Divine (9 page)

“
Or older!”
she challenged. I knew she wasn't going to approve.

“
Well, if you
don't want me to go I won't. It's no big deal; I don't even think he
wants me there anyway.”

Her expression softened
as she saw my discouragement. “Oh okay,” she finally
said. “You can go, I guess.”

I perked up and smiled
at her verdict. “What made you say it was okay?”

“
Well I figured
if he doesn't want you there in the first place then he probably
doesn’t want to touch you at all, so, that’s a good
thing.”

“
Yeah,” I
chuckled, “I don't think there will be any touching going on
tonight, whether I want to or not.”

“
Hey now!”
she shot back.

“
It's a joke,
Mom. You know me; everything will be fine, I promise.”

She looked at me
tenderly and smiled. “I know. You are a very mature and
responsible young lady. I don't worry much about you at all.”

I cherished her
compliment.

Later that evening when
it was time for me to leave I pulled out Jonah's directions from my
purse and studied them closely. His handwriting was one step up from
chicken scratch, but I loved reading it. I traced my fingers over the
quickly written letters and imagined his strong hand holding onto the
pen. Boy, what I wouldn't do for his hands to hold onto me.

I closely followed
Jonah's directions to the beach but had to go a little out of my way
to find a parking space. When I finally found a good spot I got out
of my mom's car and headed toward the shore to look for him.

The beach was
completely packed with people. Fires were blazing right on the sand
and were surrounded by people sitting in lawn chairs, huddled close
to ward off the cold. Kids scraped sand together and made castles
with gloved hands, almost as if they were playing in snow.

I shivered from the
crisp air and pulled my hood on. The sky was mostly clear, with the
exception of a few stray clouds. It looked like we would all be able
to see the fireworks above us, thankfully.

My hands found shelter
in the pockets of my sweatshirt as I scooted along the sandy bank.
Jonah was nowhere around, and I had the feeling that it was going to
be hard to find him among the crowd. A massive bonfire in the
distance caught my attention. Since I didn't have any idea where to
go, I decided to make my way toward the blaze, hoping to find him
along the way.

As I made my way over I
passed a small family of four sitting in lawn chairs facing the
water. They wore snow hats and big puffy jackets: necessary clothing
for not having a fire in front of them. The two young boys held
sparklers in their naked hands, waving them around and spelling their
names in the air.

The next group I came
upon consisted of rowdy twenty-somethings who reeked of pot. Most of
them seemed to be drunk, and a few of them were horsing around,
throwing empty beer cans at one another. I glanced over and smiled at
their antics, catching the eye of a semi-attractive dark haired man
who was giving me a goofy grin. He put his hands on the arms of his
chair and hoisted himself up, almost falling over in the process.

Oh great,
he's
coming to see me . . .

“
Well, hello
there,” he slurred, his breath smelling strongly of beer.

“
Uh, hi, there,”
I grimaced; there was nothing more unattractive than a sloppily drunk
guy.

“
What's your
name?”

“
Stephanie,”
I lied.

“
Stephanie . . .
that's a beautiful name. Where you heading, Stephanie?”

I quickly concocted a
false story to get him to leave me alone. “I'm on my way to
find my dad; he's a cop and is patrolling the beach tonight. Do you
want to help me find him?”

His stupid grin fell
and was replaced by a look of apprehension. “Oh, I think I saw
a cop walking around up there,” he said as he pointed toward
the ocean.

“
Oh, okay, he's
in the water? Awesome. Thank you for your help.”

His friends laughed as
I moved along and left him standing in a state of confusion. What a
drunk idiot.

I made it close enough
to the giant bonfire to make out the people around it. To my relief I
saw Lou in the crowd; I didn't want to wander around searching for
him or Jonah for much longer. When I arrived at his side I reached up
and tapped on his jacket-covered shoulder.

He turned around a gave
me a surprised look. “Hey, you showed up!” he said
happily, giving me a solid pat on my head.

I laughed at his
gesture. “Yeah, I decided to grace you with my presence, I
guess.”

“
Well I'm glad
you did. Go grab a hot dog, Jonah has them over there on the other
side of the fire.”

“
Okay,” I
nodded. A hot dog sounded good but seeing Jonah sounded much better.

I walked around the
massive fire and spotted him sitting on an ice chest with a beer in
his hand, talking enthusiastically to an attractive young woman with
dark brown hair and long eye lashes. My heart sank a little at the
thought of him flirting with her.

He took a moment from
their conversation to take a sip from his beer and look around. His
eyes searched the area, looking for something . . . or someone.

Are you looking for
me?

Before going back to
his conversation he turned his head a little more and spotted me
standing next to the fire. My presence in front of him put an end to
his seeking and his crystal-blue eyes became engaged with what I
hoped was excitement.

I timidly made my way
toward him and pulled off my hood as I smiled at the sight of him
taking me in.

Oh man, he looks
amazing.

He leaned over and sat
his beer down in the sand, twisting it back and forth to make a
groove for it to anchor itself in. The sound of ice rattled against
the inside of the plastic chest as he stood up and put his hands into
the pockets of his jeans. “Hi,” he greeted me with a
smile.

“
Hi,” I
blurted back like a complete moron. “How are you?”

“
I'm good.”

We both laughed
nervously as our eyes darted around and then joined together again.

“
That is one big
fire,” I said, pointing to the giant flames. “I could see
it from all the way down the beach.”

He let out a light
chuckle. “Yeah, Uncle Lou is a bit of a pyro. I always tell him
he makes them so big because he's trying to make up for something.”

The girl next to him
laughed along with me at his joke; for a second I almost forgot that
she was there. We looked at each other and exchanged friendly smiles.

Jonah glanced between
the two of us. “Oh, I'm sorry. Summer, this is my cousin Jen.
Jen, this is Summer.”

Thank god, it's only
his cousin.

I extended my arm out
and warmly shook her hand. I almost bowed down and kissed it to thank
her for not being a threat to a possible relationship between Jonah
and I.

She released her
friendly grasp and reached down into the ice chest for a soda. “I
better get back to Mitchell, he wanted to take a walk. It was nice
meeting you, Summer.”

“
It was nice
meeting you, too.” I put my hand up with a wave and watched as
she turned and walked over to an attractive younger man.

“
That's her
boyfriend,” Jonah chimed in, nodding his head in their
direction. “He's really cool; I like him a lot.”

“
That's good that
you like him. I'm sure you would beat up any creep that didn't treat
her well,” I joked.

“
Yeah that's for
sure. She's like a sister to me. I'm an only child and so is she, so
we grew up more like a brother and sister instead of cousins.”
He paused for a moment and looked over in the direction that Lou was
last. “Lou's her dad, actually.”

“
Oh, that's
cool.” I didn’t see any resemblance at all between Jen
and Lou. It was hard to believe that such a beautiful, classy looking
girl could come from a big, messy guy like Lou.

“
Yeah.” He
stood silent for a moment before motioning to the ice chest. “Would
you like a soda or something? We have hot dogs too if you want.”

As much as I wanted a
hot dog, I felt too nervous to eat. And besides, I didn’t want
to end up with ketchup all over my face in front of him. “Uh,
I'll take a soda for now, thanks.”

He bent over and opened
the lid to the chest, grabbing out an ice cold soda. When he handed
it to me the tips of his fingers grazed mine and sent a spark of
warmth throughout my body; I didn't want it to stop.

My eyes ravaged over
him as he reached down and picked his beer up from the sand. He was
such a spectacle, especially in the flickering light of the bonfire.

“
Hello,” a
loud woman shouted exuberantly toward us, breaking me away from my
drooling.

“
Oh jeez,”
Jonah moaned with a chuckle.

The short, fair skinned
woman reached out and enveloped me in a hug. “Now who is this
beautiful creature?”

“
Summer, this is
my mom, Susan.”

She pulled back from
her hug and looked me over. “You were right, Jonah, she really
is a beauty.”

Jonah's eyes widened
with shock at her statement. “Okay Mom, we'll see you later. Go
find Lou,” he said as he raised his beer and motioned in his
uncles direction.

“
Okay, okay; I
can take a hint. It was nice meeting you, dear.”

“
It was nice
meeting you, too.”

Jonah shot her an
embarrassed smirk as he playfully shooed her away with his can of
brew. I couldn't help but blush at the thought of him talking to his
mom about me. And when he glanced over at me, it looked like he was
blushing, too.

“
My mom's kind of
crazy.”

I giggled in agreement.
“Yeah, my mom's the same way. And she's a big hugger as well.”

“
Yeah, she goes a
little overboard. Sorry about that.”

“
No harm done.”
I didn't know much about his mom but I already liked her; she seemed
to have a really good personality.

I watched Jonah take
another drink from his beer as he stared over at the bonfire. The
glow from the hot flames danced around on his skin, illuminating the
stubble of his five o'clock shadow and displaying the masculine
contours of his face.

“
Do you want to
sit down closer to the fire?” he suggested as he looked over,
almost catching me in my admiration. “It's pretty chilly out
here.”

“
Yeah, that
sounds like a good idea.” I took a few steps toward the flames
and sat down, crossing my legs over the flame-warmed sand. Jonah sat
down next to me, bending his legs and resting his arms on his knees.

“
I'm not used to
this cold,” I shivered.

He looked over at me
curiously. “You aren't from here?”

“
No, I'm from
Arizona.”

“
Arizona,”
he marveled, “that's a big difference from here.”

“
Yeah, I know. It
was really hard for me to get used to the change in the weather. When
I first moved down, around the time that I met you, it was summertime
and it was cloudy and misty. There were a lot of days where it was
really cold outside.”

Jonah watched me as I
spoke and listened closely to each word as I said it; he made me feel
like he was really interested in what I had to say.

When I finished talking
he gave me a nod. “Yeah, I remember how it was,” he said.
“It's not usually like that, though; we had a weird summer.”
He reached up and gently rubbed his hand across the light brown
stubble on his face. “So, Summer, your name, does your mom like
the season so much that she named you after it?”

“
Yep. Maybe
that's why I love the heat so much, too.”

He laughed lightly at
my comment. “What's your full name?”

“
Summer Ashton
Peregrine.”