by Joe Satoria
“I think I’m getting better as well,” he said. “Getting a bit more of a powerful swing.” He grabbed at his racket by the side of his bed, swinging it in the air. “Backhand.”
“I noticed,” I said, “don’t let people know, they’ll use it against you.”
“I can forehand too,” he said, “but my backhand is becoming more powerful, I think next time we’re in the gym we should up the reps on those free weights.”
“And if you’re sore tomorrow, we can go to the sauna.”
“Nah, I’m going to the beach, I said.”
Oh. Yeah. The beach. The one I was definitely invited to in pity.
“Speaking of,” he said, pulling at his racket bag, “I was hoping I could lend some swimming shorts, and I wasn’t going to ask. But it would be weird to take some tennis shorts and hope for the best, but you—”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, interrupting him. He was babbling and it was getting to be too much. “I have a couple pairs, speedos, trunks, shorts with the netting. I was planning on using the pool here, but not had much down time.”
“Just some shorts,” he said. “Also, why does someone who doesn’t swim, have all those?”
I scooted back down the bed, as the towel rode up the bed and my thighs. It didn’t bother me, but I caught him shying a hand to his eyes, looking away—he’d seen me naked; I know he had—there wasn’t anything else or different he could see. “Practice,” I grumbled to his question.
I could swim—but only if I knew my feet would touch the floor.
In my suitcases I had a couple pairs of each, and he had the pick of them all—I obviously wasn’t going to get around to using any of them.
“Red shorts look like they’ll fit,” he said.
“They have a string too, in case they’re too big,” I told him, grabbing from the folded pile.
“What are you going to wear?”
“Tomorrow?”
“I invited you,” he said.
He had. “I mean, I thought it was just you being nice.”
“Yeah, but, it would be good, only Mladen sees you as nice, and you’re a dick to him,” he said back, pulling at the waist of the shorts—even looking at him, I knew they were going to be too big; he’d have to pull them up and tie them by his bellybutton.
“Now I’m going to have to scrap the plans I’d made,” I told him.
“Oh, if you had plans then—”
“I’m kidding,” I said, “sure, I like the beach, what’s the plan?”
“Volleyball, picnic, you know, a day of not training and relaxation.” He held the shorts. “Thanks for these. I was worried I’d be the one who ended up in their underwear.” His finger and thumb rubbed over the material.
“Don’t ruin them, they were about fifty-pound.”
“What?” he scoffed. “Nobody is paying that for a pair of shorts.”
I did. I grabbed at a pair of the Speedos—a blue and black tie-dye. “These were about forty.”
“Forty?” His eyes grew wide, almost feral. “People with money are wild.”
I shrugged. “I look good in them.”
“Thank you for these, I’ll make sure they’re dry cleaned and folded.”
I knew what he was trying to say, but they didn’t need to be dry cleaned, just washed in the regular laundry. I smiled and nodded. There was something about the way he smiled back.
“Are you going to bed now?” he asked, sitting back as he kicked off his shoes and socks.
“I will be,” I said, standing as my towel threatened to become loose. “What time are we up tomorrow?”
“Around 8,” he said.
“I’ll set an alarm,” I told him, my hand clinging to the towel with a little might.
“Great.” He grabbed at his wash bag. “Well, I’m going to—get a shower, um—thanks again for the shorts.”
He left as I let the towel drop loose around me.
Oh god.
I collapsed back onto the bed, reaching for the shorts. I’d never felt so strange in my entire life, from the way he spoke to the way he was moved—it felt odd, but oddly exciting.
Oh no.
A tickle wormed around my stomach.
11. HARVEY
Childlike excitement buzzed around my brain that night—taking several attempts at going to sleep. I think what did it was the fact-heavy paragraphs in the textbook, it was a natural sleeping aide—could quite literally bore me to death.
I hadn’t been to a beach in years. The last time it wasn’t exactly a beach day, it was cold and windy, the sand wasn’t sand, it was a deep brown wet sludge from the rain. On sunny days in England, the beaches were jam-packed and that wasn’t anywhere I could take my dad.
Jordan’s loud alarm throttled my eardrums from the bedside. I turned, looking out to him staring at the ceiling in a world of his own.
“I’m so tired.” I reached out in a stretch, my arms whacking at the headboard. “Balls.” My hands flinched to my chest. The same thing had happened each and every morning.
Jordan shuffled on his side, raised brows as his tongue sat between his teeth. “What were you doing?”
“What? When?”
“Last night.”
“Sleeping.” That was the truth. I even wanked in the shower.
“You were moving around a lot,” he continued.
“I wasn’t—”
“I’m not saying you were.” His stone face crumbled into a smile. “I’m kidding, you were checking your phone a lot, I saw the light.”
“Shit, did it wake you?”
“No, I mean, a little, but I slept through it.”
I wasn’t sure what he was trying to tell me; he didn’t seem pleased or upset about it.
KNOCK. KNOCK.
“Harv, thirty minutes,” Sasha called out.
“Ok,” I called back, sitting against the headboard, “Jordan’s coming too!”
“Great!”
He stare burned through me. “Thought they knew.”
“They do,” I said, I’d told Sasha and she wasn’t pleased, but now I felt bad for leaving him out, especially since he was loaning me some of his swimming shorts.
It was minutes later when his phone buzzed with a text from Sasha.
—Thought you said you were going to talk him out of coming.
I was going to, I really was—but then, he was being nice, I felt bad for him, and plus, I wanted everyone to see the new side to him, at least, I hoped it was a new side.
—I tried but he had all these swimming clothes and I felt sorry for him, so I told him to come.
I knew I’d probably be letting everyone down, but he’d grown on me. He had come a long way from quitting a match when he was losing. It would be nice, for him mainly to have more tennis friends.
—Tell him we want him to come, obviously! I don’t want to be mean. He’ll go off sulking or something.
—I won’t.
Jordan leaned over the bedside table, the freeballing bulge in his shorts catching me off-guard as he looked out of the window. “It’s going to be hot today.”
“Huh?”
Brows raised—he loomed over me. “You have sunscreen? What SPF?”
“I—um—I—” Flustered over him, I yanked back the duvet to busy myself. “Like—um—I—”
“You ran out or what?” he asked.
Jordan seemed to have everything inside his suitcases. Kneeling at an open case, he dug through a hand to pull out a large bag.
“Factor thirty.” I grabbed at the bottle on the shelf by the door. “It’s a spray.”
“Thirty?” he scoffed as plastic bottles rattled inside his bag. “You’re quite pale. You need fifty.”
“Fifty!”
I was doing fine with my sunscreen. I hadn’t burned. I was a little red around the neck, but my arms were—tanning? I was British, my skin wasn’t completely fair or thin, I was just a little on the pale side.
“Are we having breakfast before we go?” he
asked. Throwing clothes across his bed.
“Breakfast to go, I think.”
Sasha had told me we would need to grab a breakfast sandwich in the morning, but they ladies in the kitchen had prepared for them a picnic; a spread of meats, cheeses, breads, and fruit. It was all new to me, I’d never done anything like this before.
“What else do I need to take?”
Looking across at the bedside table. “My phone!”
“And what are you wearing?”
I barely managed to throw an outfit together each day we’d been here—but at least I had Jordan’s swimming shorts. “I should take a change of clothes too,” I mumbled, bypassing his question as my thoughts occupied me.
He left the room to change while I changed—wearing a new t-shirt my aunt had bought me, briefs, and a pair of tennis shorts. I packed the shorts Jordan loaned me and sunscreen—making mental notes of what else I needed.
We were the last ones to reach the coach after grabbing our breakfast sandwiches. I was to blame, I kept thinking I’d forgotten something.
Sasha waited at the front of the compound, leaning on the coach. “You’re lucky someone forgot the to pack the volleyball net,” she said, “or we might have left without you.”
“Yeah, right,” Jordan chuckled back. “Which beach are we going to?”
Sasha grabbed at the sunglasses. “It’s twenty minutes away,” she said, “we’re waiting on Gabriel to get back with the nets and he’ll be driving us.”
“Sweet,” Jordan said, “and where do I put my bag?”
I could see her biting at her tongue. “There’s no room in the side,” she said, “overhead, only.”
“Sure, whatever,” he said, climbing aboard the coach.
Sasha approached me, sliding her sunglasses to her forehead, her mouth open. “What have you done to him?” she whispered once he was gone. “I thought telling him the boot was full would send him crazy.”
“I told you,” I replied in a hushed voice, “we’ve been training a lot, and I think he’s been getting most of whatever had him pent up on the court.”
“That’s because you’re an amazing player.”
Blushing, or the heat from the sun, I felt myself growing red faced. “Whatever it is, I think it’s working.”
“If he stays like that, maybe I won’t hear everyone bitching about him,” she chuckled, “oh, god, great Gabriel! Hurry.” She snapped her fingers in the air.
Boarding the coach, Jordan was sat beside Mladen. I took a seat on an empty spot at the front, the other seat was for Sasha—a full house; all sixteen of us.
I still hadn’t told her about the fact Jordan was now paying me to help him, nor did I tell her about the fact that he’d kissed me and made me touch his soapy cock. I also didn’t tell her about the shorts I’d packed into my backpack were his either.
“Nobody has said anything yet,” Sasha said, strapping herself in beside me.
Gabriel nodded from the front of the coach. “Ok, seatbelts.”
I looked back through the seats—I caught his eye, he was looking down the middle, he was several seats back, and still, I’d caught his eye, or he’d caught mine.
“Are you excited to relax?” she asked, “I want to have my towel on the sand and sleep.”
“Towel?”
“You didn’t bring a beach towel?”
I forgot. Oh god—I never went to the beach, how was I supposed to remember a beach towel too—but it made sense, I’d need to dry myself off if I were going into the sea. “Um.”
“There’s more on the boot,” she said, “I made sure because of Mladen, he doesn’t even have a beach in his country. Poor thing.”
Looking out of the window as we set off through the dust yellow hills. “Will the water be warm?” I asked.
“Probably not,” she offered back, smiling. “I always forget you don’t travel as much as I do, I’m like always on the go, beaches in the South of France are amazing, Spanish beaches amazing, the only beaches I don’t get are the ones in the North, they’re always so cold, and only good for surfing.”
I wouldn’t know—I’d never even thought of surfing.
It was a sunny day. Not a single cloud in the sky. Heat battered us from all angles. Everyone seemed to strip from the clothes as the coach pulled to a stop in a deserted spot of land off the road.
The beach was empty, dotted with a dusty stone walkway.
“Que calor!” One of the Spanish girls grumbled out to the other, wafting a hand to her face.
I followed suit by the coach and pulled away my t-shirt and shoes. At least I remembered my sandals—the ones I was supposed to use for the shower, they were already in my backpack.
“You’ve got something—” Jordan said from behind me.
“What?”
“On the bottom of your sandals.”
Slipping them off my feet, he reached out and grabbed it.
“A price sticker,” he said, “wow.”
I yanked it back. “Get off.”
“Sorry, I—” he scrunched at the sticker he’d pulled away.
“Whatever.”
He walked off with his bag slung over a shoulder.
I looked back to see Mladen looking to the bottoms of his sandals too.
“Hey,” he said. “I bought new ones too. They might melt on the sand. They were so cheap.” He slapped a hand to his torso as he chuckled.
Now I was worried about the same happening to mine. “Haven’t seen much of you, been training hard?”
Pulling out a packet of gum, he sighed. “Like you would never believe.” His wide arm movements were an explosion. “But you’re training with Jordan. God. How has that been for you?”
“Yeah.” I wondered if they’d been talking about it on the coach. “He’s a good player.”
Popping a gum in his mouth he nodded. “He’s amazing, but he’s—” he flinched, looking out across the beach to see how far he’d walked. “Angry, right?”
“Think he’s worked through most of it.”
“Hasn’t he broken anything yet?”
He hadn’t. I was starting to think it was a lie. Or perhaps it was yet to come. I figured he was bound to do it, eventually, he’d brought more than one racket with him—people who aren’t planning on breaking the one they’re using don’t bring a backup.
Sasha hadn’t been lying when she said they were prepared, they had parasols and towels laid out on the beach. Gabriel was working on bringing out volleyball equipment from the hold, and Jordan—
Jordan was sat on his beach towel, slathering himself in sunscreen—his sculpted body glistened in the white cream as it melted into his skin, creating a slick reflective oil.
“Harv,” Sasha said, snapping her fingers at me. She waved around a beach towel. “Next to me.”
It was a long white beach towel with the academy branding. “Thanks, I—”
“Did you eat?” she asked. “If your blood sugar is low, you might faint, and then you’ll feel funny for the rest of the day.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, “I have half my sandwich. I didn’t eat it all.”
“Good, because the last thing I want is you to be going back alone because you have low sugar to heat stroke,” she said, smacking a hand at the bottom of some sunscreen. “Can you do my shoulders and back?”
Applying the cream, I looked over to Jordan again, he was separating himself from the group; laid on his towel, catching sun as his glossy wet skin dried.
“Make sure to get everywhere,” she said, “I want an all-over tan.”
She turned to help me. “Wow, I never noticed before—”
Over my shoulder, I looked at her wide eyes appearing over the sunglasses. “What?” I asked. “What is it?”
“You’re so—pale.”
My shoulders hunched at the word. It was only earlier that Jordan had been saying it. “I don’t take my t-shirt off much.” Unlike Jordan, he could barely keep his on.
Music played as I
laid with my back out in the sun. My eyes closed—maybe now was an appropriate time to catch up on the sleep I’d missed. The excitement of a beach day was quickly dulled by being on the beach and feeling the rough sand itch at my elbows and knees.
In the distance, Gabriel was asking for help setting up the volleyball nets. The thud of the ball as it was kicked around said they weren’t going to help.
The sound grew closer.
Thud.
Thud.
Whoosh.
All over me.
Sand stuck to my wet skin.
Almost being tarred and feathered; sunscreen and sand-ed.
“Don’t be a dick,” Sasha shouted, pushing her sunglasses to her forehead. “Seriously.” She stuck her middle finger up at them. “I knew it would be you, Sandro, and I thought better of you Cesar.” She wiped at the sand from her legs. “If it comes near me again, I’ll pop it—I swear.”
“Relax, relax,” Sandro said, chuckling, “it’s just sand.”
Sand stuck to my sunscreen. Now I knew why Jordan was away from everyone. I bet he was enjoying his morning nap. I should’ve been doing the same, catching up on sleep.
I tried, attempted to at least. I should’ve brought my textbook, that usually helped when I needed to rest my eyes, and probably also the reason why I’d failed my exam—the text was too boring.
Rolling my shoulder, the sand irritated my back. “I need to wash this off.”
“Ugh. The water is gonna be cold,” she said, “and you’ll probably need to reapply when you get out.”
Dreading the water—Sasha was only guessing at the temperature.
I pulled my short down, glancing left to right as I sat in my briefs for a moment. Nobody was watching. I grabbed at Jordan’s swimming shorts from my backpack and slipped my legs inside them. Wider than anticipated, they reached my belly button. I tied them in place above my hips, they weren’t going to fall from there.
“If it’s cold, I’ll be one minute,” I said, my shoulders rolling as I hunched, bracing for the water. “If it’s warm, you won’t get me out.”
“If it’s warm, I’ll join you,” she said, “well, I will before lunch anyway.” She raised her glasses again to look at me. “Don’t drown in those shorts, they’re at least two sizes too big.” She grinned to herself. “You were never that big.”
