She still didn’t look up, but she hadn’t bought my explanation of epic failure. Placing the box down on the mattress, she crawled off the bed and paused in front of me. I was just bracing myself for a slap when she wrapped her arms around me, folding me into a hug I wouldn’t forget anytime soon.
“Thank you,” she breathed into my chest. “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you for everything,”—her head shook against me—“but I will. Promise.”
I worked my arms free, folding them around her. “I didn’t pick this stuff up with the expectation of anything in return.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “Someday, some way, I’ll pay back your kindness and generosity with the same.”
“Sounds like something to look forward to,” I said as she gave me a final squeeze before grabbing her toothbrush and heading for the bathroom. “Happy motorized brushing.”
Grinning at me, she disappeared behind the bathroom door.
“How’s this?” I asked, holding my cooler, blanket, beach bag, and umbrella laden arms as wide as they’d go in front of an unoccupied piece of beach.
She lowered her new sunglasses. “I’ll take it.”
“Good,” I said, dropping my arms and the rest of the beach paraphernalia. “Because my arms can’t take anymore.”
She spun a slow revolution, taking in the scene, the few lines she normally wore on her face wiped clean.
I’d just ironed out the last wrinkle in the beach blanket when she plopped down, spread her limbs out as wide as they’d go, and let out a long sigh.
I watched her, waiting for something else, making a move for a magazine to flip through, or a water bottle to sip, or the sunscreen to apply, but a fresh corpse created more movement than Emma did.
“So this is it?” I asked, motioning at her. “Lounging?” It was a concept I wasn’t familiar with. I was restless by nature and busy by existence. If I had a day to myself on the beach, I was riding the waves until they grew tired of me and stopped cooperating. I didn’t “lounge.”
She patted the space beside her. “Prepare to experience utopia.”
I looked at the water, where I swear I saw a wave twice the size of the rest rise to tempt me, and then down the shoreline where I’d run a half marathon down and back daily because it was fun, and then I looked down at Emma. The spot her hand rested over was the spot she meant for me to possess. A spot beside her.
A grain of sand didn’t have time to drop through the hourglass before I was stretching out beside her, turning my head so if I couldn’t do anything else, I could at least watch her.
“Utopia, here I come,” I said, finding the heaviness of sleep ensnaring me one moment, and the next I was . . .
“Patrick?” a voice said outside my ear as a gentle hand rocked my arm.
“Hmmm?” was my intelligent, fully alert response.
A sun freckled face was smiling above me when I opened my eyes. I was certain, betting my life on it certain, that I’d never awoken to a more beautiful sight.
“Many happy returns,” she said. “I would have let you keep sleeping, but it’s already three, and I didn’t want to let you go much longer without drinking some water in this heat. And you better put on another coat of sunscreen too.” She began fussing with her beach bag, upending it when she couldn’t find what she was looking for.
“Did you just say it’s three o’clock?” I said, not able to shake the sleep drunk voice. “What the heck did you do to me?”
Holding out an ice cold bottle of water, she set the sunscreen beside me with her other hand. “Never underestimate the power of a much needed session of lounging.”
“I won’t.” I sat up, taking the water and chugging it down in one fluid sip. But it still hadn’t done the trick of bringing me back to my state of equilibrium. For the first time in more decades than I had fingers and toes for, I felt thirsty, I felt uncomfortable, I felt hot. Scorching hot.
“Could I have another bottle?” I asked her, popping to a stand faster than I should have. I felt woozy from rising too quickly. Add woozy to the general discomfort list that shouldn’t have pertained to someone of my orientation. Was the sun baking down on us at one thousand and twenty-two degrees today? Holy heat wave.
I couldn’t get my shirt off fast enough. I would have added my boardshorts to the discarded clothing pile had I been wearing anything beneath them like a decent man would have. Decency, in my naked under my boardshorts opinion, was an over rated attribute.
“Here you go,” Emma said, turning from the cooler towards me. “Let me know if you need me to . . .”
She looked at me, but she wasn’t exactly looking in my eyes. The water bottle slipped from her hands. She looked hypnotized, every muscle frozen in her hypnosis—the only things moving were her pupils as they scattered over me like beads of water dripping down a pane of glass.
I had to check to make sure, confirm the Steel Magnolia of Stanford was checking me out, and yes, she most certainly was. I loved it.
“Nice view, eh?” I said, running my eyes down my chest before winking at her.
The wink did it, the nudge the reasonable Emma trapped beneath the lustful, staring Emma’s surface needed to punch through that cheap veneer. “There
was
a very nice view of the ocean before this hideous, drooling, giant-headed beast got in my way.”
“Yeah,” I said, not phased as I crouched down to retrieve the fallen water bottle, “you think I’m hot. Probably even super hot from the way you were panting.”
She could have just bitten into a lemon wedge from the face she gave me. “I do
not
think you’re hot,” she said, flipping her glasses down from her head. “Quite the opposite actually.”
“Keep it coming,” I said, chugging down another bottle in one guzzle. “The more you deny it, the more obvious it becomes.”
Huffing, she turned her back on me and grabbed a magazine and began flipping through it. “Do me a favor and go back to sleep, will you? Your company’s much more pleasant when you’re not talking.”
“Yeah, but I’m much more pleasant to stare at when I’m awake and shirtless,” I said, doing an exaggerated stretch over my head.
She glanced once over her shoulder at me and looked away liked she couldn’t get back to her easy reading fast enough. “And sweaty and stinky and more conceited than normal—how that’s even possible is beyond me.”
“It’s a gift,” I answered and, convinced her back would be facing me for
a while
, I started back for the house. “I’m going to grab my board, and I’ll be right back. Do you need anything?”
“Nah, I’m doing great,” she said, refusing to look at me. “But you might want to grab yourself a slice of humble pie while you’re at it.”
“I believe I’m fresh out of pie, but thanks for thinking of me,” I said, jogging backwards, not able to look away from her yet. “Be back before you can miss me.”
“Oh, and Patrick?” she hollered, flipping on her stomach and lowering her glasses. Her eyes dragged down my body and she smiled. “Go do a sit-up or something. Your eight pack is looking a little flabby. You shouldn’t let yourself go like that. It’s disgraceful, really.”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding my head. “You think I’m hot.” I continued my backwards jog towards the house, throwing in an Irish jig jump for good measure.
“I’ll never admit to it,” she shouted after me.
I moved with a purpose once I got to the house. I swiped a couple of lemonades from the fridge before sprinting to my trophy room, also known as the place I kept my collection of boards in. I’d been tempted to get a keypad lock on the door because, of all the stuff in this house, these were of the most personal value, but I’d decided against it in the end. If someone was skilled enough to make it into the house, they possessed enough master thief swag to break into a room protected by a mere keypad.
I went with my tried and true favorite, Big Bessie, and was jogging back down the beach bearing gifts of lemonade and shirtless man with surfboard tucked to his side, doing his best slow motion run impersonation. I even made a show of bouncing my hair from side to side.
I could tell from a distance that something about her looked different, but wasn’t able to identify just what it was until she stood up. Emma was sans cover-up and bending over the blanket to shake it clean. The cans of lemonade slipped from my hand. I didn’t make a move to catch them before they coated themselves in sand.
I watched her without her knowing until she’d situated herself back on the sand free blanket. Relatively certain I could hold my composure if she didn’t perform any bending, shaking, or shimmying maneuvers, I continued down the beach towards her. I’d made it to the half way point when she reached for . . . oh, God no. Please don’t be the . . . yep, it was.
The suntan lotion. Lord have mercy.
I was convinced it was invented by a woman bent on torturing men for bringing about the advent of bras, pantyhose, and corsets. It was a substantial means of revenge.
A shrill whistle, followed by a catcall with too many superlatives, sounded a few board lengths to my right.
“Jessie!” I shouted over at the prep school kid who liked to pretend he was a free spirited hippie. Up to this moment, I used to dig the kid. “Watch your mouth before I shove my board up your ass.”
“Whoa, Patrick, brother,” he said, raising his hands and walking away. “That fine creature your woman?”
I glanced over at her—the noise had caught her attention and she was watching me now. She waved.
“Not exactly,” I answered. “But she’s not yours either, so scram.”
Jessie flipped me the peace sign, his shag of hair flopping as he jogged his way over to the rest of his trust fund buddies who didn’t look like they knew the front of their boards from the back.
“Were you just defending my honor over there?” Emma asked, sitting up.
“That, and giving him a lesson on the finer points of the cat call,” I said, forcing my eyes to stay north of her neck or else I was toast. If she’d floored me from a hundred yards away, I’d be as good as flat-lining at arm’s length distance. “It’s all here in the diaphragm,” I said, pushing the area below my ribs. “Projection is key.”
“You’d know,” she said, as I laid my board beside her. My eyes kept threatening to travel south, so I punished them by looking away. I focused on wiping the lemonade cans off on my shorts.
“Refreshment, mostly free of sand. I think.” I handed her a can, diverting my eyes to the ocean.
“Thanks,” she said, taking the can and cracking it open. She took a sip, opened her mouth to say something, and then took another sip instead.
When this sequence repeated itself, I asked, “What?”
Playing with the tab of the can, she looked down the beach. “Don’t get me wrong, because I’m thankful for everything you picked up for me, but I wouldn’t have thought you were familiar with the concept of a one-piece swimsuit.” Her eyes trailed down the simple, no fuss, sexy as hell, jade colored swimsuit.
“Is that what this standard nun issue beach attire is called?” I teased, looking up at the cloudless sky.
“Yes,” she said, snapping a shoulder strap. “And the three little triangles in front leading to strings on the back you likely purchase for other girls is called lingerie.”
I smiled at the tinge of jealousy she’d let seep into her voice. Jealousy meant something. Jealousy, despite it being a vice, meant she cared enough for me to be irritated by the past someones who had felt the same.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I claimed, “and this is the first swimsuit of the female variety I’ve purchased for someone.”
I was still admiring the sky like it was the last time I’d see it, but I could see her face wrinkling around her expression. “Sure it is,” she said like she knew better. “But to keep with your account, let’s say it really is—”
“Which it is,” I interjected.
“—why, when everything about you is a less is more when it comes to objects covering women, would you pick a not-quite-but-pretty-darn-close-to-prudish one piece for me?” There was something in her voice, something she was disguising, that I couldn’t decipher.
I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to answer this question, but Emma Scarlett liked to ask those ones I didn’t want to explain.
“Man, Emma,” I said, setting my jaw, “this is one of those darned if I do and darned if I don’t situations. Did I first grab the skimpiest of skimpy two pieces off the rack? Hells yes I did. But then this voice in my head went off, reminding me I’d promised to be on my best behavior, and buying you a bikini a stripper would be too shy to wear didn’t align with that promise. So I exchanged it with the prudish, as you put it, one piece adorning your body right now.”
I knew I was going on and on, covering all the details, but one thing I’d learned from generations of interacting with women is that they want to know
all
the details. It made things simpler to divulge it all from the start.
“However, I also knew that by purchasing a one piece, you’d be upset I bought one for you because no girl between the ages of twelve to sixty wears one.” Shrugging, I said, “Like I said, I was darned if I did and darned if I didn’t.”
So much talk of the swimsuit made me want to look at the swimsuit, but that wasn’t an option if I wanted to keep my eyes firmly socketed.
She ringed her fingers over the lip of the can. “So you didn’t pick it out because you didn’t think I should wear a bikini?”
Ah, that was it. What she’d been disguising before but wasn’t anymore. Insecurity. I should have known that’s what it was; it’d been my experience that the women who needed to be the least insecure were often the most.
“That,” I emphasized, “is, a hundred million times, not the reason.”
“Then why can’t you look at me?” she asked softly.
She was almost as talented as misreading signs as slap him in the face before he got it William.
Holding my hand over hers still wearing down the rim of the can, I said, “I can’t look at you because if I do, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop.”
Her smile made the whole explanation, the awkwardness of it, my vulnerability, my gut deep desire to let my eyes have their way with her, all of it, worth it.
“You think I’m hot,” she teased.
“Smokin’,” I answered, popping up with my board in hand. “So smokin’ I need to cool off. Feel free to join. That is, if you don’t mind getting your hair wet.”
“I think I need a couple more hours of lounging before I even think of moving,” she said, rolling over and flopping a hat over her head.
Knowing she wouldn’t know it if all of Stanford’s male populace was checking her out right now, I allowed myself a peek. One tiny, half second long peek.