by Ivy Smoak
Chapter 4
Thursday
I tied the string tight to my nicest bikini and looked in the mirror. This bathing suit always made me feel sexy. Probably because of the extra padding in the top. Luckily Kristen was at work, or else she’d be badgering me nonstop about wearing such a slinky bikini. She could read me like the back of her hand.
I stared at my reflection for a few more seconds. I was being ridiculous. Why was I trying to look good for a guy I didn’t even really know? And had no desire to know. I turned away from the mirror and pulled on a tank top and jean shorts.
Stop lying to yourself, he’s gorgeous and you want to get to know every inch of him. My mind came to a halt at my own thought. What the hell was that? Every inch of him? God, I had been reading too much romance.
But I was excited to see him. I had to find out his name. It was driving me crazy not knowing. Even though it was kind of fun referring to him as my lifeguard or Kristen’s favorite…hot lifeguard. If I could just find out his name, I could be like, “Bye Blankity Blank. See you later. My heart has recently been stomped on and I’m not dating anyone…not that you asked to date me.”
I grabbed my beach bag, locked the door behind me, and walked down the wooden steps outside. In just a few minutes I was on the boardwalk and then in the sand. I ran to my usual spot and sat down on my towel. I looked over at my lifeguard. He was preoccupied watching all the people in the water. I wasn't sure what I should do. I could go over and say hi. But I didn't want to bother him. And it wasn’t like I knew how to be super casual. I’d probably end up face first in the sand and need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Not that the thought of that sounded so bad. It would definitely be embarrassing though.
I abandoned the thought of saying hello and decided to read instead. He continued to ignore me for hours. Or maybe he was just respecting the fact that I was reading. Or maybe he thought I was ignoring him. Before I knew it, I was halfway done my book. I knew it was supposed to be a romance, but I didn't realize how sexual it was going to be. I was a little hot and bothered.
"Hey, Stalker!"
I looked up from the pages at my lifeguard. He was gesturing me over. Seriously? That's what he's going to call me now? I put my book down and walked over to him. A few girls nearby stared at me as I approached him. They were probably jealous because they thought he was sexy too. Take that, beauty queens, I’m friends with the hottest man on the planet.
"You know, I like Jellyfish Girl better,” I said.
"Okay, fine, Jellyfish Girl. Your stings look a lot better, by the way." The way he said stings made it seem like he had seen the one on my butt too. Which meant he had looked over at me when I had been reading on my stomach. I smiled to myself. I was very aware of his eyes on my legs. And I liked the attention.
"So much better. Thanks again for that."
He looked at the watch on his wrist. "It's getting pretty late, so if you're going to swim, do it now so you have time to dry off."
And he thought I was the stalker? He truly did know my schedule. "Time to dry off for what?" My only plans were to go back to my apartment to cook for Kristen. I usually dried off on the walk home. Wait, did I just invite myself somewhere with him? What is wrong with me? I was about to open my mouth to clarify when he started talking again.
"Lifeguards get free drinks on Thursdays at Grottos. You're coming with me."
Oh my God, he's asking me out. Or did I force him into asking me? God. "Umm..."
"Come on, Jellyfish Girl. It'll be more fun if you come."
"Okay." I didn't hesitate nearly as long as I thought I would. That I should have. I don't know if it was because of the erotic romance I was reading or because he was the most handsome guy I had ever talked to. Probably both. "I guess I'll go in the water now then." I quickly walked away before I had a chance to say anything weird.
"Be careful of jellyfish!" he yelled after me.
"Okay, smartass." Oh shit, did I just curse at him?
I heard him laughing as I made my way to the water. I shook my head. Every time we interacted I did the weirdest stuff. But he wanted to go out with me anyway. There must be something seriously wrong with him. I ran into the water and dove into a wave. I made my way past the breaking waves and treaded water. Part of me wished I'd get stung by another demon jellyfish so he'd have to touch me again. I laughed at myself and looked back at him. He was so handsome. And maybe tonight I'd finally get to learn his name.
I didn't stay in the water nearly as long as I normally would. Knowing my lifeguard might be watching me made me nervous. All I could think about was the fact that he had asked me out. And how I hadn’t even hesitated to say yes. What happened to my summer plans of no dating? I wrung my hair out and walked back toward my towel. I lay down on my stomach and pulled my book back out. Stupid romance book, messing with my head.
***
"So nothing stung you today?" I opened my eyes. My lifeguard was sitting on my towel beside me. I must have fallen asleep reading.
"Oh." I quickly sat up. "No, not today." I wiped the side of my face, grateful that there wasn’t drool everywhere. I put my book in my bag before he got a chance to see what I was reading. Why is he sitting next to me? I thought him asking me out had been part of a bad dream. Well, actually a really great dream that involved some of that turkey business Kristen had mentioned. Of the non-anal variety. But I couldn’t seriously go out with him. That wasn’t part of my summer plans.
"Darn, I really wanted more free ice cream."
I laughed. "I can give you free ice cream whenever you want. I usually take some home with me after work."
"Your job definitely has better perks than mine. So are you ready to go?" He stood up and put his hand out for me.
I stared at his hand. A tiny voice in the back of my head warned me that this was a bad idea. Touching him should be a no-no. But my hand started moving on its own accord. "Yeah." I grabbed his hand and he pulled me to my feet. "One sec." I quickly pulled on my tank top and jean shorts. "Is this okay to wear?"
"Yeah, you look great. We all just wear our bathing suits." He was still wearing his lifeguard swim trunks but he had also put on a t-shirt.
"Are you sure it's okay that I come? You know…since I'm not a lifeguard?"
"It's fine. It just means I have to pay for your drinks." He smiled at me.
"You don't have to do that."
"I'm pretty sure I just scored free ice cream all summer. So yes, I do."
I smiled at him. It was hard not to smile when perfection in male form was staring back at you. "Okay." I shook out my towel and put it into my bag. We started walking toward the boardwalk. I kept stealing sideways glances at him. He was at least six inches taller than me. He was as tan as I expected a lifeguard to be. And he was lean yet muscular. He was starting to get a 5 o'clock shadow. For some reason I found myself wanting to reach out and touch it. I forced my hands to stay by my sides.
When we reached the boardwalk, he stopped and rinsed the sand off his feet at the little shower. "So all I really know about you is that you come to the beach every Tuesday and Thursday around one o'clock. Jellyfish love you. And you work at an ice cream shop with really sexual flavor names. Maybe that means something. I don't know." He held the shower lever down for me so I could rinse the sand off my feet too.
I laughed. "No, it doesn't. I just needed a job to pay my rent. I'm renting this really cute, tiny apartment over this old lady's garage. I love it."
"Do you live there by yourself?"
"No." Oh crap. “Actually I have a roommate who I always have dinner with. I need to text her.” Kristen would probably starve if I wasn’t there to cook for her. I paused when I pulled out my phone. I knew nothing about my lifeguard. Maybe he was a murderer. He was probably going to get me drunk and kill me. Maybe he was a freaking cannibal. I could be seconds away from being in his tummy. “Umm…you said a bunch of people were going right? Do you care if she comes too? She’d kill me if she knew I was going
to be hanging out with lifeguards all night and didn’t invite her. She’s violent like that.” I stared at him, trying to see if he was sympatico with her murderous ways.
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
What a normal answer. I shot Kristen a quick text telling her to meet me there. She was going to lose her mind. It was good I’d invited her, because after her toast to hooking up with sexy lifeguards all summer, I’d be on her shit list for sure. This way I wouldn’t wind up dead in a ditch and I’d make Kristen happy too. Plus it would make it less date like and more like a friend date. Which my mind could handle.
We started walking again.
"You are so lucky. I live in that big apartment building over there." He pointed to a building in the distance. "And I have three roommates. It's fun, but it's also kind of annoying."
He's not a murderer. He's a nice, apartment-living guy with living roommates.
"So, you just needed a job to pay rent, which means you're not saving up money for school?"
"No. I got a pretty decent scholarship. And my dad is paying for the rest of it. I haven't seen him that much since my parents got divorced when I was a kid. But he loves throwing money at me, not that I ever ask him to." I was rambling. I had a tendency to do that when I was nervous. I shrugged my shoulders to make it seem like what I had just said was normal.
"Sorry."
"It's fine. It's better that way.” It wasn’t. I was pretty sure he was paying for my college so I wouldn’t bother him and his new family. Paid silence. “Honestly, he's kind of an asshole."
He laughed.
God he had a nice laugh.
"Okay. Tell me more."
"I mean, what do you want to know?" I wanted to ask him questions. I already knew everything about myself.
"Well, why are you here for the summer? Why didn't you stay in California?"
"I don't know.” Lame answer. “It's complicated." Lamer answer.
"That means you do know, Jellyfish Girl." We stopped outside one of the Grottos pizza joints on the boardwalk. I knew of at least two more within walking distance. It was kind of ridiculous. But their pizza was amazing so I didn't mind. We walked past the hostess and went into the outdoor bar portion of the restaurant. Some of his lifeguard friends greeted him. I was waiting for someone to say his name, but none of them did. This was so frustrating.
He pulled a stool out for me at the bar. I sat down and he took the seat beside me. The bartender came over.
"What would you like?" my lifeguard asked me.
"Whatever you're having is fine."
He turned to the bartender and ordered two beers.
Before he could press me, I decided I should ask him a question. "So, are you in school?"
"No, I just graduated. I start my real job in the fall." The bartender came back with two beers. My lifeguard took a long sip.
"You wanted one last fun summer?"
"Something like that." He smiled at me. "So are you going to answer my question? Or do I have to get you drunk first?" It looked like he winked, but I couldn’t be sure because he was still wearing his sunglasses.
How could I possibly word the answer to his question? That my boyfriend of two and a half years had cheated on me at the beginning of last semester with some girl with huge tits? I thought he was my forever. We had talked about our future all the time. I thought he was going to propose on the night I walked in on him in bed with someone else. He was the first person to befriend me on campus and all of his friends kind of just adopted me. When we split up, those friends turned out to not actually be my friends either. The rest of spring semester had been lonely and unbearable. I hated SMU. And I hated California. I didn't want to go back. But I also didn't want to switch schools with only one year left. I needed to finish some degree. I was close enough on a few majors, I just needed to choose which one. Was that what he wanted to hear?
"You probably have to get me drunk first,” I said instead of telling him the whole depressing story.
He laughed. "Okay. I'll see what I can do. Let's try a different question then. Do you have any siblings?"
"No, I'm an only child. Well, kind of. I have half-sisters. But they’re a lot younger than me and I rarely ever see them.” I looked down at my beer. “My dad’s new family.”
"Okay. Kind of an only child of divorced parents. Do they live around here?"
"My dad lives in Austin. But my mom lives about an hour from here. My original plan was to stay with her this summer. But she's dating this new guy and I felt like I'd be intruding." I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. When I called her back the other day, she had been talking about some cruise she was going on later this summer. I decided it was better not to bother her with the fact that I was back in town since she was leaving soon anyway. I didn’t want to make her feel bad.
We both finished our beers and he ordered us another round. "So, that leads me back to my original question. Why did you come back?"
I took another sip of my beer, wishing I could down the whole thing as unladylike as possible. "The simple answer is that I felt lost. I needed to come home. And when I couldn't go home, I thought that this was the next best place. I spent so much time here when I was younger that this seems like home to me."
"So what made you feel lost?"
My lifeguard was particularly nosey. But for some reason it didn’t bother me. Or maybe the beer running through my veins made me forget about the fact that I shouldn’t have even been out with him in the first place. "I think it was a lot of things all at once. I'm having trouble deciding what I want to do when I graduate for one. You're lucky that you have it all figured out."
"Yeah, lucky. I. Am. All. Set." He took a long sip of his beer.
The way he said it made it seem like he didn't really feel like he was all set or lucky. "You're not excited about it? What are you going to be doing?"
"Pushing papers in Corporate America. The dream job."
"If you don't want to work at the place that offered you a job, then why are you gonna do it?"
"I don't know. I had an internship there and they offered me a job. I accepted it. It pays well." He shrugged.
"Well maybe you should cancel."
"Being a lifeguard only in the summer doesn't exactly pay well."
"I don't know. I'm tempted to stay here. Maybe I'll drop out of school and be a beach bum."
He laughed. "I doubt you'd actually do that. But let me know if you do and I'll reconsider my position."
A girl walked over to us. "Hey, I need a teammate for pool. You in?" She touched his shoulder. It was the same lifeguard I had seen him with the other day. I disliked her even more.
"Do you need two more?" He looked over at me.
"Ben and Jillian are challenging us," the girl said in a rather rude tone. "Come on."
"Oh, it's okay," I said. "Go ahead. I'm horrible at pool, so it's better if I just watch. And my friend will be here any second." Probably. Hopefully.
"You sure?" my lifeguard asked me.
"Yeah."
"Okay. Come with me then." He grabbed my hand and pulled me to the back of the restaurant where there were some table games. It felt weird to have my hand held again after going so many months being alone. I looked down at his fingers intertwined with mine. I liked this. He stopped and I looked up at him. I wasn't sure when he had taken off his aviators, but they were now hooked on the front of his shirt. He was staring down at me with the most amazing deep blue eyes I had ever seen. He should not have been hiding those under sunglasses.
I wasn't sure if it was the booze, but I was speechless. Screw this not being a date. I could stare into his eyes for the rest of my life. It felt like I was swimming in them they were so blue.
He smiled at me and let go of my hand. "This won't take long. I'm pretty awesome at pool."
"This should be fun to watch then." There were a few seats next to an old jukebox in the corner. I sat down in the one closest to the pool table.
The g
irl clearly liked him. She was bending over rather seductively whenever she took a shot. And she kept lightly nudging his arm. She even asked him for advice on how to hold her cue stick so that he had to put his hands on her. But it didn't seem like they were dating. Whenever he made a shot he just high-fived her. Unlike the other couple they were playing. Ben and Jillian were clearly dating because they kept making out every few minutes. Almost a ridiculous amount. If they had been alone, they probably would have been banging on the pool table. I laughed silently to myself. The book I was reading was definitely messing with my head. Who had sex on pool tables?
Every now and then my lifeguard would look over at me. I kept giving him a thumbs up because I couldn't think of anything better to do.
I was halfway done my third beer by the time Kristen showed up.
She spotted me across the bar, waved like a maniac, and came running over.
“You could have told me which Grottos. I’ve been all over the freaking boardwalk searching for you.”
“Ah, I’m sorry. I should have checked my phone.”
“You think?” She adjusted her super short miniskirt and somehow made it even more inappropriate. “I’m not too late, am I? Which one is he?”
“Would you lower your voice?” I grabbed her arm and pulled her down onto the stool beside mine.
“I ran all over the boardwalk in heels, Mila. If you don’t tell me who he is I’m going to kill you.”
Apparently I was going to be murdered tonight. Just not by my lifeguard. “I didn’t tell you to wear high heels. I just walked off the beach and came here. How was I supposed to know you were going to dress up?”
“Yeah…well…I wanted to look good. So which one is he?” She started moving her head around like a wild banshee.
“The one playing pool.” I gestured to the pool table, hoping she’d stop being so obvious.
“Oh. I think he’s seeing someone…”
I glanced back at the game. Ben and Jillian were making out again. “Not that guy. The other one.”