When I closed my eyes in pure satisfaction, I felt him reaching for something. I heard the nightstand rattle. Then the face of his cell phone lit up. “It’s eight thirty. What time do you have to be at work?”
“Ten.” I groaned. How was I going to get out of this bed? “I didn’t think it was possible, but I think I just became even less of a morning person.”
He chuckled.
“You missed surfing.”
“That was better than surfing.
You
are better than surfing.”
And that was how he claimed yet another piece of my heart.
* * *
We showered together. I didn’t want to get my hair wet, so I pulled it into a ponytail and he was kind enough to wash my body. Some parts got
really
clean.
So I did what every thoughtful girl would do. I repaid the favor.
By the time we were done, the water was cold and I was almost late (you try being on time with a naked, hot surfer in your shower). So I rushed around the bathroom, brushing my teeth and applying lotion (with sunscreen) on my face.
After I got dressed in my Snow Cone Shack tank top and a pair of jean shorts, I took a minute to braid the front section of my hair, starting above my eye and braiding across the front all the way behind the ear. I secured the braid with a small band and pinned the rest up in a little twist on the back of my head with a gorgeous barrette that I bought one night after work at one of the nearby shops. It was handcrafted with colorful pieces of sea glass. Hopefully it would keep me cool.
“What’s with all the girl food?” Cam complained as I came out of the bedroom and grabbed my bag off the counter.
“Uh, two girls live here?” I said.
“Yogurt and granola,” he said, making a face and shutting the refrigerator door. “You need some man food.”
“Why would we need to get some man food?” I asked casually, stepping into the kitchen.
“Because this man intends on sleeping over. A lot.” He wrapped his arms around me and towed me into his chest.
I buried my faced in his shirt and grinned. “I’ll share my yogurt.”
He grunted. “I’m bringing over the bacon. And the Pop-Tarts.”
“You eat Pop-Tarts and bacon for breakfast?”
“Man food,” he growled.
“Junk food.” I argued and pulled back to grab an orange and a cereal bar to throw into my bag. Then I grabbed a bottle of water. “I’m ready.”
Roxie stumbled through her bedroom door as I slipped on my sandals. She looked exactly like me in the morning. One eye open, hair in a twisted mess, and walking like a zombie.
“I’m so sorry. Did we wake you up?”
“No,” she mumbled, heading for the kitchen.
“Coffee’s already made,” I said, amused.
“I had to get up because I have to take my car to get the air-conditioner fixed. It stopped working and I am not driving that thing around in this heat with no AC.”
“Yuck,” I agreed. “I work until four, but I’m not on the schedule tonight at the club. So if I don’t see you before you go in to work, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She waved as she stuck her nose into her mug.
“You’re not working tonight?” Cam said as we walked down to the parking lot.
“No, but I work tomorrow night. How about you?”
“I work tonight, off tomorrow.”
“Oh, well, I’ll just take my car so you don’t have to rush between picking me up and then getting to work.” I looked over at my car, noticing something fluttering slightly in the breeze.
I went over to it, squinting, trying to make out what it was as I approached. When I knew what it was, I stopped and stared at it, an odd feeling snaking through me.
“What’s that?” Cam asked, coming up behind me.
There, pinned underneath my windshield wiper, was a one-dollar bill. “It’s a dollar.”
“A dollar?” Cam repeated, looking over my shoulder.
I nodded and pulled it free, looking it over to see if there was anything written on either side. There wasn’t.
“That’s odd,” I murmured.
“Probably someone’s idea of a joke.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, wondering what was funny about a dollar bill.
“C’mon, I’ll drive you. We gotta go or you’re going to be late.” He took my hand and led me away from my Toyota and deposited me inside the Mustang.
I was still gripping the dollar bill as we drove to Broadway at the Beach.
I stared at it the entire way.
Broadway at the Beach was packed. I wasn’t surprised, though, because it was the weekend and it was summer. The weather was gorgeous, clear blue sky, white puffy clouds, and the faint scent of the ocean in the air.
But like every other day in the South, it was hot. It wasn’t the heat that was the killer, though. No, what was worse was the humidity. It was one of those days where the thick, stagnant air threatened to choke you. It pushed against your body, threatening to take every last drop of moisture you had in your skin and wring it out only to move on to someone new.
I was busy enough that I didn’t have much time to dwell on the fact that the weather was trying to kill me. And thankfully, all the scooping of shaved ice help keep my temperature down to a level I could tolerate.
As I worked, little tendrils of hair would slip from the twist and fall down, sticking to my neck and tickling my cheek. It became very annoying and finally, I just reached up and pulled the barrette out of my hair and laid it right beside the cash register.
When the last customer walked away, my cell phone chimed and I picked it up, glancing at the screen.
“Hey, Roxie, what’s up?”
“My car sucks!” she exclaimed.
I suppressed a grin. “I take it the AC is still broken?”
“It’s still at the shop. Apparently I need some new part. Don’t ask me what it is because my brain went buh-bye when they told me how much it cost.”
“Oh, crap. How much?”
“Four hundred dollars!”
I sucked in a breath. “Damn.”
“Yeah. I’m going to have to act like a ho at work tonight to pay for this.”
I winced. “I’m sorry.”
She let out a sigh. “It’s fine. My car has to stay there overnight. I guess the part will be here in the morning. I know you’re off tonight, but would you mind giving me a ride to work? I can get one of the other girls to drop me off on her way home.”
“Sure, I don’t have plans anyway.”
“Not going out with Cam?” she said, making kissing noises on her end of the line.
My phone beeped and I pulled it away, looking down at the screen. My mother was calling. “Cam has to work tonight,” I said into the phone, laughing.
“Well, maybe you should have a drink at the bar after you drop me off.”
“Maybe I will.”
“You two looked awful chummy this morning,” she said slyly. “I saw his car outside when I came home last night and he wasn’t on the couch.”
“He was in my room.”
Roxie made a squealing sound. “I need details.”
I laughed. “Later. I’m at work.”
“Fine. Later.” She sighed dramatically.
We said our good-byes and I hung up. A message came up on the screen that said, “New Voicemail.” A couple approached and I set the phone on the edge of the cart and opened the cooler, reaching and making two snow cones, one blue raspberry and one watermelon, then rang up their total on the register.
As they moved away, the boat that gave thrill rides tore through the water and made a sharp turn, splashing all the people in the boat who all yelled and screeched. I turned to watch their crazy antics as it spun in circles over the water.
I felt rather than saw some quick movement behind me and I turned swiftly just in time to see someone rush away from the cart.
My eyes immediately went to the register, but it was closed and didn’t seem harmed. All the flavorings were still there as well. I shrugged, thinking someone probably just saw someone they were meeting and ran to catch up.
Then I noticed.
My barrette was gone.
It had been lying right there beside the register. And now the space was empty.
“Hey!” I hollered, even though I was far too late. The person was already out of sight. I rushed around the side of the cart, thinking maybe they just knocked it onto the ground.
In my haste to look, my hip caught the corner of the cart and a sharp pain cut into my side. But I barely felt it because when I hit the cart, my cell phone slid down into the still open cooler.
“Crap!” I yelled, practically diving into the ice after my phone. The cooler was almost empty—as it was almost time for my lunch break and for me to refill the cart—so I had to reach way down to the bottom where my phone lay.
It landed in a pile of slush.
I spent so much time opening and closing it this morning and it was so hot that some of the ice started to melt and drip to the bottom.
I pulled it up, holding it out and watching the water literally drip from the bottom.
“I leave you alone for a few hours…” a voice drawled behind me. It startled me and I shrieked, dropping the phone—
again—
back into the ice.
“Seriously?” I sighed.
A tan muscled arm reached around me into the cooler and pulled out my phone. “You have a towel?”
I grabbed a white towel and handed it to Cam. “It’s ruined,” I announced.
“I’ll take it back to my place and put it in some rice.”
“I don’t think my phone would taste good in stir fry.”
“Ha,” he said, drying it off and taking out the battery. “The rice should draw out all the excess moisture.”
“Do you think it will work?” I worried. I really didn’t have it in the budget to buy a new phone.
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “How did it get in there anyway?”
That reminded me of my barrette. I went around the front of the cart and searched the ground and beneath it for my clip. It wasn’t there.
“Son of a…” I swore, letting my words trail away.
“What?”
“Someone stole my hair clip.” I turned to face him. “They literally just ran off with it.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Why would they do that?”
“I have no idea,” I said wearily.
“Was it valuable?”
I shook my head. “It was made of sea glass. It wasn’t expensive, but it was my favorite.”
He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his side and kissed the top of my braid. “We’ll get you a new one.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked, pulling back.
“Taking you to lunch.”
“Somewhere with air-conditioning, please.”
“Johnny Rocket’s?” he suggested.
I nodded. “That’s perfect because it’s right beside the little office where I have to refill the cart.”
I packed up the cart and pushed it into the office while Cam held the door. Then I locked it up inside and we went to the little burger joint and grabbed a table in the blissful AC.
As soon as we had our food, Cam shoved about four fries in his mouth and said, “Go out on a date with me.”
“I’d love to.”
“Tonight.”
“I thought you had to work?”
“I did. I switched with one of the other bartenders. Now I’m off tonight and I work tomorrow with you.”
“You switched your schedule?”
He nodded and took a sip of his soda. “It’s obvious that you miss me terribly when I’m not around. And you abuse your poor cell phone.”
I laughed. “I do not abuse my cell phone.”
“But you miss me horribly.”
“I admit, you’re not bad to have around.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” he said.
“So where are we going on our date?”
“What do you like to do?”
I shrugged and caught myself before I blurted out something like “anything so long as I’m with you.” If I wasn’t careful, I would be batting my eyes at him and offering to feed him grapes.
“My favorite place to hang out here is the aquarium.”
“The one on the other side of Broadway?”
I nodded. “You’ve been there, right?”
“Not since I was a kid.”
“I think it’s peaceful. All the water and the fish. The colors…” He was watching me so I picked up my soda and took a drink.
“Where’s the last place you went on a date?” he asked.
I swirled a fry around in my ketchup. “I haven’t dated much since high school.”
“You can’t tell me that a girl like you doesn’t get offers.”
“I wasted a lot of time and energy on a guy all through high school. He was a jerk. After that, I decided to spend more time on me and not guys.”
“I’m a guy,” he pointed out.
“I noticed,” I said as memories of this morning practically took me hostage.
“So you’re spending time with me.”
Yeah, I was. He was like a giant Harlow magnet that freaking pulled me in with a single touch. “Just don’t turn out to be a jerk, okay?” I said playfully.
But really, I meant it. It scared me how much and how fast I grew to like him. I mean I literally gave him my virginity within days of meeting him. It was very possible I was growing attached to him. I was very vulnerable to him in ways I’d never been to anyone before. Yes, it was thrilling, but it also made me wary.
Cam had the ability to hurt me. A lot.
He abandoned his half-eaten burger and fries to slide out of the booth and stand up. I thought he was going to leave. That I somehow crossed the line with my joke that really wasn’t a joke at all.
I told myself it was better this way. That finding out he was a jerk now was better than later after he stole my heart.
The fry I was eating suddenly felt like a rock, scraping down my throat.