Someone Like You (Blue Club 1)

by Robin Hart

  “You two take care. Be safe.” Mary said, finishing her lemonade and cleaning up the tray.

  “I’ll take good care of her.” Sean said, pulling Nicole, who was bristling at his comment, along with him to the jeep. He heard Mary laugh as he shut the door. When they were close to the jeep Nicole shoved him away.

  “I can’t believe you.” She said. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” He said.

  “You had to unman me in front of my aunt.” She said. “I don’t know that I’m very happy with your services today.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but you aren’t a man.” He opened his door, got in, and unlocked hers so she could do the same.

  “You aren’t going to get my door?” She said, pausing and staring at it for a moment.

  “No.” He said. “I don’t want to risk unmanning you.”

  “You know what I meant.” She said, opening the door and measuring the space between her feet and the step up to the jeep, wishing she wasn’t wearing a pencil skirt. “You know I’m an independent person.”

  “I do.”

  “I may not be a man, but I take care of myself.” She tried to hop in, but her foot wouldn’t hit the step without feeling like her skirt was about to rip. She hoped he hadn’t seen her just then, and readied for another attempt.

  “I know.” He said. “But it’s the normal thing for a guy to say to a family member when taking a woman out. And I think it got us out of there before it could get more awkward.” He sighed. “Will you just let me help you with that?”

  “I can manage.” She put her hands on either side of the doorway and lifted till both knees touched, but then realized there was no way to bring her feet around after. She struggled for a moment, and then realized she wasn’t sure she could land on her heels if she tried to go back down.

  Sean had had enough. He opened his door and got out and came around to her side. She made a strong last attempt to get up, but was stuck on her knees when she felt him set an arm around her knees and her back and lift her up.

  “What are you doing?” She struggled for a moment before he plopped her in her chair.

  Sean tried not to laugh when she looked up at him with beautiful, betrayed brown eyes. “Come on Nicole. If you’d fallen you’d have ruined your outfit for your date.” He got back in. “Besides, you rescued me before. Aren’t you going to let me return the favor at all? Turnabout is fair play you know.”

  “Well, you needed it.” She snapped the seat belt into place and stared out the window away from him. “And I don’t. I would have gotten in on my own.”

  “Well my bad.” Sean said, putting the jeep into gear. “But I couldn’t wait for your antics to make us late. Plus your aunt was watching.”

  “Oh no, then she saw you, she saw, arrrgh.” Nicole pounded the window.

  “Just don’t think about it.” He said. “Let’s just go have a good time.”

  “If that’s possible with such a pigheaded man.” She said.

  “Hey, you hired me.” He said, turning the wheel to pull away from the curb. “I didn’t promise to act like a baby. I promised to be your date. Maybe next time you should specify in the contract that you want me to not be a gentleman.”

  She was quiet and he didn’t need to look to know she was glaring.

  “Or, you know, you could just ask me to hang out with you as a friend, rather than scheduling a date with the club.”

  The ride was silent for a few minutes. Nicole was processing this. Why hadn’t she thought of that? No, that was dangerous; men and women couldn’t really be friends. Something more would happen, and that would be…bad somehow. At the same time, if he was going to insist on acting like this on their dates, maybe it was the better option.

  “Maybe I will sometime.” She said. “If you behave.”

  “I always behave.” Sean said, giving her knee a pat and one handing the wheel to turn. “I just don’t always behave the way you want me to now.” He put his other hand back on the wheel and relaxed on it. “And that’s a good thing.”

  Nicole didn’t see how.

  Chapter 8: Changes

  Sean left his house aware of the smell of rain, which was really the smell of wet dirt, of wet leaves, of cleanness, of clouds, of humidity, like the earth was sweating after a shower, so that the earthy smell was clean and inviting. Sean thought that maybe he should just move somewhere like Seattle at some point, where it rained more often, but then what if the rain just didn’t smell the same as it did in Cali?

  Distant thunder added to his pleasure as he drove to the dojang. The rhythm of the wipers was something he could get lost in. He didn’t want the drive to end, and took an extra loop around the block, humming along to the radio because he could never remember lyrics. Then he parked, and got out and removed his bag, slung it over his shoulder, and walked inside. The sound of the rain against the glass door and windows (the whole front of the studio was glass, allowing a perfect view of the outdoors) was a good consolation prize for the loss of the rain smell, the trade for the dirty, hardworking martial arts student smell.

  He moved to his desk, dropped his bag to the ground, and started sorting through the mail and fliers piled there. Bills, paid bills mailed in from students, one letter of resignation from an instructor who’d become too busy with college and left months ago. Some of the instructors weren’t much younger than him. It was weird to think of the different position he was in, one he’d been neglecting by going to the club. He dropped his face into his hands and kneaded his forehead. Being here where he was expected to have so much authority, so much responsibility, made him feel ashamed of his activities at Blue. Made him feel like an irresponsible, selfish child. What had he been thinking? He sighed. He’d graduated college with a business degree, had been teaching here since his teens and all throughout school. Taking over had been a logical step, when Master Peterson had wanted more time with his family. And with new instructors, Sean had seen an escape, a way to finally go be immature for a while. To go for what he wanted, whether or not his family approved, whether it was socially acceptable, whether it was the mature thing to do, even whether or not Nicole approved.

  He sat up and turned his chair to the window, listening to the drone of the rain. Her safety, that’s what he wanted more than anything else. Was she safe with him? That was the burning question. Was he any less of a deadbeat than the other men in her life? Everything was more complex now than the situation when he’d been tricking her at the club. Somehow, emotionally, things were so much more uncertain with Nicole and he on basically equal footing, no lies, and no pretenses to keep up. So what did one do in the absence of pretense? And if she didn’t need him, didn’t that just make him a boring, unnecessary man who’d been obsessed with her for years and never done anything about it?

  A few months ago, he thought, people liked me. Even without the host club, I was an interesting person. I was driven. I wasn’t constantly focusing on someone other than myself. He stood and walked to the glass door to look at the flier on it. National qualifier, Cal State open. The flier hadn’t piqued his interest at all, when before he lived for each competition. Though he was old by some people’s standards for competing, he knew he was still quick enough to try for it, if he started practicing now. Dang, he thought, two months. This is going to take more time at the dojang. He thought of the club. Aside from Nicole being there, it really wasn’t his thing. He studied the flier again, thought of the club again, and made a decision. He pulled out his cell phone.

  “Hi, Hope?” He pulled out his date book with the other hand to mark the day of the competition while holding the phone with his shoulder to his ear. “I’m going to need some time off.”

  Nicole thought the rain warranted a really nice, long walk on the beach, so out she went, in a t-shirt and shorts, with a swimsuit underneath for modesty. It was always hard for her to decide what to wear in the rain, whether to bundle up in a sweatshirt that would be war
m until it was soaked and then just drag, or to wear something lighter that would evaporate and stay misted by the rain. Of course a raincoat or anything that kept her from getting wet was right out of the question. Getting wet, feeling the tiny pinpricks of the rain like little kisses from falling stars, was the whole point. Occasionally she’d wear a hat if it was hard to see in front of her, but not today. Just a swimsuit to solve the see-through issue of wet t-shirts and so that she could swim if she liked. Swimming in the ocean was divine. Rising with the waves while watching the tiny pinprick ripples creating polka dot rings around you, with the little plop-plop rhythm of that accompanied them, was the closest Nicole thought she could get to heaven. If you included a beautiful, grayscale horizon with moody clouds to watch as well…well…that was cosmic.

  Then again, the ocean was always cosmic to Nicole, the way the moon controlled the tides made it impossible to be otherwise. Looking out on the ocean was a lot like looking at the stars for her, except that the ocean with its turmoil and rolling beauty was somehow more frightening and real to her.

  She walked out with bare feet, skirting lightly across the road, happy for such close beach access, and hopped the small barrier that separated the road from the sand. If she’d been living on her own, she knew she’d never be able to afford a place like her aunt had. Not that her aunt had much money on her own, but her late husband had left her quite a bit. The men in Nicole’s family, including her own biological father and uncle, had a way of disappearing or dying. Disappointing.

  Her feet sunk into the moist sand, cool and soft like cookie dough from the fridge, and she sighed and wiggled her toes for a moment. She sat on the barrier and put her face up into the rain, opened her mouth to catch a few drops on her tongue, which she knew wasn’t very clean or safe, but still felt compelled to do each time. Besides, germs build up antibodies right? She laughed thinking of Sean’s disgusted face if he saw her. Such a germophobe. He also wouldn’t approve of her going out on the beach alone, right? It hadn’t even occurred to her to call him, either. She knew he’d probably come, but then, just for her safety, and that felt…abusive. Abusive to her ego that needed to feel independent, abusive to her trust in herself. Just not pleasant. She could always avoid him at the club if needed.

  She popped up off the barrier into the sand again and walked out on the beach. She stopped 20 feet from the very edge of where the waves stopped dampening the sand with long, flat, deformed hands and sat down. She wished she’d brought a book, but didn’t want to go back. Her thoughts could entertain her anyway. The reason she wished she had a book was walking down the beach a good distance away. A man in jogging clothing walked a dog. She wanted an excuse not to talk to him. She planted her hands deep in the sand and closed her eyes for a while, enjoying the rain and her own thoughts, which tended in a disturbing way to Sean and wishing he were here with her, where they could make out in the-no, that wasn’t right. She stood, stripped off her t-shirt and shorts and headed out into the waves. They weren’t very high, or very white capped, so she felt they were safe. She’d been swimming in them a long time, and had only been caught in a rip tide once as a young teen. Even then, following her aunt’s prior instruction to swim perpendicular to the current rather than against it had prevailed. She was floating pretty far out, in water a little too deep to have her toes touch even on the downward sweep of the waves, when she heard splashing behind her. She looked back, and saw the man she’d seen previously swimming towards her. She panicked.

  She stayed where she was because any further out wasn’t safe, treading water and wondering what he wanted, how to deal with this. If needed, she could duck under and hope to surface somewhere safe and far away from him, but going that deep was asking to get caught in a riptide. So she just waited, and watched, and tried not to show her fear on her face as he got closer.

  When he was nearly close enough to touch her, he stopped.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” She said, glaring. “Why?”

  “You’re really far out. And it looked like you were in a riptide.”

  Nicole looked around her, then back at the shore, noticing that it had certainly gotten farther away while she’d been focused on the swimmer, freaking out and wishing she had called Sean to come with her. No, glad she hadn’t called Sean so that he didn’t have to get all overprotective and embarrass her.

  “I’m fine.” She said. “Sorry to worry you.” She scanned the beach. “Is your dog okay?”

  “Oh yeah, I just tied him up to the barrier real quick.” He frowned. “I should probably get back though.”

  “Me too.” She said, noticing the man was still in his t-shirt. He must have been panicked. “I’ll swim back with you.”

  “That’d be great.” He said, his eyes lighting up in a way that told her he found her attractive.

  She smiled at the man, and tucked her head between outstretched arms to bodysurf the rest of the way to the beach. She landed where the water was a few feet deep and stood, walking from the waves and wiping water from her face and hair. She was still twisting her hair when she saw him bodysurfing in as well. She walked out and picked up her shorts and t-shirt and began to put them on. She heard a dog whine and looked back as she pulled her shirt over her head to see him watching his master with anxious anticipation. Poor thing, she thought. I ruined your day on the beach.

  His owner stumbled out of the water, shaking and ringing his clothing, laughing. He walked up to her.

  “I’m glad you got me in.” He said. “That was a lot of fun.”

  “Can I pet him?” Nicole said, nodding towards his dog. “If he’s not too mad at me that is.”

  The man looked at her, surprised. Then grinned. He looked to be in his late twenties. “Sure, but he doesn’t shake hands with strangers, so I’ll need to know your name.”

  Nicole was used to being flirted with by strangers. She didn’t know if it was the way she looked or the way she acted, but it was why she generally brought a book. But she figured even Sean would have to approve of this guy. He’d swum out to save her, hadn’t done anything ungentlemanly. Wasn’t this the type of guy she should go for? Wasn’t that the whole point of learning how to be around good men at Club Blue?

  “My name’s Nicole.” She said. “I live over there.” She pointed at her aunt’s house, then instantly wished she hadn’t. What if he was a serial killer?

  “I’m not a serial killer.” He said. “Don’t worry.” He untied his dog’s leash and rubbed his head.

  Nicole thought he must be right, wouldn’t an animal sense something like that about a person? Maybe that was an old wives’ tale. Nevertheless he liked walking on the beach, which had to count for something.

  “My name’s Ben.” He said. “Butch, this is Nicole. Shake.”

  Butch put up his paw and Nicole shook it, smiling. “He’s such a good dog.”

  Butch seemed to understand her and preened. Then nudged Ben’s pocket, and whined. Ben smiled and drew out a tennis ball that must have been a favorite from its wear and tear.

  “If I play catch with Butch for a while, you aren’t going to disappear on me right?”

  “Hm.” She said. “I make no promises. It’s getting colder out here.”

  “Well, water sprite, would you even be out of the water now if I hadn’t interrupted you?”

  Probably not, Nicole thought. “Probably.” She grinned. “But I can stay and watch for a bit.”

  “Great.” He said. “I’d love to take you for lunch after, if you’d like.”

  Nicole didn’t know what to say. She didn’t feel ready, but then again, if she openly trusted bad guys, and then let her trust issues stop her from going out with good men when they popped up, what was the point to anything?

  “Lunch would be great.” She said, smiling and taking a seat on the sand to watch Butch. She only felt slightly traitorous, slightly nervous, but she put it down to simply caring too much about what Sean would say about this. Darned if you do, d
arned if you don’t. Still, she took out her phone to text:

  “Got a date. With a good guy this time. Great, huh?”

  The beachfront cafe Ben took Nicole to was undeniably posh, and Nicole looked around the clean, teal colored room with it’s hardwood floor and delicate iron wrought tables and figured most of the people here were vegetarians. Ben pulled out her chair, and Nicole sat, noting that the cushion was too thin. She’d rather have plopped her butt on something less expensive that felt better. The waitress, a pretty blonde with pale skin set the menu down and Nicole’s vegetarian/organic fears were confirmed. She ordered the tofu grill with a nod of approval from Ben and longed for a juicy burger.

  As they waited for their food, Nicole looked past Ben out to the ocean and wondered how you could be on a date with one man, and be thinking about another. Or at least having trouble not thinking about another. She knew she should be interested in what Ben was saying. She knew men depended on you to make them feel interesting, but she kept seeing a pair of disappointed blue eyes in her mind whenever she blinked.

  Ben’s eyes were blue, but they weren’t vibrant. They were that generic blue, a little bit of gray, and a little bit of yellow around the middle. But it seemed like everyone wanted to think his or her eyes were special and unique. Just like a person with blue eyes would take care to describe the color of the middle, the outer, and the inside ring, a person with dark eyes would be sure to tell you that their eyes were more of a chocolate, or doe eyed, or amber, and also point out a different colored ring. We are all special so no one is. She chuckled to herself. If someone asked her what color her eyes were, she prided herself on just saying brown, and not humiliating herself by launching into an explanation of the minutiae of her eyes that no one else would see. She would spare them having to give a polite nod and a lie: that’s interesting.