by Lane Hart
“What?” I scoff. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Sure, it does,” Charlie says with a grin. “Aren’t you at least a little bit curious?”
“Okay, fine. I do want to see what this less than half an inch of water fun is about,” I admit when I cross my arms over my chest. “But I reserve the right to come back up here and read.”
“Deal,” Charlie agrees, his grin widening. “But you’re not gonna want to read after you try it.”
“If you say so.”
“Yes! We need to go change, and then we’ll be ready,” Tyson says excitedly.
“But wait, you said I don’t need a bathing suit,” I remind them.
“You don’t. It’s not required, but it is preferred,” Tyson explains. “And since we both have about half a dozen pairs of boardshorts lying around, it’s no biggie for us to put on a pair.”
“Fine,” I mutter. “Let me know when you’re ready.”
“Will do,” he says with a mock salute before he and Charlie leave the room.
When they come back a few minutes later, they’re shirtless and wow, shirtless. Charlie may be significantly leaner than Tyson, but that only means his pecs and six-pack of abs are even more defined. Not that Tyson is skimping on the muscles.
“Let’s go,” Charlie says, hopefully unaware of me staring at his upper body. Both men are so sexy and sculpted like only those guys you see on men’s fitness magazine covers. They are both football players, though, so I guess they work out. A lot.
“Come on,” Tyson says when my feet refuse to move. “You’re not chickening out on us already, are you?”
“No. Nope. Let’s see what this half an inch of water is all about,” I tell them, forcing my eyes back into my head and follow them barefoot down the stairs.
Instead of going to the pool in the backyard that I’ve been avoiding for the last few days, they go out the front door and to the side of the house…where a long, blue and yellow plastic mat is stretched out on the grass, with water from the hosepipe sprinkling over it down the slight incline of the yard.
“A slip-and-slide?” I ask them in disbelief. “How old are you two?”
“Age is just a number that I refuse to let define me,” Tyson says seriously before he takes off running at full speed, cackling as he dives belly first onto the plastic. He’s so big, he takes up a third of it, but I must admit that it does look fun.
Charlie grabs an orange, inflatable innertube, plops his butt down in the center of it, and then off he goes down the slippery hill.
“Come on, Sky!” Tyson calls up to me as he walks back up the grass to the top again. “You know you want to give it a try.”
“Yeah, okay,” I agree with a shake of my head, unable to believe that I’m a twenty-year-old, playing in the yard on a slip-and-slide with two ridiculously attractive football players.
I run toward the top of the mat and then belly flop down the hill, laughing like a hyena the entire time as the water soaks through my clothes and splashes up on my face and glasses. Normally, I can only tolerate water on my face in the shower or when it rains, but I don’t mind this morning. I’m actually having fun with who I’m starting to think may be my actual friends.
…
Tyson
“Do you really think this plan of yours is gonna work?” Charlie asks when we head inside to change into some dry clothes. Sky’s already gone up to Graham’s room.
“Oh, it’s gonna work,” I tell him softly. “The next step is to buy her a bathing suit.”
“Right,” he agrees before he turns to face me. Several droplets of water make their descent down his chest and chiseled abs like they’re using his body as their very own slip-and-slide. “Then what?”
Clearing my throat, I lift my eyes back to my best friend’s and tell him, “Then we help her take a few more baby steps.”
“We have no idea how deep this mess goes with her. It’s been years, and she still may not be ready. So, if you’re wrong and this backfires, I’ll punch you in the face,” he warns me, his chocolate eyes narrowed, trying to be all cute and protective.
“I’ll punch myself in the face, and then you can punch me too,” I reply with a smirk. “But we’re not gonna rush her or pressure her to do anything. It’s just a few small baby steps.”
“It’s your summer project, is what it is,” Charlie grumbles before he turns around and crosses the room toward the staircase. “Are you really that bored? I can hang out with Sky, you don’t have to.”
“I want to help her. And she’s not just a project,” I tell him honestly as I follow him up. “She’s a sweet girl with a fucked-up childhood who deserves to be happy.”
Chapter Ten
Graham
I’m so hot and tired when I walk into my bedroom after my first day of classes that I let my heavy backpack drop from my shoulder to the floor with a loud thud, and then I faceplant on the bed.
“Bad day?” Sky asks from where she’s seated on what I’ll now refer to as “her side” of the mattress.
“I don’t think I can do this for eight weeks,” I mumble into the comforter that now smells like her—sunshine and lemonade. The scent is so delicious I can almost taste it on my lips, and now it’s everywhere because it’s her body wash or shampoo. It’s in my bathroom and bedroom, on my backpack, and even comes pouring out when I open my textbooks in class. I think it may be permanently etched into my sinuses. Is it weird that I never want it to fade?
“Sure you can,” she says to reassure me.
“No. Today was mostly just talking about the syllabus and expectations. Fuck, they have a ton of expectations,” I grumble.
“We just have to keep you organized and on schedule.”
“That’s all, huh?” I scoff.
“Yes.” Sky sounds so upbeat and optimistic it’s impossible not to believe her. “I’ll check the syllabi and start adding everything to the calendar,” she tells me when she hauls my backpack up onto the bed. And damn, it’s pretty sexy when she says smart things like syllabi.
“So, what did you do today?” I ask, rolling to my side to face her while she starts unpacking.
“You won’t believe what your roommates got me to do,” she says with an enormous smile on her face.
“What?” I ask, curious about what they did while I was stuck in tedious classes all day. Even though each class is only an hour long, most are an hour apart, which is not long enough to come back to the house and get back on time, so I have to sit around campus, bored out of my mind. And yeah, I’m jealous that Ty and Charlie get to stay here and screw off with Skyler while I have to work my ass off this summer, just to try and avoid getting kicked off the team and out of school.
“They set up a slip-and-slide beside the house!” Sky explains. “A slip-and-slide, like they’re little kids!”
“Did you have fun?” I ask, even though I know the answer based on the persistent curve of her lips.
“Yeah, I did,” she answers. “But you didn’t have to make them include me or whatever.”
She thinks I had to twist their arms to get them to hang out with her? How ironic since I’m so jealous of them spending time with her that I almost wish I had asked them to stay away. Is it so wrong that I like having all of her undivided attention to myself? Hell yes. I’m such a jackass.
“I didn’t make them do anything,” I assure her.
“Like I believe that,” Sky replies with a roll of her eyes behind her glasses.
“I didn’t,” I repeat as I force myself into a sitting position. “All I asked was that they try and be nice to you while you’re here this summer.”
“Same thing,” she mutters, keeping her gaze on retrieving my textbooks.
“No, it’s not,” I argue.
“Anyway,” she says to end the discussion, “what homework do you have tonight?”
“So, so much,” I grumble. “Like, I have to read a million chapters or some shit.”
“Then we bette
r get started,” Sky says enthusiastically.
“This is how it’s gonna be then?” I ask. “All day long, I sit in class and listen to lectures and all night, I read and study, every day for the next two months?”
“Pretty much,” she agrees with a small smile. “You should have some free time on weekends, though.”
“Great, weekends,” I huff. “By then, I’ll be so exhausted all I’ll probably want to do is sleep.”
“You can do this, Graham,” she assures me, reaching over to give the back of my hand a supportive squeeze before she quickly pulls away, like I might cringe from her touch. I wouldn’t. It’s nice to have a woman put her hands on me in a way that has nothing to do with trying to get in my pants. That’s all I’ve ever had for the past three years.
“Two months is not that long in the grand scheme of things, right?” Sky points out.
“I guess,” I agree, even though it seems like an eternity at the moment.
“Now, what’s first?” she asks.
“Ugh,” I groan and faceplant into the sheets again, dreading this new life of mine. Finally, I ask Sky, “Can we start with the first class of the day and go in order?”
“Sure,” she agrees. “Did you take notes today?”
“I did, yeah.” I sit up and pull out the notebook she assigned yesterday for world geography lecture notes.
“How about I read through your notes while you start on the reading assignment?” she suggests.
“Thanks, Sky,” I tell her, knowing she would probably rather be doing anything else right now rather than doing homework with a dumb jock. But she’s here, and she’s offered to help me, so I’m gonna take her up on every second she’ll give me.
Chapter Eleven
Charlie
“Good morning,” I singsong to Skyler when I stick my head in her and Graham’s bedroom. She’s already awake, sitting up in bed with her phone in her hand. I’m guessing based on the continued presence of the pool noodle down the center of the bed that Graham made it another night without screwing her, which is pretty damn surprising.
“Hey,” Sky replies with a smile when she looks up and sees me.
“You busy?” I ask.
“Nah. Just sending my dad a message to let him know I’m still alive,” she says. “He worries if he doesn’t hear from me every day, and I forgot to check in yesterday.”
“He didn’t want you to come here?” I rest my shoulder against the doorframe.
“Not really, no,” Sky responds. “And he’s not exactly thrilled about me living in a house with three football players.”
“Well, we are bad influences, so I don’t blame him for worrying,” I joke before I walk over and offer her the plastic bag in my hand. “Here. Ty and I got you something.”
“Really?” she asks, eyes widening behind her glasses in surprise. “Why would you do that?”
“It’s not much,” I tell her. “Open it.”
Sky sets her phone down on the bed beside her to open the bag and pull out the red swimsuit. I told Ty that the one-piece looked like it belonged on Baywatch, which is probably why we both liked it so much.
“A bathing suit?” Sky asks, holding it up in front of her face. “You really shouldn’t have…”
“We’re going to the beach today,” I tell her nonchalantly. “It’s sort of cloudy, which means the dolphins may be out.”
“Dolphins?” she repeats in surprise.
“Yeah,” I answer. “There are usually four or five that swim near the shore. You can see them from the beach and even better from the lighthouse.”
Skyler thinks that over for a few seconds. “So I wouldn’t have to get in the water?”
“Nope. Ty and I probably won’t either,” I tell her. “Dolphins aren’t the only thing out in the waves. There are jellyfish and sharks too. We’ll hang out, drinking beer and taking in the view if you want to come with us?”
“Okay,” she finally agrees. “Can we walk?”
“Yeah, sure,” I tell her since it’s only a half a mile to the shore, and I remember Graham mentioning her dislike of riding in cars.
I have to say I’m a little surprised that convincing her was so easy. Ty was confident that we could convince her to give the beach a try today, but I told him it was likely too much too soon. Guess I was wrong.
“Just come on down once you get changed. You don’t have to wear the swimsuit, but you’ll probably be cooler wearing it with just a shirt over top.”
“Okay. I’ll be down in a few,” she says before I leave the room to give her some privacy.
When I walk down to the kitchen, Ty is eating a bowl of cereal while standing up with his back against the counter, in nothing but boardshorts. The sight makes me twice as hungry.
“So?” he asks when he looks up and sees me. “She in?”
“She’s in.”
“Told you so,” he mutters before shoving another spoonful of flakes into his smirking mouth.
“What are you, a Psychology major now?” I ask before I pour myself a bowl of cereal too, to sate at least one of my appetites.
“No, but maybe I should’ve been,” Ty jokes.
“It’d be a better focus than accounting,” I grumble while I eat.
“You don’t have to study accounting,” he says for what must be the millionth time.
“I know,” I agree. “But if I changed my major and told my father I don’t want to come and work for him, then we’d lose the house. Where would the three of us live then?” I let out a breath. “None of us could afford even a two-bedroom apartment, and it’s not like we can work during the season. Do you really want to go back to living in the dorms with random roommates?”
“We could figure something out,” Ty tells me. “And the dorms weren’t so bad.”
“You said they were hot and stuffy and smelled like sweaty jock straps,” I remind him. “And that was in the summer during football camp before they were slam-packed for the fall semester.”
“That…is true,” he reluctantly agrees with a sigh.
“We only have one more year to go, then we’ll graduate, and I’ll figure something out,” I tell him.
“Wow, this is our last year living together before we have to be adults and shit,” Ty grumbles. “I’ll have to get a job.”
“Yeah, we will,” I say, unable to believe that college is almost over for us. “No more partying and fucking off in the summer.”
“Holy shit!” Ty exclaims. “This could very well be our last summer break!”
“Yep. Sucks to think about, doesn’t it?”
“Jeez,” he mutters, slamming down his cereal bowl on the counter. “Thanks for bumming me out.”
“We still have what, nine weeks before the football season starts, and then twelve before classes? That’s plenty of time to screw off and have one last final blast.”
“It’s not enough,” he says. “Having responsibilities is really gonna suck the fun out of life.”
“At least you know what you want to do,” I remind him. “I have no fucking idea. And if I don’t come up with something, I’ll end up miserable, sitting behind a desk, looking at budgets and tax forms and shit for the rest of my boring life.”
“The money would be damn good, though,” he points out.
“What good is money if you hate your life every second of the day?” I ask.
“True. You better figure your shit out fast, bro,” Ty says. “Just don’t let it ruin our last summer together.”
God, he’s right. One more summer. One more year. That’s all we have before we go our separate ways and drift apart, maybe talking on the phone or through text message a few times a year. Less if Ty meets a woman and starts to settle down and have kids. He won’t have time for me, and I don’t think I could watch him be happy when I’ll likely be sad and depressed.
“I don’t want to grow up,” I say. “Peter Pan knew what the fuck he was talking about.”
“The crazy son of a bitch total
ly did,” Ty agrees, right before Skyler comes into the kitchen wearing a white tee that shows her red bathing suit underneath. Good, she actually put it on.
“Morning, Sky. Want some cereal?” Ty asks, picking up the box and offering it to her.
“Sure,” she says, taking it. I grab her a bowl and hand it over. “Thanks.”
“We need some of the cereal with colored marshmallows in it before we grow up,” I suggest.
“Good idea,” Ty agrees. “Let’s put it on the grocery list.”
“Who buys groceries?” Sky asks us.
“The guy at the store,” he tells her, as if it wasn’t obvious.
“The guy at the store?” she questions, looking from him to me in confusion.
“We order online, and then they deliver our groceries the next day,” I explain.
“Wow, Ty. It must be nice to be so rich you don’t even have to shop,” Sky says, causing my best friend to look at me with both of his blond eyebrows raised.
“I know, right,” I reply before Ty can comment. “We’re gonna have to go to the store and push the buggy around and shit when we become adults, aren’t we?”
“Yep. Probably so,” Ty answers, still unsure what to make of Sky’s statement. “Unless we find wives that will do it for us,” he jokes.
“That’s not a bad idea,” I respond.
But I can’t see myself or Ty settling down with anyone anytime soon. Or maybe I just don’t want to imagine that because it’ll be even more proof that our lives are about to go in different directions and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Chapter Twelve
Skyler
I’m so glad that I don’t have a fear of heights or I may have missed this amazing view from the top of the lighthouse.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell the guys once I’m able to catch my breath from the hundreds of steps and the incredible sight. While I may be terrified of the crashing waves and unknown depths of the ocean, it’s still really nice to look at from far away. And from up here, I feel safe and secure from the majestic blue sea.
