A Week at the Beach (13 page)

            I shifted my eyes enough to get a better look at the scars I’d seen earlier.  Just as I’d suspected, they looked to be cigarette burns.  There were about a dozen of them, with some of them looking as if there were burns on top of burns. 

            “I think as long as we get some ice on it, you’ll be okay.”  He moved and lowered his face down to mine.  He smiled at me, “I should have known you wouldn’t make it through an entire day without some sort of injury.”

            I rolled my eyes at him and smiled. 

            We sat looking at each other.  I expected him to move away, to stand up and walk away, to do anything but just sit there and stare at me.  I swallowed hard as the electricity that had buzzed between us that morning started to hum again.

            He cleared his throat and whispered, “Thank you.”

            “For what?” I whispered back.

            “For telling me that we weren’t going to hook up,” he sighed and the heat of his breath against my skin sent a tingle of excitement through me.  “If I thought it would lead somewhere, I would totally kiss you right now.”

            Another tingle ran through me.  I couldn’t deny that there was definitely a physical attraction between us, but attraction didn’t change the facts.  He lived in LA, I lived in New York, and in a few days, we’d never see each other again.  All of those factors made for a bad idea. 

            His face was still just inches from mine.

            I looked into his eyes and sighed.  “You’re welcome.”

            He smiled, shook his head, and stood up.  He held his hand out to me and I took it.  I let him pull me up, but dropped his hand when I was upright. 

            “I certainly hope there’s plenty of ice in the freezer,” he said with a hint of humor in his voice.

            “I’m sure it won’t take that much ice to heal our wounds.” I bumped into him and smiled.

            “Probably not, but maybe to conserve ice we should use the same ice pack, just in case.” He grinned at me mischievously.

            It took me a few seconds to figure out why he was giving me that look.  I had to think back for a second to realize what he was saying.  I pictured the two of us sharing an ice pack, me with the head wound and him with his wounded crotch. 

            “Oh!” I said loudly and with a blush.  “Pervert!”

            Nick laughed and held the door open for me. 

            The smell of cleaning fluids greeted us as we walked through the front door of the house.  The cleaners had done a great job of putting the house back together.  There were no signs of the wild party from the night before.  All the furniture was back in place, the carpets were freshly steam-cleaned, and the kitchen was spotless. 

            I headed for the freezer and put a few ice cubes in a paper towel.  I handed it to Nick before making one for myself.  He sat down on one of the stools and put the paper towel bundle in his lap.  I put my own bundle against my head and leaned on the counter across from him.

            He smiled at me and I smiled back.

            “Does your head hurt?” he asked softly.

            “Not too bad.  How’s your crotch?” I asked with a grin.

            He grinned back at me, “There might be some swelling going on down there. Would you mind checking it out for me?”

            I rolled my eyes at him.  “Those jokes and cheesy lines aren’t going to make me change my mind.”

            “I know that.”  He got up from the stool.  “I wouldn’t dream of making you do something you didn’t want to do.”  He put the paper towel bundle on the counter and left the kitchen. 

            When he was gone, I dropped the ice package on my head and exhaled loudly.  I’d never admit it, but the argument against hooking up was getting weaker by the minute. The electricity between us was intense and only getting heavier.  But the distance between our lives wasn’t the only obstacle now.  The mystery of who Nick Fletcher really was seemed to be an even more impossible block in our path.  I knew enough about him to know that I wanted to know more. 

            An hour later, after I’d taken a shower, put on fresh clothes, and transferred my shells from Nick’s t-shirt to a plastic bag; I headed down to the second floor and collapsed on the couch in front of the television.  I curled up on the couch and settled on a marathon of an old sitcom. 

            I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke up it was almost dark outside and the television was off.  I stretched my arms and feet out and felt a blanket slide off me onto the floor. 

            “Finally!” Nick’s voice called out to me in the dark.  “I was worried that you’d given yourself a concussion and then fallen into a coma.”

            “How long did I sleep?” I yawned loudly and stretched some more.

            Nick got up from the chair across the room and came to sit on the end of the couch.  He put my feet in his lap.  “You’ve been asleep for about three hours.”

            “Has Chrissy come home yet?” I tried to sit up and pull my feet away, but he grabbed them and kept me still.

            “She did, but she left again.  She told me to tell you that she took the emergency stash so you shouldn’t worry about her.” 

            I couldn’t see his face because it was too dark in the room, but I could hear the suspicion in his voice. 

            “She wasn’t talking about drugs, was she?  You definitely don’t seem like the type to be involved with drugs, but I’m not so sure about Chrissy.”  He kept my feet in a firm grip, waiting for my answer.

            I laughed, “No, we’re not into drugs.  She means condoms.  I always bring some because she never remembers to.”

            His hands dropped from my feet. “Condoms?  I thought you didn’t hook up?”

            Free from his grip, I sat up.  “I don’t!”

            “Then why do you bring condoms with you?”

            “I bring them for Chrissy.  The last thing this world needs is for her to be procreating.  I’m doing the world a favor by packing those condoms.” 

            “But you never use them?”

            “Not for hooking up, no.”

            He sighed loudly and stood up.  “I’m hungry!  Let’s go to the store and get something for dinner.”
            Nick called a taxi to come pick us up and I ran upstairs to freshen up.  He chatted with the driver on the way to the store and I watched the sun setting over the water on the horizon.  It had been a great day, and I was looking forward to a nice quiet evening.

            Once in the store, I headed off to the medicine section to pick up some more ibuprofen.  My head was aching a little and the bottle of ibuprofen in my bag was running low.  I’d just picked up a generic bottle when Nick appeared at the end of the aisle.

            “You eat meat, right?” he asked.

            The old lady standing next to me gave him a strange look then looked at me.

            I don’t know what I was thinking, or even why I was thinking it, but suddenly something completely inappropriate popped into my head.

            “Cami?” Nick called out to me.

            “What?” I said with a blush.

            He walked over to me.  “I asked you if you eat meat and you didn’t answer.  Do you?”

            “You mean like chicken and beef?” I asked stupidly.  As soon as the question was out of my mouth, I knew I’d made a mistake.

            His eyebrow rose.  “What else would I mean?”

            I blushed again, “Nothing.”

            He cocked his head to the side and grinned, “Cami?”

            I rolled my eyes, “Okay, so like maybe for half a second my mind went somewhere else.”

            He laughed loudly, “You know, for a girl who says she’s not interested in hooking up, you certainly do think about sex a lot.”

            The old lady next to me gave Nick a once over then looked me up and down too.

            “Oh come on!  You’re telling me that if I said something harmless to you like, ‘Hey, how do you feel about going downtown tonight?’ that your mind wouldn’t go there?” I smiled at him.

            “Of course not,” he said with a smile for the old lady.  “I would assume that you were inviting me out for a night on the town in the main district of a city.”

            “Whatever!” I said and laughed at him.  “To answer your question, yes, I am a carnivore.”

            He smiled, “Good.”  He turned and walked back to where he’d come from.  Just before he left the aisle, though, he turned around and said, “Oh and by the way, I’d love to go downtown.  In fact, I’ve been told that I’m very good at going downtown.”  He flashed a wide smile then disappeared. 

            Too embarrassed to face the old lady next to me, I started to walk away from her.

            “Hold on to that one, sweetie!  Not many men like going downtown and even fewer are good at it!” the old lady shouted after me.

            “Why did that old lady just wink at me?” Nick asked as we stood in the checkout line.

            My cheeks burned again and I turned away from him.  “Probably because you bragged about your oral skills in front of her and now she thinks we’re going home to have sex.”

            Nick laughed, “That’s awesome!” He gave the old lady a wink and a big grin.

            “Stop it!” I said and handed him a potato.

            After the embarrassing incident with the old lady, I’d been too distracted to pay attention to what he was putting in the cart.  Now, in the checkout line, I was inspecting what he’d chosen.

            “Wine?” I questioned him as I handed him the bottle.

            “I thought it would be nice with the meal.” He shrugged and put the bottle on the counter.

            “I hope it’s not expensive because I have to confess that I don’t know enough about the stuff to be able to tell the difference between the good stuff and the cheap stuff.”  I tossed the other potato onto the counter.

            “Good, then I’m glad I got the five dollar bottle.”

            “Will you please let me pay for at least part of this stuff?” I begged him politely.

            “No!  I told you when we got in the car that today is completely my treat.” He flashed a cheesy smile.  “If it makes you feel better, you can pay for everything tomorrow.”

            Back at the house, Nick started the grill and I pulled everything else together.  We ate at the table by the pool and stuffed ourselves with the delicious food.  The bottle of wine added to the meal and helped me to relax a little.

            “So, I have to ask,” Nick said after we’d both pushed our plates away and refilled our glasses.  “Why exactly won’t you hook up with me?”

            “I told you, I don’t hook up.”

            “Okay, well, let’s say you did do hook ups.  Would you hook up with me then?”

            I smiled at him, but shook my head, “No.”

            “Why not?” he said it with a hurt voice, but the smile never left his face.

            “I just wouldn’t, that’s all.”  I didn’t want to admit the truth to him or myself.