Shipwrecked Summer (3 page)

   “Sorry,” she said, slightly breathless. “Couldn’t decide what dress I wanted to wear. You know how it is.”

   Joey rolled his eyes. “Oh, yeah, totally. By the way, Lexie, I meant to ask while we were waiting…does this shirt bring out the color of my eyes? Does it play up the oh-so-subtle highlights in my hair?”

    Pia reached out and swatted him on the arm. “Oh, be quiet! You don’t know what it’s like being a girl. Let’s go already.”

   We crossed the bridge and took off our shoes just before our feet hit the dry sand, still slightly warm hours after the hot summer sun set. I could make out the faint glow of a large bonfire a couple hundred yards down the shore. I didn’t think there was a better way to start my summer than with a party that promised to be full of Tack Jordan and his friends. His male friends. His hopefully cute male friends.

   “I’m so excited,” I said. “Campfires are the best!”

  Joey laughed. “You do know this isn’t going to be one of the fires where everyone sits around roasting marshmallows and singing folk songs, right, Lexie? I’m sure that’s how you do bonfires in Alabama.”

    I rolled my eyes. “Really? We don’t even get the marshmallows tonight?”

   As we got closer and closer to the burning blaze, Joey and Pia buzzing next to me, I felt myself grow anxious. If I played my cards right—and I always did because I always had the right plan ready—this night would be the launching pad to my perfect summer.

    “Tack’s on the back porch,” Joey said, looking down at his phone. “Said we should come find him to grab some cups.”   

   Pia and I followed him up a few stairs onto a large, wraparound first-story porch. A crowd gathered in the corner of the deck and I spotted Tack and his signature purple baseball cap in the middle of the group, shouting something I couldn’t hear over the music.

    “Tack’s manning the keg. How about you two wait here and I’ll see about getting us something to drink.”

    “I’m going to run to the bathroom,” Pia said. “I’ll be right back.”

  I moved over to the side of the porch and faced the bonfire and ocean. I scanned the dancing crowd, smiling, realizing how lucky I was to be at my favorite place in the world with my favorite people in the world with no worries, no cares, no responsibilities. What could be better?

As I waited for Pia and Joey to come back, I knew I’d been right; this was the perfect beginning.

   Until I saw something that told me I was wrong. This wasn’t going to be the best party I’d ever been to. No, it wouldn’t even come close.

    And the worst part about it was that I couldn’t even tell you why I cared.

    I shouldn’t have cared.   

  But there, just off to the left of the warm, inviting bonfire, inexplicably hovered my perfect summer and I was standing there, watching it shatter in front of me, and there wasn’t a single thing I could do about it.

   I stood there, rooted to my spot, wishing that I hadn’t come to the bonfire, hadn’t decided that I needed this party to kick-off my amazing summer the right way. Because then I would still believe that I had a chance.

   Why I wanted one, I can’t begin to tell you. But my heart hurt as my stomach sank to my toes and I gnawed on my bottom lip, trying to push away the rapidly rising tears.

  But there, just off to the left of the warm, inviting bonfire, illuminated by the soft glow of the flames, stood a tall, tanned boy with chiseled soccer player calves and a mop of blonde hair that I’d recognize anywhere.

He wasn’t alone. He wasn’t waiting to see if I’d show up so he could apologize for this afternoon.

  Jeff the Lifeguard was dancing—if you could even call it dancing—with a tall, beautiful girl that I decided right then and there that I couldn’t stand. She had long, wavy blonde hair, which I didn’t. She was tall and graceful, which I definitely wasn’t. She was skinny, which I was, but she looked elegant and regal like a fancy foreign supermodel with curves in all the right places on her slender frame. She probably had pretty bright blue eyes, which I didn’t, and she clearly knew what to say to a guy like Jeff to keep him interested for longer than three seconds, which was obviously something I couldn’t do.

   With the way my eyes burned with hot, prickling tears, I was in trouble and I knew it. The way that they moved together was so sensual and passionate that I thought my tears would spill over on the spot, the green-eyed monster in me awake and wanting what they had. As I watched them move, the lump in my throat became harder and harder to ignore.

    This was, of course, absolutely ridiculous. Had I forgotten every rude word that he uttered to me only a few hours ago?

Yes.

  Was I really going to let his seemingly sincere ‘nice to meet you’ comment at the end of our brief interaction on the beach change my entire opinion of him?

    Yes.

   And was I going to keep on crushing on this rude, arrogant, confusing lifeguard even after this very public display that should have been kept very private?

    I hoped not, but was pretty sure I would.

   After what felt like hours but was just seconds, Joey walked back to my side, offering me a red plastic cup filled to the brim with light yellow beer. I took it from him and downed half of it.

   Immediately, I wanted to stick my tongue out and flinch, but Joey was there and I felt stupid, so I suppressed the urge to throw the rest of the beer into the sand below.

   As I stood there, unsure of what to do with the rest of my cup that I definitely wouldn’t be drinking, I glanced over at Jeff the Lifeguard and almost jumped out of my skin when I saw him staring straight back at me with an unreadable expression on his face. I quickly looked away.

    “Where’d Pia go?”

    I shrugged. “She went to find the bathroom a few minutes ago. Maybe she ran into Tack or one of his friends or something.”

    Joey nodded. “Cool. Wanna dance?” He set his cup on the railing and looked over at me expectantly.

   All of my instincts told me to say no, but I looked back at Jeff only to see that he was no longer watching me. He had his head buried somewhere in the blonde’s hair and I suddenly felt the urge to make all of it disappear.

    “Okay, sure.”

   Joey looked somewhat surprised, but nodded and walked over to where most of the people dancing split off from the crowd.

   He led me into the throng of partiers, then spun me around so my back faced his chest. As we began to move together, I began to forget about Jeff. It wasn’t because I was discovering any kind of feelings for Joey, no, that ship would definitely never set sail, but at the very least dancing with him made me realize that I was still in control here.

I was still me. I made my own decisions and it was my choice whether or not I let Jeff get to me.

I could plan my way around this.

 Couldn’t I?

  I lost track of time as Joey and I moved to the beat of the music blaring from inside the beach house. The sand worked its way into every crevice between my toes as we danced.

If it had been up to me, I’d have danced with Joey until the morning sun peeked out over the horizon.

    But it wasn’t up to me.

    “Hey.” Joey stepped to the side. “We should go find Pia. It’s been awhile since she said she was going to the bathroom.”

  I frowned. Clearly he hadn’t liked dancing with me as much as I liked it with him and I sighed. The blonde hadn’t lost Jeff’s attention, but I couldn’t even manage to get a friend to hang around me for that long.

   “Oh. Okay, yeah, you’re right. You go ahead, though. I just want to walk down by the water quick. Come find me when you’ve got her, okay?”

   Joey stared at me for a few seconds before nodding. “You alright, Lexie?” I could see uncertain concern flash in his eyes, like he wasn’t sure if he should be worried about me.

    “What? Yeah, I’m fine. Go find her.”

  He walked off towards the house while I headed in the opposite direction down toward the water.

I loved the ocean. Whenever I had a problem when I was at the shore, I always felt like I had to be by the ocean to solve it. With its unpredictable tides and incredible, incomprehensible size, everything seemed dwarfed, trivial even, in comparison to the sea.

 The crashing surf made everything feel manageable. I couldn’t control the ocean, but whatever problem I had compared to that felt like a piece of cake. My problems paled in comparison to the power of the sea.

    And I craved that security now.

   I wandered down by the shoreline, standing in the place where the tip of the waves rolling in met the beach and sat down, keeping my shorts on dry sand but allowing my feet to feel the cool water flowing over them.

   I hated that I was silly enough to care about Jeff the Lifeguard. He wasn’t the kind of guy I should be interested in. I knew better than to feel any sort of anything for him, but my…my…I didn’t know what it was, really. My desperation to find someone who wanted to be with me? Whatever it was, it had clouded my better judgment.

    I sighed as a bird cawed overhead.

   “Lexie, right?” I glanced up and swallowed hard.

Jeff stood just to my right, looking down at me. He dropped into the sand beside me, keeping a considerable distance, a red plastic cup in his hand, and I wondered if he was drunk.

    “Hi.”

   “Look,” he said, getting right to it. “I know you saw me dancing with Brittany earlier.” I frowned. This wasn’t what I’d been expecting to hear him say. “And I’m sorry if that upset you for some reason. But…I don’t know, I guess I just wanted to make sure that you’re okay or something.”

   I glared at him through narrowed eyes, my blood already boiling. If Jeff could have said any one thing to ensure that I would get over my silly, useless, immature crush on him, flashing his rude side twice in one day was it.  

    “What even makes you think I was upset?”

   Jeff rolled his eyes. “Don’t bother playing coy with me. I saw you standing up there on the railing, looking at me like you hated me once you saw me with Brittany. You looked horrified, like you’d been slapped. I’m not that stupid, Lexie.”

   “You had nothing to do with that,” I lied. “I thought I recognized someone I knew, that’s all. Nothing more to see here.”

   He stared at me. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s not attractive to lie? It’s okay to admit it if you were thrown off when you saw me with my girlfriend, but I didn’t do anything wrong. I never pretended to be into you and I don’t know how you possibly came up with that idea earlier.”

  My mouth dropped and for the first time in a long time I was rendered speechless for a few seconds. “I…where are you getting all of this from? I never said you did any of those things. You were nothing but rude to me the first time I met you and now I’m supposed to be into you? You’re making something out of nothing, you know, and you sound like an idiot.”

   “Lexie. Please. I know you had expectations about what would happen between us this summer. It was written all over your face on the beach before. But how could you think anything would happen with us? You had to have assumed that I had a girlfriend. I’m a Jersey shore lifeguard!”

   My eyes felt as if they were about to burst out of my head and I had to take a deep, steadying breath. “Why? Why would I just assume that? You’re not that hot and clearly your personality isn’t anything to write home about.”

    Jeff just leveled me with a cocky grin. “Fortunately for me and unfortunately for you, Brittany seems to think otherwise.”

   “Good for Brittany and good for you!” I yelled, fully aware of the scene I was beginning to create. We sat only a few yards away from the bonfire. “So why are you here with me when you could be off somewhere getting ready to jump into bed with her?”

   “I just wanted to see if you were okay. You looked so, I don’t know, sad when you walked down here. But I have no interest in you, Lexie. None. Maybe you’re hot where you came from with that damn accent and all, but you aren’t anything special in Jersey. We don’t do the Southern belle thing here. You better start getting used to that.”

   “Who the heck do you think you are?”

    I looked up in surprise. That was exactly what I wanted to ask Jeff, but it hadn’t been me who’d said it.

    A blonde guy, no red cup in hand, stood a few feet away from us, eyebrows raised, stare trained on Jeff.

    Jeff looked taken aback for a second but quickly recovered. “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “All that matters is that you can’t talk to anyone like that, let alone this girl. I mean, how rude do you have to be?”

   “This has nothing to do with you. Mind your own business.”

    The blonde guy ignored Jeff and turned to me. “Come on, you want to get back to the bonfire?”

   I looked at Jeff, who stared at me with some of the hardness gone from his eyes. It was almost—almost—enough to make me pause and try to fix whatever it was that had gone wrong with him, but I was determined not to let him get to me...again.

    “Sure, let’s go.”