Take Me To The Beach

by K. L. Grayson, Karina Halle, A. L. Jackson, Marni Mann, Monica Murphy, Devney Perry, Kristen Proby, Rachel Van Dyken

  “I take it that you don’t want to talk about it,” he says. “That’s cool.”

  I bring my head back in and glance at him.

  It’s one of my favorite things to do. Just take him all in.

  My friend, Lazarus Scott, is extremely hot. He was hot when I first laid eyes on him at his band’s show four years ago, and he’s even hotter now. I don’t know what it is about men, but they honestly only get better with age, and even though Laz is still super young at thirty, he just gets more handsome every day I see him.

  He knows it too, the jerk. He’s cocky but thankfully not in an obnoxious way, and he’s quick to point out his faults. But even so, he’s got this cool confidence that I wish I could siphon.

  I sigh and lean my head back against the seat. “I wish it was as easy as this.”

  “As what?”

  “You and me. Talking. I wish the guys I dated got me the same way that you get me.”

  He grows silent for a moment and I look over at him. He’s frowning, his attention focused on the road. “Maybe you’re just dating the wrong guys,” he finally says.

  “You think?” I laugh. “I thought everything was going fine with David as the night started. He took me to this nice Italian place in Calabasas, and yeah, I was a little jumpy with the caffeine and then a little drunk with the wine, and then I…well, it doesn’t matter. But even before disaster struck, I could tell that he thought I was a weirdo.”

  “What the hell are you doing on these dates anyway?”

  “Nothing! I’m just being me.” I stare out the window as we cruise down Ventura. “But I guess that’s the problem.”

  “I refuse to believe that.”

  “I appreciate your loyalty,” I tell him as a current of warmth runs through me. It always makes me feel extra good when Laz lays on the compliments. Sure, I get them from Naomi or when I’m messaging with Jane, but when it comes from a guy, especially an extremely attractive one, it means a lot.

  “I always have faith in you, Bumble,” he says softly, with just a bit of a smirk to his lips. He loves calling me that, I have no idea why. I think it’s because he thinks it bothers me, but honestly, I find it really cute.

  “See, if you were my boyfriend, I’d have nothing to worry about,” I tell him. Then I immediately clamp my lips together. God, I have to stop saying the stupidest shit! “I mean, look at you,” I go on awkwardly. “I’m having a hard go and you’re picking me up, taking me out for my favorite food and to my favorite bookstore. You’d be perfect. If you were my boyfriend. But, of course, you’re not. Because you’re my friend.”

  Bumbling. Bumbling fool. The nickname is apt.

  Laz doesn’t say anything. He steals a glance at me, studying my face.

  I shrink down in my seat and pull my hair over my eyes and nose, obscuring them from view.

  “What are you doing?” he asks.

  “Why are you staring at me?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  A few moments go past and then I straighten up, getting it together. This is Laz we’re talking about. Who cares if I just said he’d be the perfect boyfriend? He knows we’re just friends. He knows I didn’t mean anything by it.

  “The thing is,” he begins to say, choosing his words carefully, “you know I would be a horrible boyfriend.”

  “I was just joking.”

  “I know. But honestly, I would be. We’re great together because we’re friends and nothing more.”

  Shit. As much as I know that’s true and it shouldn’t be any other way, for some reason that really stings. I grimace, trying to hide it from him.

  “I mean, I can’t seem to keep a girl around for longer than five months. All my relationships crash and burn and I’m the one at fault. I’m the one breaking up with them. So, we both kind of suck at this whole dating and love thing.”

  “That’s for sure.” I don’t know where he’s going with this but it’s enough that my heart is starting to race. I start playing with my hair in order to calm down. Who needs a fidget spinner when you have a plethora of split ends?

  “Maybe there’s something we could do to…help each other.”

  I look at him sharply. “Help each other? Like be each other’s wingman, wingwoman…wingperson?”

  He considers that with a tilt of his head, the sun catching the ebony strands of his thick hair and making them gleam. “Yeah. That could be part of it. Maybe at the end of it all.”

  “At the end of what?”

  He shrugs with one shoulder, wrist draped casually over the top of the steering wheel. He glances at me over his aviator shades. “Maybe we could date each other.”

  I swallow hard.

  Whoa.

  Whoa.

  I was not expecting that.

  “Are you high? Did you smoke up with Scooby before you left the house?”

  “No,” he says plainly. “I didn’t. I’m serious.”

  “You just said that you would be a horrible boyfriend.”

  “That’s true. But I don’t want to be. And I don’t mean that we would actually date each other. We would just pretend to date each other.”

  I shake my head, trying to find the words to convey my confusion. “But…what? That makes no sense.”

  “It does, trust me.”

  “I ain’t trusting nothing from you right now. You’re crazy.”

  He exhales. “Let’s get a burger in you and I’ll explain. You have low-blood sugar and are borderline hangry, so nothing will make sense until you eat.”

  My stomach growls at the thought and I narrow my eyes at him. Sometimes I hate how well he knows me.

  It’s not long before we’re sitting at the bar at the busy Umami Burger restaurant and I’m shoving their namesake dish down my throat when Laz starts at it again.

  “Feeling better?” he asks, stealing a French fry and dipping it in wasabi aioli.

  I swat his hand away. “Get your own fries.”

  “Can’t. I’m watching my figure.”

  I growl at him. Laz has the metabolism of a horse. He also works out a lot, so he’s incredibly ripped and in shape. Not that I often see it since he’s usually in layers except for in the most sweltering heat waves. It’s probably for the best. It’s hard to be friends with someone when you’re already aware of how attractive they are. Luckily I’ve trained myself to not look at him in that way.

  “So, let me start again,” he says, adjusting himself on his seat so that he’s facing me, his long legs and shit-kicker boots hooked on the bottom rung of my stool. “What if the two of us dated each other? Just for a little while. Just as a test.”

  “A test?” I ask, trying not to choke on the burger.

  “Yeah. We go on some dates. Definitely at least three. And see what we’re doing wrong.”

  “Who says I’m doing anything wrong?” I glare at him. “I thought we agreed that it’s their problem, not mine.”

  “Even so, wouldn’t you want to learn?”

  “But it would be your opinion.”

  “And don’t you trust my opinion?”

  I do. He’s got the experience that I don’t have.

  “So, this whole thing would be about teaching me how to be a better date?”

  “Kind of.”

  “What about you? Like you’re so perfect.”

  “I’m not. I know.” He chews on his lip for a moment. “Maybe then after the third date, we start getting into a relationship.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say, putting the burger down and wiping my lips with the napkin. “Relationship?”

  “A fake one.”

  “How is that going to help?”

  He runs his hand through his hair, pushing it back off his forehead. “I don’t know. I’m spitballing.”

  “Maybe you ought to think this all through before you start spitballing. I mean, we’re friends and this…this seems like it’s going to get really complicated, really fast. I need a beer.” I wave at the bartender and order one.
/>   “We’ll have rules in place so it doesn’t.”

  “I’m not sleeping with you,” I blurt out.

  He winces. “Not that it was an option, but ouch.”

  “Sorry.” And I don’t know why I said that. It’s something I wouldn’t dare let myself entertain for a second.

  The bartender slides me the beer, eyeing the both of us like we’re the most interesting customers he’s had all day.

  I slam back half the beer, let out a burp I immediately cover with my hand, and then give Laz a sheepish look.

  “Please don’t tell me you’re burping on your dates,” he says, grinning.

  “I hope not,” I tell him. God, what if I am?

  “This is what I mean,” he goes on. “We’ll go out on dates, pretend to be different people…or we’ll be strangers to each other. And we’ll see what happens.”

  “Yeah, but while you’re judging and schooling me on whatever I’m doing wrong, what will I be doing?”

  “You get to judge me,” he says. “Maybe there are problems I’m not even seeing, problems that might come up later.”

  “And then later, what, it turns into a relationship? How does that even work if it’s not real? What’s the difference between that and, well, the fact that we’re friends?”

  “I wouldn’t see anyone else. Neither would you.”

  “I guess that’s fair.” I can’t even fathom dating anyone for real right now anyway.

  “And we wouldn’t act like friends around each other either,” he adds.

  “There you go with the sex thing again.”

  “Or maybe we’ll just go on dates for a few weeks and that’s it. I don’t know. But it can’t hurt.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I finish the rest of the beer and push it away. “It can hurt everything, Laz. You’re one of my best friends. I don’t want to mess that up. I don’t want to lose you, this, what we have. I appreciate your concern for me and yourself, and obviously I don’t want to keep failing at this love game but…it’s not worth risking our friendship for. Is it?”

  He nods, exhaling through his nose as he looks away. His shoulders slump slightly. “Yeah. You’re right, Bumble.” He brings his gaze back to me, looks me dead in the eye. “Forget I said anything.”

  But I can’t forget it. Now that he’s brought it up, it’s like it’s already altered the dynamic between us. After the burger we go to the bookstore across the street, and though we lapse back into our usual ways on the surface—Laz spending his time flipping through biographies and sifting through poetry books, me in both the historical romance and horticulture sections—I know that something has changed.

  It’s the idea of dating Laz.

  Just that little seed of something, tossed into the dirt of my brain.

  I know he said it would be fake.

  I know that we wouldn’t be dating each other for any other reason than to maybe learn something about ourselves and how we are in relationships.

  I know all that.

  But even so, I can’t help but look at him differently. Not with new eyes, just with a new filter.

  I’m terrified I might change my mind.

  Laz

  “Soothe My Soul”

  * * *

  You’re a bloody wanker.

  Not exactly the pep talk I should be having right now as I literally stare at the wall, dealing with writer’s block. But hey, there you have it.

  I am a bloody wanker.

  I don’t know what I was thinking when I propositioned Marina with that whole dating each other scenario. I guess the girl just has me curious. That’s at least partially the reason I brought it up. There’s something going on if she can’t seem to get past the third date and I’m really curious to know what it is.

  The other reason, the better reason, is that I want to help her. She’s my friend. And even though I’m not a huge fan of seeing her date around, and I get inexplicably jealous from time to time, I don’t like seeing her sad or unhappy. I want to fix her problems for her.

  It’s only fair. Of all my friends, she’s the one who is going out of her way to make sure everyone is okay. She’s nurturing and loyal to a fault, even to those who may not deserve it. Like her father.

  I sigh and sit back in my chair, tapping my pen against my leg. The notebook is wide open, the page blank. I never write on my laptop—it’s either one of a million tattered notebooks I carry around or it’s on my iPhone’s note section when I’m in a pinch.

  But today, nothing is flowing. Contrary to what I told Simone the other day, I won’t be writing about her because I feel…nothing. Not remorse, not sadness, not happiness. I don’t feel lost or found. I’m just…that bloody blank sheet.

  Blank.

  Empty.

  Empty as a shotgun shell, spent and discarded, a vessel for destruction.

  No, I tell myself, shaking my head. That’s total crap. Don’t write that down. You can do better.

  I can do better. I know this. And that’s why it makes it even more difficult to write. There are tons of poets out there who are absolutely brilliant, whether it’s Charles Bukowski or Rumi. I don’t bother comparing myself to them—there’s no point. They’re them, I’m me. I just compare myself to the work I’ve done before.

  And right now, everything that’s coming out of me is stilted and forced. I’m trying to force a feeling when there’s no feeling at all.

  My phone flashes with a notification and I pick it up, eager for a distraction.

  It’s a message on Instagram.

  I open it up and see that same blogger, Courtney, who messaged me last week about doing a collaboration together. She might be totally sincere but her message had definitely been on the flirty side.

  Hey Lazarus, I hate to bother you again. I know you probably get a ton of messages and probably don’t check these (especially with your book coming out, congrats on that), but I was wondering if you wanted to meet up for drinks at some point. I really think our accounts could help each other out and reach different followers. I don’t have one million of them like you, but I do have half that and it’s quickly growing. I’m in the LA area too. Let me know. I hope to hear from you soon.

  Xoxo Courtney.

  I’ve collaborated with bloggers before, but usually it’s another poet or writer. This would be the first time I’ve had a fashion blogger reach out, but she might have a point when it comes to reaching a new audience. I know I have a million followers, but the truth is, that million isn’t going to buy my book. I know from the publishers what my pre-order stats are. They’re happy with them, but if you think every person that follows you and gets your work for free is going to pay up, you’re sadly mistaken.

  The more followers you have, though, the more chances that people will pay. It’s a numbers game and one I should probably start taking seriously. There is no point in this business where you can sit back and rest on your laurels—I don’t care if you have a million followers or book deals. You have to keep improving, you have to keep growing.

  Which is probably why I’m dealing with the block right now. The pressure is fucking on.

  I want to say yes to Courtney, but not right away, so I go to her account and her blog and check her out. She’s pretty in the way all fashion bloggers are. Really skinny legs, tall, long wavy hair with highlights, It bags on their arms, posing by angel-winged murals in downtown LA.

  I don’t really have a type, but she fits the bill regardless. I’m not sure I could be with someone who is that obsessed with selfies and the camera but I’m willing to give it a shot. After all, Marina has her own successful account and she’s often taking selfies too and I have no problem with that.

  But Marina is inherently pure about it. As I said, she doesn’t wear a lot of makeup, her hair is usually a mess, and most of the time she’s wearing her beekeeping suit anyway. Not exactly the point of high fashion. But her smile is genuine and she honestly does it all because of her love of bees, not because she’s fishing for
likes and compliments.

  She’s come a long way since we first met. I know that all this “dating” stuff seems out of the blue, but the night I first laid eyes on her, the attraction was instant, more than I thought it would be. Not just because she’s insanely pretty, but she was charming in an odd way. Blurting out what was on her mind, not acting like girls normally act around me. Something drew me to her already and all I could think was, shit, if only I was single. If only she wasn’t my sister’s friend. If only…

  Now, though, I’m glad that nothing ever came of it. If I had dated Marina, our relationship would have been over in a few weeks, as usual, and it would have made this bloody awkward for Jane.

  Instead, we became friends. A few weeks after that show at The Mint, I saw her again at a show with her friend Naomi. I’m not even sure which girlfriend I had at the time. She wasn’t there, though, so after the show, even after Naomi and Jane left, Marina and I stayed at the bar and talked all the way until closing.

  After that, we started hanging out more and more. I watched as she started keeping hives at a small farm in the valley, then moved to Havisham’s (my nickname for her landlord) and started keeping her own hives on the property. That soon turned into her own business as she not only harvested and sold honey, but was teaching classes, doing live hive removals—she even has her own hotline.

  I’m proud of her for living her dream and I guess that’s one reason why we’ve bonded so well. While she was working hard and her career was rising, the same was happening for me.

  That, and we’ve both had to deal with loss.

  “Hey, man,” Scooby says, leaning against the door and munching on a cucumber. Just one long, very phallic-looking cucumber.

  “Hey,” I tell him. “Good snack?”

  He shrugs. “Cucumbers are great for rehydrating. Sometimes you have to ask yourself, am I drinking enough water?”

  I look Scooby over, brows raised. Short and pale, with bug eyes and big teeth, Scooby gets attention wherever he goes, particularly because he’s fond of wearing top hats as a daily uniform and you can often find him riding a penny farthing up and down Venice Beach.