He moves his lips to my collarbone and starts kissing up my neck, signaling he’s shelving this conversation. I’m cool with that.
“Thanks for pulling me into the pool,” he murmurs.
“You don’t sound sarcastic,” I point out as I refrain from squirming too much on his lap. After all, we’re still in public, even if no one’s around.
“It snapped me out of a funk. But damn, these wet boxers and shorts are not real comfortable right now,” he comments.
I’m tempted to help him change out of them in the back of his van, but we hear Taylor calling out, “Hey! I thought you were coming out here to find something for a ramp!”
He feigns outrage, but I’m glad he came out to check on us when he did. Otherwise we were about to forget all about the ramp and the party. Taylor shows us what he’s managed to scrounge up, a couple of boards that seem sturdy enough to drop in. What we need now is some way we can get air.
Beck’s van is sort of like this magical genie that always seems to have everything we need, no matter how random. So when he pulls out two giant wooden wedges used to play cornhole from under the bed in back, I’m not even surprised. “Do you always keep those there?” I wonder, having never seen them before.
“No, Mom and Marco were talking about how they played for the first time at a potluck the other day and had a lot of fun. So I put these together with some extra wood pieces at the Brazen Shop. I keep meaning to paint them.”
Our Sunday night family dinners have been hit and miss with him living a little farther away now. “Let’s do it this weekend, we can bring them over for Sunday dinner.”
Taylor grabs one. “First let’s put these to good use as a sick pool jump.”
I grab the other one so Beck can change into a bathing suit before joining us. The ramp design takes some trial and error but we end up with one epic setup. It’s definitely not for beginners, but it allows us to skate down a shaky ramp to get a little speed, and then up a double-stacked cornhole wedge. My roommates and Coby and his group of surfers have always claimed that their skateboarding skills are weak, but they prove they’re perfectly competent when they take turns. Beck and I stick to modest tricks but Taylor’s all about flips and shock value, which Ellie gushes over. It’s weird seeing Zora and Brie exchange touches and looks, not because it’s two girls but because it’s Zora. I’ve never seen her with anyone, and she’s always seemed so intent on her independence, on staying single. But this relationship looks good on her too.
We’re having too much fun to turn in, and by the time we finally do, Beck has to carry me up the stairs to my bedroom I’m so tired. Okay fine, he doesn’t really have to carry me, but I have him lift me anyway, and deliver me right to my bed. He takes a long look at me. When he peels my bathing suit off, I’m expecting his suit to drop a second later, but he returns with my underwear and a sleep shirt. “Hey,” I protest as he starts to slide my underwear up my leg. “I’m not ready for bed yet.”
“Too tired to walk up the stairs but not too tired for sex?” Beck’s eyes are laughing at me from under his eyelashes.
“Beck, you’re kneeling in front of me and you’ve got me laid out on my bed. What do you expect?”
“It’s three in the morning, Hotshot. You rarely stay up past ten. I thought you’d be asleep before I pulled your underwear on.”
I fling the underwear off my foot and place my leg on his shoulder. “Well, I am sleepy. But I didn’t say I was doing any of the work,” I tease, moving my other leg to his other shoulder to make it perfectly clear what I’m asking for.
“And I was starting to think you weren’t very high maintenance,” Beck murmurs with a chuckle. My eyes drift closed as he bends his head down right where I want it, but I definitely don’t fall asleep. No, the dreamland I drift into is my reality.
Chapter Ten
Beck
“Is this what a hangover feels like?” Jordan groans as she sits up on an elbow in bed.
“No, this is what it feels like when you set your alarm for the same time you usually get up even though you stayed up five hours later.”
“Oh,” she mumbles into my shoulder, snuggling closer.
“Can I turn it off or is there something you need to be up for?”
“You can turn it off. I thought I’d want to skate before brunch with the girls but for once I’d rather sleep.”
I’m not sure I’ll be able to fall back asleep myself but I’m damn comfortable lying here with Jordan curled up to my side. After turning off her alarm I go to reach for my own phone before remembering it didn’t survive the pool last night.
There’s a group text from Griff to me and Jordan on her phone, so I open the message.
Looking good, Beck.
Then there’s a GIF showing a snippet of me pulling a wet tee shirt over my head by the pool last night. It’s only a few seconds and just plays on repeat. I should have known better last night but getting objectified isn’t high on the list of things to be pissed about, not when I’ve got the threatening messages to Jordan ingrained in my mind. Now that gets me pissed, especially because I’ve received zero flack about announcing my relationship with her after supposedly having some secret affair with Camila on Shred Live.
It’s a double standard, for sure. Come to think of it, I wonder if Camila’s received criticism for supposedly moving on so quickly after me too. I open the Instagram app and search for her profile, but there’s nothing on there about her relationship with Donnie. There’s a post about the Brazen opening, but it’s a shot of her, and no mention of her date. Huh, maybe I misunderstood and they aren’t actually together.
I click on the notifications before remembering I’m on Jordan’s account, not my own. Most of the notifications are tagged videos and photos from last night, and when I move to my profile I see I’ve been tagged in the same ones. We’ve been spoiled with hanging at the Jay Beach house, and I’ve let myself forget how well-recognized I am, especially in Summerside. Sure I noticed the phones on us last night, but it’s different from seeing a dozen tagged pictures and videos from strangers replaying my night. It’s not my privacy I’m concerned about though, and I search the comments for anything mean toward Jordan. There’s nothing like that, and while I’m relieved, I can’t help but find it disturbing how fickle the public can be about this stuff. It’s all based on images and some perception of reality that has little or nothing to do with the real story.
She’s got some unread messages, but I put her phone back on the nightstand and lay my head back. Instead of dozing like I’m hoping, I start to wonder if she’s been getting threatening messages and not telling me about them. She kept them to herself last time. Before I can talk myself out of it, I’m checking her messages on Instagram. One of the unread ones is from Sydney, which is weird. Curiosity gets the best of me and I open the message.
Thanks for talking to us yesterday. We’ve already got some ideas about who’s behind the razzleydazzles account. What was the name of the other one again?
That has me frowning. Why would she be talking to Sydney about this? Is she still worried about those accounts? I don’t see any messages from either of them. As far as I can tell, bubblerollie is long gone and if Razzle is still at it, her focus is Griffin, not Jordan. Besides, it seems pretty clear that it’s Fliss.