by Opal Mellon
A good distance away, a man in jogging clothing walked a dog. She wanted an excuse not to talk to him and wished she’d brought a book.
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 headed out into the waves. They weren’t very high or white capped, so she felt they were safe. She closed her eyes against the shock of cold water that hit her like a wall of needles before her skin began to numb. 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 and opened her eyes. She looked back, and saw the man she’d seen previously swimming towards her. Oh no. Not here at the beach. Why couldn’t men just stay away?
She stayed where she was because any further out wasn’t safe, treading water and wondering what he wanted, how to deal with this. Her jaw shook from the cold but she held it taut. 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 if there was one. 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, treading water away from him. “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.
“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 lit up.
She 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 towel to dry off. When she had gotten most of the water, she pulled on a T-shirt and shorts. She heard a dog whine.
His owner stumbled out of the water, shaking and ringing his clothing. 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 grinned. He looked to be in his late twenties, brown hair, blue eyes, and slender build. Average. “Sure, but he doesn’t shake hands with strangers, so I’ll need to know your name.”
Nicole’s stomach started to twist. She didn’t know anything about this man. 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.
“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?”
“I make no promises. It’s getting colder out here.”
“Would you even be out of the water now if I hadn’t interrupted you?”
“Probably.” She grinned. “I’m not stupid. 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 to date, but 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? She wasn’t ready for Sean. Maybe this guy would be a good middle step.
“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, darned 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 its hardwood floor and delicate iron wrought tables. The waitress, a pretty blonde with pale skin set the menu down and Nicole ordered a tofu grill.
Their food came, he ate, she picked at hers, and he droned on about something that didn’t interest her. 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. She knew she should be interested in what Ben was saying, 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.
“So then I graduated.”
Crap. Nicole didn’t know what to say and she could tell by the way Ben looked at her over his glass with expectant eyes that he’d said something of note, something that warranted response. The recurring question, pretend to have heard and take a lob shot at a response? Or just tell them you zoned out?
“Wow.” Nicole chose the former.
“I know.” Ben set his glass down. “Some people don’t realize how hard it is to just finish up and leave, especially with pressure from your parents to get a different major.”
“I haven’t finished, myself,” Nicole said.
“Well there’s time.” Ben puffed out his chest and stretched, then leaned back in the chair. “You’re still young.”
“I’m not planning on finishing college. I like writing.” Nicole studied his face. Not a very handsome face, nothing really wrong with it either. Big forehead, perma-smirk. Nothing like Sean, with his watchful, hesitant eyes, and slow smile. A smile given to her easier than anyone else. Ben was pale, too. His skin was a bit yellow almost. His lips were thin, dark pink. His nose was a bit too thin, too long.
“What would you like to do next?” he asked, waving down a waiter for the check with clumsy hands. Hands that didn’t seem to be completely controlled, almost like the nerves only went to the second to last knuckle. She hated clumsy hands.
“Um.” She looked around the restaurant for a clock, even though she didn’t have anything to do. She rummaged in her purse, but no luck finding her phone. “What time is it?”
“Why? Somewhere you need to go?”
“Yes,” she said. “My aunt is expecting me.”
He took his card from th
e check holder. She bet that if she looked inside, she’d see a tip that wasn’t huge but made him feel like a high roller.
“Thank you for lunch,” she said, standing and trying to avoid the arm that he tried to place on the small of her back. She was unsuccessful and he placed it there firmly to lead her out of the restaurant. She switched her purse to the other shoulder in an attempt to knock it off, but his hand stayed, and it was getting sweaty as they walked down the boardwalk back to her aunt’s home.
He hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d been a perfect gentlemen, taken her to lunch, hadn’t said anything untoward. She looked at his face. Not so pompous, just average. Perhaps she had simply been trying to find flaws with him because of her own shame in thinking about Sean. Perhaps good guys just didn’t appeal. All of her senses told her to ditch him and run, but she didn’t trust her senses anymore. They had given the okay on people like Jake.
“Can I get you an ice cream?” Ben asked, finally removing his hands and sticking them in his pockets. He nodded at the stand behind them. “No harm in that right?”
“Sure,” she said, laughing. “I’m sorry if I’ve been guarded.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “I’m a stranger who freaked you out from the moment I swam out on the beach, then talked you into lunch as soon as you could change.” He went to the stand and ordered two cones, both strawberry. He didn’t ask what flavor she wanted.
“Yeah,” she said, accepting the cone. “And I’m pretty picky with guys.”
“Really?” he said. He watched her take her first lick with suddenly hot eyes. “Didn’t take long to get you to say yes to me.”
“I’m trying to change my ways,” she said, pausing because it was uncomfortable to be watched while licking something.
“Want to go sit on the beach and finish these?” he asked, pointing to the other side of the barrier.
“Sure,” she said. She led the way, stepping over the barrier easily. She almost laughed when he nearly lost his cone doing the same.
Moments later, though, when he dropped his cone in his lap while trying to sit down, she couldn’t help it, it burst out and she covered her mouth. And for just a second, he looked absolutely venomous, like he wanted to take her head off. But in a split second that was gone and his smile was back and he laughed with her. But just that flash was long enough to get her adrenaline running. He’s not your stepdad, she reminded herself. Just because he’s angry, doesn’t mean he’ll hit you.
In truth their lunch had been more like dinner time-wise, and now the beach was a beautiful wash of sunset hues, the sand taking on a red hue, the sun sending orange flames over the waves lighting up their crests as they rose and fell. The birds were making haunting noises in the distance as they flew low over the water, and the sky was like a Mai Tai, orange and red bleeding together.
“Captivating, isn’t it?” Ben asked, his eyes taking on a purple hue in the light, his lips pressed together as he tried to wipe the rest of the ice cream from his crotch. He’d thrown the rest of the cone in the sand. But he wasn’t looking at the sunset. He was looking at her.
“Yeah, I guess so,” she said, feeling uneasy, rubbing her hands along her arms for warmth.
“Okay,” he said, drawing with one finger in the sand. “It’s you that’s captivating. You look so beautiful watching the sunset. So caught up in it.”
“Oh.” She ran her hands over the hairs on her arms, enjoying the tickle. “I guess I do get a bit wrapped up in it.”
“I think it’s neat,” he said, moving closer to her in the sand, till their sides touched. He put an arm around her.
She didn’t stop him, though she wanted to. I’m not attracted. Not attracted. This is gross. No, men like Jake and Kyle were gross. This man hadn’t done anything wrong. With that thought in mind, she tried to bear his arm around her. It felt like it was burning her skin.
He was going to kiss her. Not unusual on the first date, especially after how much time today they’d spent together. Most of which she’d been zoned out. And he didn’t care. But maybe that’s just how normal people date, she thought. When people don’t hit each other or rape each other. Perhaps they just bore each other. The man talks and the woman pretends to listen (or perhaps the other way around) and then they engage in physicality that validates the experience and then they go home (but right before that they may decide whether to do it again). She sighed.
Ben seemed to take the sigh for one of impatience to be kissed and moved forward. His lips met hers and she felt clammy all over. Is this what it would be like to kiss a guy like Sean? She kept her mouth shut so that Ben wouldn’t get ideas about frenching. He did anyway, so she opened, because his tongue pressing on her lips was probably grosser than his tongue would be inside. Wrong, so gross. She didn’t make any effort to let him think otherwise. Went into dead fish mode. It was one she was familiar with, with her father. Except Ben wasn’t really doing anything wrong. No, the wrong person was her, the one who couldn’t feel the correct way about normal and good things. She had no idea whether Ben was unattractive because he was good, or because he was bad. She felt lost and overwhelmed and zoned out in her mind to the sunset, the waves, and it was like Ben wasn’t there anymore.
Sean stood watching them, clutching his phone. The phone he’d been waiting for her to ask him out on. The phone that had sent him the text about dating another man. He’d tried to respond, tried to ask for more info, desperate to somehow feel involved in the situation. When she hadn’t responded, he’d fretted. What if it was another dirtbag? He’d worked out. He’d waited. Then he’d driven to her aunt’s house. When she wasn’t there, he’d decided to head to the beach. He’d watched them sit down. Seen her beautiful curly hair dancing in the wind, stared at her for minutes along with the jerk beside her. Then the jerk leaned over to kiss her. Sean balled up his fist at his side and watched for any sign of struggle, any sign she didn’t want it so he could go over and lay the guy out. But there was none.
He swallowed. Hadn’t he always said he would want her to be happy no matter who it was with? If that was the case, why did it sting so much. Why did he feel like someone had taken a sledge to his heart? He waited till they broke the kiss. Forever.
Was that all it would have taken? Should he have just leaned in and taken what he wanted as well? He watched until they got up and the man walked her home, all the while in a sort of daze. Was this the good man she mentioned? He watched impotently as the man kissed her cheek one more time and squeezed her hand before she pulled away to head inside.
He let his head sag and walked back to the car, feeling two feet tall.
Chapter Nine
The clinical white practice dojang had turned yellow with age, with large green mats on which partners sparred to the smell of sweat and the sound of plastic padded feet smacking Styrofoam chest covers.
Sean felt at home here, across from another man who wanted what he wanted. It would be decided fairly, by force, by sheer work and control. Sean wished everything was this simple, that you could get anything you wanted simply through work and perseverance, and being stronger than the other guy. He wanted to win. He wanted to forget what he’d seen at the beach the other day. He nearly accomplished it with a hard kick to the other guy’s abdomen when the ref signaled the end of the match.
“Sean, control yourself,” Nathan, his top teacher, said, taking Sean aside. “You’re going to hurt someone, or get called for excessive force.”
“I know,” he said. “I hope I do.”
“This is just a practice round.” Nate waved at the ref and shepherded Sean away from the mat. The fight was over; he wasn’t letting him back in the ring. “I don’t care if you glare at me, I’m not letting you do that to the studio’s reputation just because you are having problems.”
Sean glared at him and pulled off his head protector and stomped outside, heavy footsteps echoing over the wooden floor accentuated by the quietness of the light footsteps of the other practicing figh
ters. No use looking at any of their faces as he left. Sean kept seeing the man from the beach in each of his opponents. He knew beating them would only get him closer to nationals, that it wouldn’t make Nicole love him. He couldn’t win Nicole by simply being good, the best even, but making the other guy crap himself seemed like a fine consolation.
The sun was bright in his eyes and Sean put a hand up. Ahead, across the street was a nice field, with some trees on one side, a good place to sit. Not caring that he was wearing his nicest white gi, not checking the ground to see if the grass was wet, he plopped down, then sank his face into his hands. He swiped an arm across his sweaty forehead, then used his gi when that didn’t work.
The sky was blue, the grass was plush, and the field was wide and lined for soccer, with at least two separate playing fields marked out with painted white grass. Maybe he should have played soccer as a kid. What would he have done if Nicole hadn’t said she’d liked martial arts?
Nothing probably. But what else about him would have been different without her? He looked down at his hands, which were calloused, his forearms, which were defined with muscles. In fact, without much concentration he could flex a myriad of muscles in his body, his thighs, his arms, his back, and his abs. All of that was probably from her. Perhaps good things had happened even for a bad reason. You shouldn’t make yourself into something so someone else would like you. He’d heard that a million times since being little, but the people saying it must never have loved a woman and wanted to be wanted by her.
He picked up a piece of grass and played with it, looked at it carefully then split it down the center. He put it to his mouth and tried to whistle on it the way Nicole had shown him when they were little. He wondered if he should have just seen a shrink the minute that being a male escort for her had occurred to him. No, the shrink would have told him to give up, and that wasn’t what he wanted.
He was a good guy. What had someone said once? The way to get over a woman is to get under one? Maybe they had something. The day was green and blue and shiny, the world meant to be lived in, and Nicole had chosen to do it with someone else. It was time to move on. He threw the blade of grass to the side and stood to go inside. Suddenly it occurred to him that he didn’t know how to choose. He’d always had his eye on one woman, one person, like the only star in the sky to guide by. He’d been so busy all these years berating Nicole for her bad taste in men that he hadn’t even considered that he himself didn’t know how to choose a girl at all.