drink when Dean changed the subject again. He told them that Toni and Britney had come to see him, which still worried Adi a little. But there was already a plan in place for dealing with that eventuality, and he reassured them both that there was no chance of their friends finding them too soon. And when everything was ready, rather than taking Adi away Britney would realise that she had to join them here. If she had to stay here and listen, they were sure she could come to properly understand why this had been the right thing to do. All their plans ended with Britney joining them here, helping to take care of Adi when Chastaine wasn't around. So it was essential that everything went how they had planned, leading up to her arrival.

She could only wonder what her friends were up to now.