Take a Gamble (2 page)

I flip
over about the time my brothers decide to join me on the beach. Per usual, they are being creative when it comes to bothering me. First, they decide to play a game of Frisbee. Sounds innocent. The only problem is that I am directly in the middle of the game so I feel the sand flying and landing on me.

Once they g
et sick of Frisbee they head back to the house. I think maybe I’ll be able to go back to relaxing. That thought left as quickly as it came along. I flip over and see my brothers are headed in my direction with water guns. I’m assuming the guns are already full of water. Probably freezing cold water. Since my body is on fire from the sun, warm water would feel cold on my skin right now.

I jump up and start to run but they are as quick as I am
; once the first spray hits my back I scream out. It’s really fucking cold. I try swerving back and forth but it’s more challenging in the sand. They continue their assault all the way down the beach. We must look like a bunch of idiots.

I’m about five houses down now and the water assault has stopped.
They must have run out of water or gotten bored. I stop running and bend over to catch my breath. When I finally turn around to see where my brothers have gone all I see are two water guns in the sand.

I slowly make my way towards the water guns and pick them both up.
Full. I look around, but I don’t see my brothers anywhere. I call out for them, but I don’t see them. This is not good.

I’m starting to worry when I hear them snickering.
I feel their assault before I spot them. The water guns I’m holding were decoys. I start to slowly back up when I realize they’ve got me right where they want me. I have nowhere to run. The only direction I can go is into the ocean. The freezing cold ocean.

I’m shooting them with both guns
, but they aren’t even fazed by it. Warm water drips onto my hand and I realize why. My heel hits the wet sand and I know I have to figure something out quick or else I’m going to be wet and cold.

I take another step back and step on something.
I turn around to see what it is and find that I’m staring directly at a tan, muscular chest. A chest I recognize. A chest I want to reach out and touch. I almost do. Then, I remember my brothers are standing behind me and I don’t need to give them any reason to tell our parents about our hot new neighbor.

Did I just call him hot?

Pretty sure that might be the understatement of the year.
He’s more than hot. He’s more than attractive. It’s like he has his own gravitational pull, and right now it’s pulling me in. Deeper and deeper.

“Need a hand, Mac?”

The way he says my name makes me shiver. There’s so much meaning behind it. I know want he really asked me but what I heard was “Can I kiss you, Mac?” I’m such a stupid girl sometimes.

Without saying a word, because I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to speak even if I tried, I hand him a gun.
He empties it and then fills it with the water from the ocean. He hands it back to me, takes the other one from me and does the same.

Ready for action.
Damn! That sounds a little dirtier than I thought it would. I’m glad I didn’t say that out loud.

I turn and find that my brother
s are gone. They couldn’t have gone far, though. We’re only a few houses away from ours and I’m pretty sure there are not many places they can hide between here and there.

Roe grabs my hand and pulls me behind him.
I’m so distracted by him holding my hand that I drop my gun and forget how to walk.

“Mac.”

I hear him say my name but I’m staring at our hands. I watch as he slowly shifts his hand and puts his fingers between mine. He squeezes my hand gently and I hear him say my name again. This time I look up. There’s that grin again. It’s slightly higher on the left, now that I’m looking closely, but still as dangerous as it was last night.

“Sorry, I…”
I’m stuck. I can’t even think straight enough in his presence to come up with a lie.

“
Yeah.”

That’s all he says before tugging gently on my hand and we
walk down the beach. I never picked my water gun back up and at some point he put his down. All thoughts of retaliation against my brothers is forgotten. All I can think about right now is the feel of my hand in his. All I can hear is the racing of my heart. The pounding of it against my chest. It’s freaking out and to be totally honest, so am I.

Things like this don’t happen to me.
I’ve had exactly two boyfriends my entire life. With my first boyfriend, I was thirteen and quickly found out that all he wanted to do was make out all the time. He didn’t care about me or what I wanted. He just wanted to make out. Looking back, I can’t really blame him. After all, he was a thirteen-year-old boy.

My
second, and last, boyfriend and I broke up a few months ago. I guess boys don’t change much between thirteen and sixteen. There are only have a few things that can capture their attention and hold it for a period of time. One is making out. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy making out as much as the next girl. It’s fun and my parents would totally flip out if they caught me. It also gets old really quickly.

When I told Trevor that I didn’t want to make out one night he took
it as a sign that I wanted to do other things. I did not want to do other things. He “insisted” until I kicked him square in the balls.

We didn’t break up over our miscommunication
, but we probably should have. We went back to making out a week later. Then, a few months later I found out that he was seeing someone else behind my back. Apparently, he was doing things with her that I wouldn’t.

I’m not going to lie.
It hurt like hell. I was falling pretty hard for him. Obviously, I wasn’t in love with him or else we would have been experimenting with those other things that I wasn’t willing to do with him.

Alexa says I did the right thing
by breaking up with him. He’s called me a few times, asking what went wrong. I never told him I found out about his skank and I probably never will. That’s where the real hurt comes in. Admitting that I was blinded by what I felt for him.

No.
I don’t blame myself. I blame him completely. There really is no point in pointing fingers, though. It’s over and I’ve accepted that. I’ve been telling myself for weeks now that I need to move on and date someone else, but no one has interested me.

Until last night.

Until this moment.

Roe.
He interests me. He intrigues me. He confuses me and makes me speechless.

Roe.

Even his name is interesting. I want to ask him why his parents named him Roe. Is it short for something? Is that his nickname or his real name? There are about a million questions running through my head but I can’t seem to get my mouth to cooperate so I say nothing. I don’t ask him anything. Instead, I savor the feel of my hand in his and let him lead me down the beach.

I
see a pier up ahead. It looks like that’s where we’re headed, so I focus on that. I focus on the pier and all the questions I’m going to ask him once I find my voice again. I’m so focused, so caught up in my thoughts that I don’t realize he stopped walking until I feel my shoulder pull back and his hand slips away.

That got my attention.
I instantly feel the loss of his body heat. It’s at least eighty degrees already yet I feel cold without him holding my hand.

I look up and his crooked grin is watching me, assessing me.
I clearly see his eyes now. They are a deep shade of brown, at least two shades darker than my own. His jaw is chiseled and I can tell he didn’t shave this morning. His hair is light brown, barely a shade darker than the sand.

He’s still without his shirt and it’s taking every ounce of strength I possess to not openly ogle him.
I know his body is toned and well-defined. I felt it last night when he pulled me into the shadows. I got a fantastic glimpse of his golden skin when I backed up into him earlier today while trying to escape my brothers.

My brothers.
I wonder where they went off to. I wonder if they told our parents that I left with a boy. I wonder how much trouble I am going to be in when I get back to the beach house.

“So, Mac… where are you from?”

His question bring me back to reality. His voice slices through the clouds which have started to circle around my brain. The fog begins to clear. I can do this. I can have a conversation with him. My voice will work.

I clear my throat to make sure, never once breaking eye contact with him.
“Chicago. You?”

“San Diego,” he says, tugging on my hand and pulling me down into the sand.

I sit next to him, close to him, and stretch out my legs. He let go of my hand once we were seated and again I felt the loss immediately.
I’m not sure why I keep getting these feelings. Is it because he’s attractive? It can’t be just that. I’ve been around attractive guys before and I’ve never had a hard time holding up my end of the conversation. This guy… he takes my breath away.

We sit in comfortable silence, watching the waves.
Every once in a while Roe asks me a question. They are always innocent in nature. How old am I? Do I play any sports? What’s my school like?

I ask him the same questions but I
become uneasy the more we ask each other. Why does he want to know all of this about me? I’m obviously attracted to him and he’s probably attracted to me. It’s not like we could start a relationship, though. I’m only here for a month and then we’ll be worlds apart from each other again.

“How long are you staying?”
I hear myself ask before I even realize I’m about to speak.

“The whole summer.
I was thinking about going home halfway through the summer but now I’m not sure. How long are you staying?”

It’s there.
You can hear it. He is definitely attracted to me. The way he asked, the way his voice hesitated a beat, I could tell he was hopeful that I was going to be staying the entire summer.

“About a month, I think.”

“Oh.” Defeat. That’s the only word which could describe the way he sounded in that moment.

“We can still have fun for the next few weeks, though.”
What am I saying? Am I eluding to what I think I am eluding to? Why would I start this conversation with him? I’m not normally this bold. I don’t normally initiate things like this. I do the opposite – I sit on my hands and wait for the guy to make the first move.

He lifts an eyebrow – so fucking hot – and his grin appears.
“So, you want to have fun for the next few weeks then? With me?”

I feel the heat from my cheeks.
He called me out. I know I shouldn’t be embarrassed but I am. It’s not like I jumped him but the hint at something more was caught.

Be bold.
Go after what you want, Mac. You never have to see him or talk to him again if you don’t want to after you leave here.

The thought makes me sad and I frown.
What if he doesn’t want anything to do with me after I leave? Why would I risk that?

“What’s going on up there that’s causing you to look so upset?”

“Nothing. It’s just…” How do I put this? “Well, I was thinking about what happens after I leave, once we go back to our real lives.”

“I guess that depends on what happens before you leave.”
Damn that grin.

“I can read your mind right now.
You better be careful.” I’m trying to play around with him but the second me touches me I know my idea of playing around and his are different.

He moves his hand from my shoulder and scorches a path with his finger all the way up to my lips.
I shudder the second he puts his finger on my lips and am rewarded with that damn grin again. I’m going to be dreaming about it all summer at this rate.

“What am I thinking about right now, Mac?”

Keep teasing my lips. Please keep teasing my lips. I like the way my body is responding to you. I want more, though. Maybe you could kiss me?

That’s what I want to tell him but instead I make an attempt to play his game, and hopefully beat him at it.

“Football?”

“Nope.
Care to try again?”

He’s caressing my cheek now and I involuntarily lean into his hand.
Damn! He’s good at this.

“Hmm.
The beautiful view?”

“Getting closer.
I do have a beautiful view.” He’s staring in to my eyes as he says it and my insides melt into a puddle. “Give up?”

“Yeah,” I say
, breathless. The way he’s looking at me is making it hard to think, hard to breathe.

“Care if I show you
instead?”

I nod, knowing what’s next.
I have been kissed before so I’m not scared but I have no idea what to expect from Roe. I’ve only known him for a few hours, but I’m more attracted to him than I have been to anyone else before.

He runs the pad of his thumb over my lips and leans in.
I lean towards him and the second our lips connect I gasp. He pulls back for a second and then pulls my head towards him again and devours me. That’s the best way to describe it.