He laughed again before coming over to me, kneeling next to me. I felt his eyes take all of me in and chew on whatever bad ideas he had going on upstairs. Pushing him playfully, I said, “Oscar. Just show me, already.”
I watched his fingers unwrap the hard bar and pushed it against the board drawing circles, “You want to glide in the water, babe. It’s wax. Try making circles.”
Taking the wax from his grainy hands, I mimicked his motions, leaning over the board in a position I only questioned later.
Crap. See? Seductive without trying.
I felt his hand, sand sticking to his fingers, run up my thigh making its way to my ass when I jumped at the light touch. “Oscar! We’re just friends now.”
My words threatening to friend-zone him didn’t stop his hand from resting on my ass and him leaning into me the way he was. “Sometimes friends have fun, Abi.”
Oscar was the only one besides Jus, my best friend, and my family to call me Abi instead of Abigail. The only difference was they earned it, while Oscar had snatched it like a thief in the night.
“Well, we don’t. Gonna teach me to surf or get a tan? I know how to do that already.”
Standing up, I shimmied out of my jean shorts, and I picked up the weight of the board I wasn’t used to. The heaviest thing I carried around was my bag and maybe supply boxes if we truly ran low on paper. Oscar smiled his way through rejection, and a part of me wondered how many times you had to be rejected before that became your reaction.
Twice.
In fifth grade we did a Sadie Hawkins dance, and I asked my crush back then, Brian Furwood, to go with me in the lunchroom. He rejected me in front of the whole school. It was probably because of my vain outlook when it came to my outsides. It was okay, though. I knew my insides were pretty too, and there was nothing wrong with making them match.
Grimm was the second and last time I planned to be rejected.
I didn’t want to build a pile of rejection until it became a stand up Netflix special, like it was for Oscar.
The water felt shockingly colder than I expected, even with the beating sun, but I managed to adjust quickly when Oscar came up behind me holding the board and telling me to lay on it. He was pretty much behaving so far. That didn’t mean much when you had a whole day to go. There was still plenty of time for him to fuck up.
ABIGAIL
When you see Blue Crush too many times, it gives you a false sense of accomplishment when you lure yourself out there on a board, hoping you transform into Kate Bosworth.
That didn’t happen, but I always didn’t get dragged underwater until my lungs popped and I didn’t fall off enough times to give up.
I wasn’t a quitter.
Oscar’s sandy arms wrapped around me and swung me around tightly as he congratulated me on how well he thought I did.
The nearest beach in Chicago was too far for the city residents to care about, including me. Concrete jungles were something I already conquered.
Putting me down, I stumbled to find my balance when my hands landed on his chest to keep me upright.
I was covered in sand sticking to my wet body, and the air between us had gotten heavy for a moment. Our eyes locked. My hands willingly touched his wet chest, and his hands were on my hips trying to help. Our mouths weren’t forming words.
There was that shit-eating grin. “Come on. I’ll cook you dinner.”
Coughing my way through the moment that would have brought most women to their knees, I pushed off his chest and picked up my board.
I was not going to let him suck me in again. I was immune this time. I kept repeating the phrases in my head until I felt them steel my spine.
The house we walked to was the perfect beach house sitting on stilts, white, and a big porch that fed right into the sun’s glow hanging lower. Surfing really worked up my appetite, and my stomach pinched with hunger.
Oscar took the board from under my arm and leaned it against a small shed filled with bikes, boards, lifejackets, and jet skis. I shouldn’t be impressed anymore. I saw the bad parts of him that should cancel out things like impressed, overwhelmed, aroused...
Some of the bad was enough to make all those feelings worse. Grimm walking around this earth shirtless could attest to that—all the right kind of bad.
Escorting me into the house, I felt all the things I wanted to leave behind: impressed, overwhelmed, aroused.
The open layout plan made the house feel even bigger. He stopped at the stairs. “My room is the first one on the left. Go rinse off while I start dinner. You still like salmon, right?”
He didn’t bother waiting for my answer, when he spun around on his heel, shit-eating grin in place, heading for what I could assume would be the kitchen. None of these homes made it easy to know what room you were in. All were minimalistic and bare, nothing giving you any clues.
I took him up on the offer to rinse off, feeling now dry and crisp in an uncomfortable way. Pushing open the door, I walked into Oscar’s sleek room. Everything was medical grade white and cleaner than an operating room.
No photos.
No action figures.
No art.
No TV even.
It was single handedly the coldest room I had ever seen. My room was all neutral colors, but it still had life. Justice’s room was filled with posters and signs for fighting the good fight, looking like a tornado. Even Grimm’s room was clean and sleek, but you could tell it was lived in.
This was a different kind of bad that made the goosebumps prick on my skin with a shiver.
I twisted the shower knob inside the enclosed glass with the rain shower head as I pushed the damp material sticking to my skin down until it pooled at my feet. The warm water felt like a hug as I rubbed my hand over my skin, making sure not one speck of sand was left.
Soaking up the luxury, I was letting the water coat my face, when I heard a bang that grabbed my serenity and turned it into paranoia. It only took one dream, one sound, one set of goosebumps to make you suddenly feel unsafe.
Talking myself down from my snap judgment that everything can and will turn into a crime podcast drama, I stepped out wrapping the towel around me, and I realized even the towels were warmed.
That was no longer luxury, but spoiled.
It didn’t take long before I realized I was in the very real predicament of not having a change of clothes. For someone who liked being prepared and having plan B, C, and D just as backups, I felt really thrown. Leaning halfway out of his door into the hallway I shouted, “Can I borrow something? I don’t have a change of clothes.”
Thank god for open floor plans, because he heard me loud and clear and shouted back, “Any of the drawers have some shirts and stuff that’ll fit.”
Fit was my last concern. I just wanted to be covered by more than a towel around Oscar.
I walked back over to the only piece of furniture with drawers and a mirror. I opened the first drawer, finding boxer briefs, which were like bike shorts. I could make that work as pants if the shirt fell down far enough. The second drawer had shirts in every color, all plain with a small v indentation at the top. Pulling out a white one, I pushed my arms into the sleeves I was swimming in. It landed where it needed to so I was happy.
Brushing my hair with my fingers in the mirrored reflection, it was hard to overlook the small box sitting directly in the middle. It was simple and black, with a small latch in the front.