Three Years Later

by Casey McMillin

  Three Years Later

  Casey McMillin

  Copyright © 2013

  Casey McMillin

  All rights reserved.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 1

  Rachel

  Leave it to Jimmy and Rita Coleman to finally plan a family vacation to Disneyland now that I was too old to care about it. Who takes their seventeen-year-old daughter on a trip to Disneyland anyway? And why in the world didn’t they think about doing it a decade ago? If they’d taken me a decade ago, they would have been dealing with a much better traveling companion, that's for sure. My parents found that out the hard way when it was time to wake me up this morning. There’s something really wrong with feeling the need to get on the road before sunrise.

  Jimmy and Rita were good parents and their intentions were good but I could think of about a million things I’d rather be doing with a week of my life than going on a family vacation, just the three of us. I had to wonder why they'd wait until now to plan a trip like this.

  I came up with two possible reasons… One, they didn’t have the money to plan such a trip when I was little. Or two, they were feeling a little nostalgic about me starting to make college plans. Well, I guess they couldn't really be called plans, but I'd been gathering a lot of information on colleges recently.

  My parents didn’t make enough money to even consider paying for a four-year education (at least not paying for it outright). However, I was sure I’d have a few options because I made good grades and, what's more than that, we had plans to apply for any and every scholarship and grant on the face of the earth.

  I know it sounds cheesy, but I'm looking forward to starting college next year. Not just for obvious reasons like being on my own. I really do love to learn new things, and (call me a nerd, but) I enjoy being in a classroom environment.

  My parents both work at schools, which explains my tendency to feel at-home in them. (This piece of information could also account for the lack of vacation money in the Coleman house.) Mom is a secretary at the local elementary school, and Dad teaches American History at my high school. Most of my early memories had bulletin boards, chalkboards, and copy rooms in the background.

  I’ll have my Dad as a teacher for the first time this year. We weren’t trying to avoid it necessarily in past years, but this year there was no way around it. He's the only American History teacher at school, and I waited until my senior year to take his class.

  I knew I’d breeze right through it. History was my favorite subject in school, mostly because my father was an amazing teacher. His love for the subject translated into hours upon hours of storytelling at home. His students always complemented him on the way he made learning fun, and I was looking forward to taking his class in spite of the fact that I’ve heard most of the material already.

  It was 7:30 in the morning and my dad was honking the horn because we'd just crossed the state line from Oregon into California. I mostly didn’t mind the old man’s antics, so I gave him a reluctant smile when he adjusted the rearview mirror to see me. I turned my headphones up and closed my eyes before he could get any big ideas about starting up a conversation. We still had more than ten hours of driving ahead of us and it’s a good idea to pace ourselves when the parents get excited and chatty like this.

  I'd already been forced to look through travel guides and tourist brochures my mom gathered when she was planning the trip. They booked a hotel at a Disney resort as a part of a package deal. Ok, so maybe I wasn’t as reluctant about the whole situation as I was pretending to be. If it was as nice in person as it was in pictures, I would be crazy not to at least try to have a little fun.

  One of the brochures told all about the outdoor waterpark that was connected to the resort. It had some crazy waterslides, and I was really looking forward to trying them. I had never been around too many water parks. (Let's be honest I had only been to one in my whole life, and it wasn't that good.) My parents got a pool pass to the Cason County public pool every summer, but the most exciting thing there was a pirate ship for kids twelve and under.

  ****

  We made it to the resort at eight o'clock that evening. We were exhausted from the day's travel, making the whole check-in experience a little surreal. I had never been in a hotel like this. The grand scale was a little overwhelming for a girl from a small town in Oregon. Not that I was a country bumpkin or anything. I had been to Portland for goodness sake. Portland had grand structures… I'd just never spent the night in one.

  This resort was a perfect mix of rustic log cabin and large-scale modern. The browns and grays of the wood and rock that surrounded me in the lobby made me instantly feel at ease. My parents took care of checking us in while I wandered around the lobby and made a few quick texts.

  My friend Brit was supposed to come with us but she woke up this morning with a stomach bug. She was going to come anyway, but her mom put the kibosh on that plan when her fever spiked to 103.

  Brit was texting me all afternoon saying how she felt better, and how we should turn around at the nearest exit and come home to get her. I would have loved to have someone besides my parents to talk to this whole week, but I knew there was no chance my family would go for it. I did mention it to my dad one time when we were near San Francisco and he laughed hysterically. He almost ran us off the road with all the laughing. He really did think I was joking… not a single shred of him was taking me seriously, so I just went along with it and acted like he was right.

  I tapped out a text to Brit from the lobby to let her know the resort really wasn’t all that nice (wink wink). She wrote back telling me that she knew I was lying and I better go ahead and live it up for her. She said I should try to have a summer romance like the movie Grease while I was gone so I’d have a juicy story for her when I get back.

  I wrote back telling her I was thinking about getting back together with Nick, and besides, she better not hold her breath about me finding any hot guys. The only guys who stay at a Disneyland resort are either married men with six-year-old kids or their six-year-old sons.

  I was looking down at my phone to see if Brit responded to my last text when I bumped into someone. Or, maybe someone bumped into me. I wasn't really sure how it happened. The other person must have done most of the bumping because I definitely wasn’t walking fast enough to cause the type of collision we had.

  The stranger instinctively clamped his arms around me and pulled me into his embrace thinking the impact would make me fall backward. I was so startled by being pulled toward him that I jerked in the opposite direction trying to free myself. My sudden movements gave him the impression that I was losing my balance again which made him grab me even tighter. We had a few awkward seconds of push and pull before our little impromptu dance was over and we could regain our composure.

  I heard at least one cell phone hit the ground during the whole debacle, but I was relieved when I realized I still had a tight grip on mine. The guy I collided with turned around and bent down to pick his phone up from the floor.

  I didn’t get a good look at his face
until he turned back in my direction. Even then, it wasn’t easy to see because he was looking down inspecting his phone for damage. I could tell even without a thorough inspection that this guy was seriously hot. I didn't think he had any six-year-old son either. I got a little nervous all of the sudden and cursed myself for looking like a hobo after a long road trip.

  “It’s alive,” he said looking at me as he held up his phone for me to appreciate.

  One look at this boy had me wondering if the Disney resort was paying him to walk around in their lobby. I shot a look toward my parents, suspecting this was all just a big set up to make me admit the vacation was a good idea.

  I was pretty confident that if you'd look up the words perfect male specimen in the dictionary there would just be a picture of this guy. He didn't have a shirt on first off, and his bare torso was ri-dic-u-lous. Something an artist would use for inspiration. Each muscle was so clearly defined that I couldn't help but think of the illustrations from my kinesiology class last year.

  "Are you okay?" He said. His head was cocked to the side slightly and I picked up a look of concern in his expression. I knew I'd been caught staring down at his body. It would've been impossible not to look, even on my best day (which I was not even close to after a long day on the road).

  "I'm fine, good, great. See?" I held up my cell phone. "Didn't even drop it," I said. I started to take in the magnitude of just how out-of-my-league this guy was. He looked like an underwear model.

  Okay, so I wasn't really the type of girl who would use the words "underwear model" to describe guys I thought were hot, but all this guy had on was underwear, so I guess that's probably why I made the comparison. Upon closer inspection, I could tell it was most likely a swimsuit, but it was certainly on the tight side. All the guys I knew wore those big, baggy, board shorts, and these things weren’t like board shorts at all… I'd even go so far as to say they were more Speedo than swim trunks. Spandex was definitely in the mix. One thing's for sure, they left nothing to the imagination. To my own horror, I realized my gaze had drifted to the shorts in question and I'd been staring again.

  "I don't usually walk around like this, you know," he said, gesturing to his own mid-section with the back of his hand.

  "No, fine, it's fine for you to walk however you walk. I'm new here, I mean, this is my first day here. I don't even know what the dress code is. I think you look good in that." I even gave a gesture to his tight shorts during my little speech. I knew I was digging myself into a hole, so I just stopped talking. I took a deep, calming breath knowing I'd be so mad at myself later if I acted all jittery and tongue-tied in front of this guy. A grin spread across his face at my ramblings, and the sight of it made my heart trip. Good God, he was way past cute.

  Neither of us knew what to say exactly, so we just stood there looking at each other. He regarded me as if he saw something familiar. He looked into my eyes and then he scanned my face, stopping on my lips for a few seconds before shifting his gaze to my eyes again. I'd never in my life felt someone search my face like that. He was so intense with it… I actually thought for a second there that he might kiss me.

  "I'm sorry I ran into you like that, and sorry you're having to see me like this on your first day here. I'm not always half-naked in the lobby. These are my uniform shorts. My teammates thought it would be a funny joke…"

  He paused to reconsider getting into the whole story while in his present condition. He shot me a sweet look of regret before saying, "I guess I need to go find some clothes. Listen, I'll be around for another day or two, so maybe I'll see you again. Sorry for running you over. You sure you're okay?" I was nodding in answer to his question as he reached a hand out and gave my forearm a quick squeeze.

  Chapter 2

  Collin

  I thought, How did I not see this coming? as I emerged from the Olympic size pool into an empty room. When I went under water the gigantic room had been filled with my teammates, but now it was completely deserted. I could almost hear crickets chirping.

  Not a single teammate, not a single towel or stitch of clothing, not even a pair of shoes. They left my cell phone, but what good did that do me? The people I'd be calling to bring me some clothes were the same ones who left me stranded like this in the first place.

  It's not like I'd never played the same trick on someone else. Geez, I'd spearheaded many of these little operations myself during the many years I'd spent on swim teams. I should have known, should have seen it coming. All the signs had been there, but I never thought they'd have the balls to pull this joke on me. This year, I was team captain and I knew they realized I could make their lives a living hell.

  Things could have been worse. The pool was in a sports complex right next door to the resort where we were staying, so I didn't have far to walk. I knew I'd have to go to the front desk to get a replacement room key since the guys had taken mine, but other than that I should be able to make it without speaking to anyone. I thought back to some of the more memorable desertions I'd arranged. I could recall at least two times where the poor guy had to take a taxi across town in his speedo. Maybe this wasn't so bad in comparison.

  The lobby of our resort was absolutely huge, so I decided to keep my head down and walk as quickly as I could without drawing any more attention to myself.

  My plan backfired when I plowed into a hotel guest, causing my cell phone to hit the floor with an ungodly amount of noise. I grabbed the other person instinctively to keep them from falling.

  During the scramble for balance, I noticed the person was a girl. She tugged and struggled like a fish out of water and I couldn't tell if she was having trouble standing up or if she wanted me to let go of her. Once I was convinced she wouldn't be falling down, I let go of her and turned around to grab my cell phone. Thank God, it was fine. I would've killed those guys if my phone had been broken.

  I apologized for my lack of clothing and the girl said something about not minding the way I looked or not thinking there was a dress code.

  I found it almost impossible to listen to what she was saying because all of my attention was focused on her face, her lips. Not since my breakup with Jaime six months ago had I even looked at another girl's face. Sure, I'd looked at girls, but not since my breakup had I felt like this; like I wanted to kiss one of them.

  It suddenly hit me that I was standing in the middle of the main lobby with everything on display.

  Things happen to a guy when he looks at a girl's lips for too long. Things you don’t want happening while you're wearing jammers and don't have a towel. What a nightmare. I still hadn't gone to the front desk for a replacement room key, and as much as I wanted to stay with this girl, I knew I had to be saying goodbye. I excused myself as quickly as I could so I wouldn't get stuck staring at those lips again.

  A couple dressed for the waterpark were standing in line at the front desk, and I felt slightly better about my lack of clothing. I got the replacement key and turned to head through the lobby to my room. Why didn't I get that girl's name? I couldn't believe I could have forgotten to do at least that much. I scanned the lobby, looking for her before heading to my room. I think I would have crossed the crowded place again if she was still in the same spot, but she wasn't.

  She was probably too young anyway. She looked young. I could clearly picture her face. It unnerved me… the fact that I couldn't get her face out of my head. It was like I knew her. Did I know her? No, I definitely didn't know her. I couldn't shake the feeling that I wanted to for some reason, probably just because she was smoking hot.

  I swiped the room key and opened the door to a chorus of cheers. Clothes and towels were hurled at me from every direction. I was angry down to my bones, but for some reason I couldn't stop smiling at the sight of all the guys jumping out at me and yelling like it was a surprise party. I might have been smiling now, but they'd still be paying dearly for this at practice tomorrow.

  "I think I just fell in love in the lobby and I didn't even get her name
thanks to you douche bags." I laughed, and could tell more than a few of them were relieved to see me in good humor about the little "joke".

  Within a few minutes, all of them had left for their own rooms. (All except Josh, who was my roommate.)

  "You're gonna kill us at practice tomorrow, aren't you?" Josh was giving me a smile that told me he was hopeful I'd say no.

  "Yep, dead," was all I said, but I was smiling.

  "I told them it wasn't a good idea," he said, shaking his head like he had absolutely no part in any of it. That made me laugh.

  "Don't be so scared." I said, pushing at his shoulder on my way into the bathroom to take a shower. "I probably deserved it. But don't tell the guys I said that; let them sweat it out a little bit. You coming with us tonight?" I poked my head back around the corner so I could hear his answer.

  "Probably so."

  "We're leaving at nine, you should come. It'll be fun." Josh didn't always come with us when we went out. He was in a long-term relationship, and (unlike some of the other guys) he wouldn't even think about cheating on his girlfriend.

  It was probably a better idea for Josh not to come if he couldn't stand temptation. When swimmers go out together, it makes getting girls like shooting fish in a barrel. Not a single one of us could get reactions like that on our own… it's when we travel in a group that the phenomenon occurs. I thought it had something to do with how tall we all were.

  And forget about the girls on campus. Saying you swim at Cal is just about as good as saying you're a movie star or something. It's almost too easy. Girls imagine the photos they've all seen of Olympic swimmers, making it pretty easy to skip the get to know you phase completely.

  I never did cheat on Jamie, though. She was actually the one who did the cheating in the relationship. And what does it say about me that I was too blind to even see it coming? I almost felt bad for my next girlfriend because I had some serious trust issues after having Jamie lie to my face for a year.