Page 49 of Those Summer Nights (Sweet Cravings 2)

“You really know how to play?”

"Why are you so surprised? Does it not seem like I'd be good at it? My dad didn't have a son so he taught me everything instead." Before he realized I’d never be good enough. Before he realized he could start over with a new, younger family. These thoughts were coming out of left field. I was finally in a good place after the Aiden fiasco. The last thing I needed was to revert back to my broken-hearted tween years when my dad walked out. I shook my head, hoping the annoying thoughts and butterflies would fly away. “I’m a freaking beast.”

My lifeguard laughed. "So you’re super cocky about your football skills too?"

"No, not as cocky. I'm just super competitive."

"I've noticed."

I got up and put my book in my bag. I wanted him to keep noticing me. And I wanted it to be unrelated to my football skills…which really were pretty amazing. "I'm going to go cool off. Blow the whistle if a shark comes. Since we both know you won’t come in and save me.”

“Of course I’d come in.”

“I thought you were scared of sharks?”

He shrugged. He didn’t say it, but I’m pretty sure that shrug meant he’d fight a shark for me. Which was probably the nicest thing a guy ever didn’t say to me. I pulled my hair out of my elastic band and walked down to the water. When I looked over my shoulder I could tell he was watching me. Sunglasses be damned, he had eyes only for me.

I dove under the water before a wave caught me. And again I was reminded of my dad. All the vacations with him I’d taken for granted. Now I just saw images flash through my head of him with his new family on their summer trips. He’d never once invited me.

I broke the surface of the water and took a deep breath. I was worried I was thinking about all the times my dad hurt me for a reason. Aiden wasn’t the only dick out there. There were a bunch of them. I looked back at my lifeguard.

He waved and broke down my walls a little. J.J. wasn’t like Aiden. And he certainly wasn’t like my dad. I just had this gut feeling that he’d never hurt me. I hoped I was right. Because I was really tired of temporary.

Then I realized why I was really thinking about my dad. I needed to call him. I needed to tell him to hold off sending tuition to SMU. I was coming back home.

Chapter 15

Thursday

The whistles blew and I looked up from my book. My lifeguard hopped off the stand and quickly pushed it up away from the water. A second later he collapsed beside me on my towel. He was so close I could smell the intoxicating mixture of sunscreen and sweat on his skin. I felt myself leaning a little closer. Kristen was right. There was just something special about a guy’s scent.

"We're going to play in like ten minutes." He put his hands behind his head and lay down on his back.

"Okay." I sat up so I could look down at him. But then I wished I had stayed lying down too. Because now all I wanted to do was lean over him and kiss him. It had been far too long since our first kiss and my lips were craving him.

"So why are you suddenly so interested in that number?" he asked.

I shrugged. If the number of girls that had seen him naked wasn’t important to me, I probably wouldn’t have even realized what he was talking about. But it was important and I was interested in the fact that his number was four. "You asked me last night. And then I was wondering about you. So...you've had four girlfriends?"

"No. I've had two girlfriends."

"Oh. So what were the other two girls?"

He sat up. "Girls that I wasn't serious about."

"Hmm." His response was a warning sign. I thought about the fact that he drove a motorcycle and my mother’s warning. He was a very bad boy.

"Don't look at me like that, Jellyfish Girl."

"Like what?"

"Like you think I'm a bad person."

"I don't think you're a bad person." It was true, I had been thinking he was a bad boy. But a bad person? I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. J.J. definitely wasn’t a bad person. "When did you break up with your last girlfriend?"

"It's been a while. A few years maybe. Yeah, over two years."

I already knew that his first girlfriend cheated on him when they went to different colleges. So that left the mystery of the other people who had seen him naked. "And where do the other girls fit in?"

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