I woke to the sound of my cell phone vibrating on Zina’s nightstand. I grabbed hold of it, ignoring the display on the front of who was calling. “Hello?” I muttered drowzily. “Olivia?” I smiled. It was a nice voice to hear first thing in the morning. “Yeah?” “Look outside.” And he hung up. I steadied myself as I stood, and brushed my sideswept bangs from my forehead. Stumbling to the window, I pulled the curtains aside and felt the warmth of light filtering through the glass. Down below, Zacky was standing on the driveway, looking up at me, unsmiling, but with a gorgeous expression on his face. I went to get ready, dressed for the occasion, and grabbed hold of the bag I had packed the night before for our plans today. I swung it over my shoulder, and went quickly for the door. Silent as I could manage, for Zina’s parents may still have been sleeping, I closed the door behind me, and found Zacky around the corner of the porch. He gathered me in his arms, and kissed me. “Ya know,” he said as he pulled me with him awkwardly towards the car, still with both hands on my waist. “You should feel all the more guilty about what you’re doing to my health.” At first I didn’t understand. “What?” He grinned. “They’re trying to make me go to rehab, but I said, no, no, no!” He sang dramatically, immitating Amy Winehouse with mock exaggeration. I laughed. “Rehab wouldn’t do a thing.” “It’s too bad,” he replied jokingly. “I always wanted to die the slow painful death of gasping for air before emphysema invaded my lungs and killed me.” This made me think of the fact that he smoked, but I brushed it aside. The smell of his breath somehow wasn’t unnatural to me. We let go of one another to slide into the different sides of the car. “How well can you swim?” he asked me. I grimaced. “I’ve survived in a pool. The ocean? Not so much.” He glanced at me in disbelief. “What’s the difference?” “I dunno,” I replied. “Maybe it’s the waves or something? I love the beach and all, so I’ll be fine there, but… don’t expect me to dive in with a surf board.” “Are you… scared?”
I made a face. “Kinda.”
He laughed at me. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be with you.”
As his car passed the intersection where the crash with Zina had occurred, I flinched. And Zacky noticed, but he didn’t say anything. Driving on, we reached the beach a few minutes later. Once we’d climbed out of the car, he wrapped his arm around my neck and we made for the soft, warm sand in the morning vastness of the ocean.
I felt my stomach flip at the sight of the restless, crashing waves of the shoreline. “Isn’t it supposed to be calm when it’s early?” I asked, my voice a little dry.
He caught my tone and laughed. “I’ve no idea. But it looks like that’s not the case.” He stared off into the distance. There weren’t that many people around, but I spotted a few boarders in the water and familes along the edge of the beach. A couple passed right by us, and I noticed Zacky had put on sunglasses, presumably to hide his eyes from anyone who might catch sight of him. When we neared the waves, Zacky stopped short and sat down. I knelt next to him.
He watched me as I dug through my bag for suntan lotion, despite the fact that it was just past 7:30 and the sun was only hanging on the horizon. Before I could apply it, though, he took the bottle from me and grinned. “You’re not gonna protect everything with your clothes still on.”
I rolled my eyes, but he was right. I awkwardly removed my shirt and jean shorts, a striped bikini on underneath. It was even more awkward for the fact that he watched me so closely, but then he removed his own shirt to reveal his chest. He’d already had trunks on during the ride.
I took in the image of his deathbat A7X logo tattoo on his chest. And when he turned away to put his shirt in his bag, I couldn’t help but laugh. “It looks like in the alternate reality where you are a baseball player, we’re here together anyway.”
He laughed. “I guess you’re right.” It read “Vengeance” on his back, along with the number seven, to look like the back of a jersey. I thought to myself that the sunglasses would have no effect now, which he then took off, as if on cue.
“Can I have my suntan lotion back now?” I asked innocently.
He pretended to think about this, but instead squirted some on his hands with the corners of his mouth twitching, and moved around behind me to put it on my back.
I sniffed. “I guess that means no,” I said, with playful sadness. His hands travelled over my shoulders and down my chest. They didn’t wander far under my bikini top before moving back up to my neck. I heard him snicker behind me.
“Do you really think you’ll burn?”
I sighed. “I guess not. It depends on how long we’ll stay.”
I was about to tell him he could stop when he caught this and said, “Naw, let me. I really, really don’t mind.” He grinned playfully.
I rolled my eyes at him. Finishing the job, we walked hand in hand towards the water. As he waded deeper, I stopped. “Do we have to?” I asked him, staring at the movement of the waves.
Letting out a short laugh, he moved back up towards me and placed his hands on my back. “Yes,” he whispered, smiling.
I made a face, but still I let him pull me further in, until we were waist deep in the water. “Is that enough?” I asked, paying attention only to the size of the waves. “Are we far in enough?”
“You’re joking!” he exclaimed. “No way. C’mon, at least go neck deep.”
He led me in further, until I realized that I could hardly touch the sand bar with my head above the water. He stood, being three or so inches taller than me. I whimpered.
I felt the water pushing us in a sideways direction, and squeaked, grabbing onto him to keep myself steady. He was quiet, silently laughing at my terror. I felt his hands run along the hem of my waistline, and he lifted me up so I could only cling onto him to stay in place. “Zacky!” I gasped. He wrapped his arms around my waist as I flailed above the surface, feeling incredibly insecure despite his grasp on my body. “Put me down!”
He didn’t respond to that. Instead, he kissed my stomach before doubling over and dunking me into the water. My screams faded when water clouded my vision. I kicked desperately, and I could almost hear him laughing as he ducked under the water with me, floating atop of me so there was no way of surfacing. Despite the fact that he was the one who pushed me under, I couldn’t find anything to cling to but him. Holding my breath, I grabbed onto his neck and I could see the blurry outline of his facial features turn to a grin before he pulled me back up.
He was laughing. “Zacky!” I screeched, but before I could yell at him I found we were even deeper than before and I couldn’t find the ground at all. Splashing in panic, he was still chuckling when he grabbed onto me to secure that I wasn’t going to drown. Now, with the opportunity to get angry, he stopped me with a kiss, my lips too busy to let a word escape.
I clung to him as the waves pushed us farther down the beach. He didn’t free me for what seemed like a long time. I buried my fingers in his dripping hair, and he kept his arms around my back.
When I opened my eyes, where we’d set our stuff seemed to be a long way away. Zacky held onto me as we moved back towards the shore. Reaching the dry sand finally, we climbed out of the water and he put his arm around my shoulder, and I rested my head on his. We walked in silence back to our bags, where we lied down on the sand beside one another. My anger had faded already, so I decided there would be no point in scolding him now. I had been staring at the sky for the few seconds we were lying there, and when I turned my head I discovered Zacky had been watching me. He reached over and ran his fingers through my tangled, wet hair. “Can I ask you a question?” he said.
“Go ahead,” I replied quietly.
“Is it possible to fall in love with somebody after a matter of eight days?”
I didn’t even have to think about it. “I didn’t think so. Until I discovered it was possible after three.”
“It was just two for me,” he said, smiling.
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked suddenly.
“Yeah, sure, what is it?”
“Why are we here? I mean, at the beach, so early in the morning?”
He gave me a gorgeous half-smile. “Because I fucking despise the sun.”
When I’m old enough, I’m so totally getting this tattoo. >.>
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