He sat up and leaned across the table, “Is it because you think you’re not pretty enough to be with a guy like me?”
I put my glass down and lowered my eyes at him. “That statement is wrong for three reasons. First, it’s insulting! I don’t think I’m not pretty enough to be with you.”
A panicked look flashed across his face, “I don’t think that either! I just thought maybe you thought that and I was going to tell you that it’s not true! I think you’re pretty, you’re beautiful actually.”
I put my hand up to stop him. “Whatever! Secondly, I’ve seen enough chick flicks, and read enough chick lit, to know that even if I am just slightly less attractive than you, if this was a movie or book, I’d totally get you in the end!”
He relaxed a little and laughed. “And what’s the third reason?”
“The third reason is that you aren’t exactly the grand prize winner in the greatest man on earth contest!” I took another big sip of wine.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked with a grin.
“Well, you obviously choose to enter relationships that you know will never work out, which means you have commitment issues. Plus, you don’t like to talk about yourself, or your family, something which I suspect is the main reason you have commitment issues.” I shrugged and took another drink.
He smiled, “You do realize that hooking up means that there is no commitment involved, right?”
“Don’t kid yourself! Very few women hook up without even the slightest hope that it might lead to something more than just one night.”
“Even Chrissy?” he grinned and poured more wine into my glass.
“Chrissy is the worst kind of hook up! She acts like the flighty party girl but what she really is, is a girl desperate for someone to love her. All she wants is for a man to tell her that he loves her, but what she doesn’t realize is that it’s never going to happen if she keeps going after men like Mr. Money.” I shook my head at the state of Chrissy’s love life. I’d told her a thousand times that she needed to stop what she was doing, but she just couldn’t help herself. She was broken and always would be.
“What about you?” Nick cocked his head to the side. “You aren’t desperate for a man to tell you he loves you?”
“No,” I said confidently. “I’ve had that and it felt good, but what I want now is for a man to tell me that I’m it. I want him to tell me that I am the only woman he will love for the rest of his life. I want to hear him say that there is nothing else in this world that he wants more than to be by my side as we build a life and a family together. You can’t get that from hook up.”
“No, you can’t,” Nick said softly.
I took another sip of wine and tried to avoid meeting his gaze. I could feel his eyes on me, but I refused to look over at him.
He finally broke the silence between us. “How would you feel about a bonfire on the beach tonight?”
8.
I filled a cooler with bottles of water and beer while Nick went down to the beach and started the fire. By the time I made it to the beach, the fire was blazing and Nick had a towel down for us to sit on.
“I brought you some beers,” I gave him a smile and parked the cooler by the towel.
“Thanks,” he said and grabbed his guitar. He sat down on the towel and started playing. I sat down next to him and watched the sparks flying off the fire and into the night sky.
I listened to Nick playing the guitar and watched the flames, feeling completely content. It reminded me of when I would visit my grandparents at the farmhouse in Virginia. They would sit together for hours on the front porch and not say a word to each other. Grandpa Harris would carve and whittle, while Grandma Harris would knit. They were content just being near each other. They didn’t feel the need to fill every second with idle chatter.
“I thought that was you,” Darren’s voice boomed from behind us.
Nick stopped playing and we both turned around to see Darren walking towards us with a gorgeous redhead on his arm.
“We were going to go for a swim, but Ginger heard a guitar and saw the fire, so we thought we’d come check out what was going on down here.” Darren flashed his pearly white teeth at us. “Are we interrupting something?”
“No,” Nick said with a shake of his head. “We were just enjoying the night with a fire and some tunes. Would you care to join us?”
“This is so romantic!” Ginger, Darren’s redhead, exclaimed and plopped herself down across the fire from me.
Darren sat down next to her and stole a kiss.
Nick leaned closer to me and whispered, “That’s a different girl from this morning, isn’t it?”
I opened my eyes wide and nodded. Nick shrugged and started playing again.
At first, everything was the same as it had been before Darren and Ginger arrived. Nick played a few songs and I watched the flames. Unfortunately, Darren and Ginger started to get a little more enthusiastic in their enjoyment of the ambience. The soft giggles and moans started to become distracting, and I found myself looking up at the stars instead of the flames that only partially hid the loving couple from my view.
The sounds and sights must have been distracting for Nick too, as he started to stumble over the notes of his songs more frequently than he had earlier.
I cleared my throat, hoping it would help, but it didn’t do any good.
“They know we’re still here, right?” I whispered to Nick when he stumbled over his song for the fifth time in the last minute.
“I don’t think they care,” he whispered back.
A loud moan broke through our conversation, causing Nick and I to stare uncomfortably at each other.
“Hey, uh, we’re going in. Can you make sure to put the fire out before you head inside?” Nick stood up and asked without looking at the couple.
“Yeah, sure, whatever man,” Darren said breathlessly.
Nick pulled me up from my seated position and pushed me towards the house. We left the towel and the cooler of drinks on the beach and practically ran back up to the house.
“That was uncomfortable,” I said when we’d reached the house.
“Just a little,” Nick rolled his eyes and held the door open for me. “Are you too tired, or are you up for a movie?”
“I might be able to handle a movie.”
“I’ll get the drinks and snacks and meet you upstairs on the couch. You pick out whatever you want.” Nick walked off in the direction of the kitchen and I headed up to the second floor and over towards the media cabinet.
I picked out an action flick, hoping it would be a safe choice. Nick handed me a bottle of water and sat down next to me on the couch with a bowl of popcorn. The blanket he’d put over me for my nap was on the back of the couch and he pulled it off and spread it over our laps as the opening credits of the movie began to play.
Halfway through the movie, we heard the downstairs back door slide open and closed. Next, we heard two voices, one high and one low, as they traveled up the stairs to the third floor. We glanced at each other then turned our attention back to the movie. Within five minutes though, it was nearly impossible to focus on the movie. The moans, groans, and screams coming from the third floor filled the house.
There were no more glances. In fact, we were both trying very hard to act as if nothing at all was happening. Nick continued to munch on the popcorn and I played with my water bottle. I thought we were pulling it off quite well, but then the banging started.
I put my hand over my mouth to stifle the giggle escaping. The banging got louder and faster and was soon joined by even louder moans. The louder they got, the louder my giggles got.
Nick put the bowl of popcorn down on the coffee table and stood up, “Wanna go for a walk?”
“Yeah, that would be good,” I said and jumped up from the couch. In less than a minute, we were out the door and headed back down towards the beach. The fire Nick had built earlier, and left in Darren’s capable hands, was out but still smoldering. The lights from the back of the beach house were bright enough that we could see all the way to the water. We walked silently for a minute.
“Do you think they have any clue at all how loud they were being?” I asked as we walked along the water’s edge.
“I think they were probably a little preoccupied.”
We both started laughing uncontrollably.
“Does he do that a lot?”
Nick grinned, “I’ve never actually studied his technique, but I would assume that if it gets favorable reviews then he probably does do it often.”
I smacked his arm. “That’s not what I meant! I meant does he pick up a lot of girls and have sex with them in public?”
“Technically they weren’t in public. They were in a private residence and in a closed bedroom.”
“Okay, let me rephrase that. Does he often have sex with random girls when he knows other people can hear him?”
Nick shrugged, “It’s not the first escapade I’ve had to listen to.”
I nodded and we walked in silence for a minute.
“She was faking it, by the way,” I said quietly.
“I don’t think she was faking that, Cami.”
“Trust me,” I looked over at him and continued, “She was faking that.”
He smiled at me, “What makes you say that?”
With a grin, I looked away and said, “Years of practice.”
He laughed but suddenly stopped and got quiet, “Wait! That was what fake sounds like?”
I smiled, “Don’t worry, we only fake it because we don’t want your feelings to be hurt.” I gave him a sympathetic look. “Or, we fake it because we just want it to be over so we can roll over and go to sleep without you poking at us all night.”
Nick’s brow furrowed, “But you’re saying that when a girl makes those noises, she’s faking it?”
I laughed and grabbed his hand reassuringly, “I’m sure that when a girl makes those noises with you, they are completely genuine.”
He rolled his eyes at me, “Thanks, but your sarcastic reassurance is not needed. I’ve never received any complaints, so I’m confident that I can please a woman.”
I dropped his hand and put my own up in defense. “Okay, no need to get defensive. I’m sure you’re a love machine!”
Nick looked at me intently, “Shall I remind you what happens when you insult my abilities as a lover?”
Just as he threatened me, a wave rolled up on shore pushing cool water over my feet. It felt nice, but I did not want to be soaked with it. Instead, I put up my hand and said, “Truce?”
He smiled and nodded. “Tell me more about your family.”
“What do you want to know?”