Chapter 7
seven
“Oh my gosh!” Courtney said in a fake voice, holding a hand up to her mouth like she was shocked. She wasn’t fooling me, but I doubted she was trying to if where her eyes were pointed was any indication. “Are you okay, Madison?”
“Did you really just push me into the pool?” I snapped.
I pulled myself out, cringing at how my jean shorts were weighed down by the water.
I immediately pulled them off, so I was standing in just a bathing suit.
I didn’t totally hate standing in a bathing suit without anything over—it was a pretty major part of my job—but it felt weird to do so when I knew I wasn’t going to be getting in the pool anytime soon, which was why I was wearing the shorts in the first place.
I was just glad that I’d had the foresight to take my phone out of my pocket before I came onto the pool deck.
I never, ever brought my phone out here for this exact reason, but I knew a lot of people who didn’t share my concerns and had ruined their phones by doing so.
“Me?” Courtney asked innocently. She put a hand on her chest. “Why, I would never push you in! Maybe you should just watch where you’re going.”
“Maybe you should watch where you put your feet.”
Somebody snorted behind me. I looked around to find Charlie standing there, hands in the pockets of his swim shorts because guys had that for some stupid reason.
Of course he was there. The only thing that could worsen this situation was having a witness, especially one I had a major crush on.
Courtney’s false-innocent expression turned into a glare as she stared at Charlie.
He just raised his eyebrows back and asked, “What?”
“You should support your girlfriend,” Courtney said, “instead of defending someone trying to suggest that I would purposely hurt her.”
It took me a second to remember that I probably wasn’t supposed to know that they were dating since neither of them had actually told me, so I awkwardly said, “Wait, you guys are dating?”
“Yes,” Courtney said.
“No,” Charlie shot back immediately. I blinked in confusion and looked between them again.
I was expecting them to just say yes and have that be the end of that.
Why else would they have been kissing on the street corner?
Was it possible that Charlie thought it was a one-time thing and Courtney thought it was something more? Or was there more to the story?
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“We were dating,” Charlie said. “But we broke up.”
“Yeah, boys always say that but then once they’ve had time away, they come crawling back to me,” Courtney said, rolling her eyes. “Every single time, Charlie. Why bother pretending we’re broken up right now when you know we’re just going to get back together?”
“Because I don’t come crawling back to anybody,” Charlie said.
Courtney put her hands on her hips and huffed in discontentment.
“Yeah, we’ll see.” She looked me up and down. “You know, you should probably clean up before you go back to Kelly’s office. It doesn’t look very professional to have soaked jean shorts on.”
She stormed off before I could even finish muttering, “Yeah, I’ll get on that.”
“Sorry about her,” Charlie said. “I know she can be a lot sometimes.”
“Told you,” I said.
“What?”
“Last summer,” I said. “You told me Courtney wasn’t that bad and I said she was awful to us instructors, remember?”
In the third session of the summer last year, Charlie found me hiding in the family locker room one day.
I tried to pretend that I was there to write report cards for the kids in peace, but he saw right through my act and knew that I was actually just hiding from Courtney and he laughed at me.
He tried to say Courtney wasn’t that bad, but I told him he only thought that because she was nice to the lifeguards; she had to be since she didn’t hold any power over them.
Even though he nodded along, I knew from his viewpoint she couldn’t seem that bad.
“Right,” Charlie said. “Well you know what they say: hindsight is twenty-twenty.”
“That it is,” I said. I tied my hair up in a bun. “Why did you two break up, anyway? I mean, not that you need a reason beyond her just being who she is. But I’m guessing you didn’t just realize how much she sucked for no reason.”
Charlie smiled wryly. “That’s a long story. I’ll have to tell you some other time.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” I twisted the shorts in my hand again, then pointed vaguely toward the locker room. “Anyway, I really should go dry off.”
Charlie nodded. I started to walk off, but he grabbed my arm as I walked by to stop me.
“What time do you finish tonight?” he asked. Why did he care? Did he want to see me?
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m just filling out paperwork and stuff. Probably about an hour.”
“Great,” he said. “Me too. I’ll give you a ride home.”
I was about to say no and that he didn’t need to because my parents were coming to pick me up anyway, but then I paused.
Why should I make my parents come pick me up, wasting both their time and gas, when I could just catch a ride with someone driving from the same place as me?
Plus, it would make them more likely to drive me to Violet’s place after I got changed.
“Okay,” I said with a tiny nod. “I’d like that.”
Courtney reappeared out of nowhere with a clipboard in hand.
“We have to get back to work,” she snapped impatiently. “Come on.”
“So I don’t have time to change then?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes and started walking. “Come on, Madison!”
I guess that was a no. I sighed and looked at Charlie, who raised a hand in goodbye.
“See you soon,” I said. As I followed Courtney back toward the office, I was pretty sure I heard her murmur under her breath, “You better not.”
* * *
I leaned against the outside stone wall next to the school’s back door as I waited for Charlie to come outside.
I rested my head back, allowing the sun to shine directly on my face.
I’d done my best to dry off my clothes under the hand dryer in the locker room, but they were still a little damp, so I was happy it was so warm outside and felt like I was actually drying off now.
The door beside me opened, and I turned to look who was there, half-expecting it to be some random lifeguard like it had been the last five times it opened.
But this time, it was Charlie in all his glory.
Maybe it was because I’d barely seen him in the last year after he and Matt started college, but I felt like he had a new glow about him lately.
He grinned at me. “Hey! Ready to go?”
I nodded and followed him through the parking lot to his car.
Even though this was a completely different situation, something about seeing him walk in front of me with his dripping wet hair reminded me of that party two years ago.
I could barely remember the conversation we had earlier in the night—all other memories had been overshadowed by the one of the kiss—but I never forgot the way he looked.
He had to be the most beautiful boy to ever walk the earth.
“Here,” Charlie said once we were settled into his car. He passed me his phone. I held it in my open palm, not daring to hold it properly, as I looked at him in confusion. “You can pick the music. Whatever you feel like.”
“Really?” I asked in surprise. I’d driven with Charlie and Matthew tons of times and there had never been a single time where I saw Charlie pass over his phone. “But you never let Matthew pick.”
Charlie grinned cheekily. “Well I trust you to have better taste in music than Matthew.”
I picked out a playlist then put Charlie’s phone in the empty cupholder and pulled on my seatbelt while he started the car.
“I assume I don’t need to give you directions to my house,” I said.
“You know, I think you do,” Charlie said. “Not sure I’ve ever been there before.”
“Never, ever,” I said, enunciating my words with a shake of my head.
“So how’s graduate life treating you?” he asked. “Having fun?”
“Well, considering it’s been less than a week, I can’t say it’s really hit me yet,” I said. “But yeah, I guess it’s pretty good. No homework is always great.”
“You’ll start to feel it soon,” he promised. “But then again, Courtney will probably start working you so hard that you’ll wish you were still in school.”
I groaned. “Don’t even put that thought into the universe.”
“Come on, you know it’s true.” He laughed.
“Yeah…” I muttered, pressing my lips together. “But whatever. I’ve promised myself this summer will be better than last summer, and I’m determined to make that come true, no matter what it takes.”
“I wish you good luck,” Charlie said.
“What about you?” I asked. “Do you have any goals for the summer?”
Charlie let out a long breath. “Honestly, the only thing on my mind is avoiding Courtney at all costs. I don’t care how I do it as long as it gets done.”
I nodded. “Not a bad plan. Although, avoiding her might not be as fun as messing with her.”
“Messing with her how?” Charlie asked slowly.
I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I just knew that messing with Courtney was the only thing that had kept me sane last summer, so it seemed like a good suggestion now.
I wondered how long they had been together if he was even considering my idea.
If it was just some short weekend fling or something like that, I didn’t know why he would care enough to bother her.
Had they been together for longer? My heart hurt at the thought of that.
I knew that I had no say over what Charlie did with his life, but I hated the idea of him being with Courtney.
I wanted to believe it was because I knew he deserved better than her, but I knew it wasn’t that.
I just wished that if he was willing to be with anyone for a long period of time that it would be me.