43. Maya
Maya
“Maya, are you packing extra sunscreen?” Dani calls from the bathroom as she finishes braiding back her long auburn hair.
“Yeah,” I reply, zipping up my tote bag after stuffing it to the brim with a beach towel, dry clothes, sunscreen, and my sketchbook.
“Does this suit make my tits look okay?” Chloe asks, adjusting the top of her bikini in the mirror. “Because I can put on the blue one. I’m not sold on the green.”
“You look good, Chlo. I don’t know who you’re trying to impress so hard, anyway,” I tease, laughing when she rolls her eyes at me.
“Don’t act like you wouldn’t be trying to show off for those boys if you were single. Instead, you had to go and fall in love and shit, leaving me to be a slut all alone,” she pouts, pulling her lace cover-up on.
Rolling my eyes in amusement, I pull my own cropped t-shirt and shorts over my red bikini.
Dani, finally emerging from the bathroom, comments, “Don’t worry, Chloe, we don’t need her, anyway.
Consider me your official slutty wingwoman.
” Her strappy teal two-piece hugs her slim curves in all the right places, angling high over her hips and making her green eyes pop bright in contrast. She looks like a real-life Little Mermaid.
“Yes, bitch! That’s the attitude we need right now!” Chloe exclaims, fawning over Dani’s look. “Beau Warren isn’t gonna know what fucking hit him!”
“Damn straight,” Dani agrees, pulling on her own oversized T as a cover-up.
Doing one last sweep of the room, checking that we have everything we need for our little day trip to the beach, we then make our way down to the lobby to wait for everyone else.
An eternity and three Uber XLs later, we’re unloading a third of the Saint Augustine’s hockey team at the beach.
“You want help with that?” Jamie asks from the sidewalk as I swing my bag from the car, being the last of the girls to climb out. He doesn’t stand too close, but I can see in his posture that he wants nothing more than to take the heavy bag from my shoulder.
Smiling softly, I say, “No, that’s okay. I’m a big girl.”
Jamie rolls his eyes, warring internally about whether he should take the bag or not, and eventually his gentlemanly conscience wins out over his practical one, because he holds out his arm, not taking no for an answer.
Reluctantly—but also grateful—I pass him the straps. “Are you sure? Someone might see you carrying my things.”
He shrugs. “Then they’ll see me being polite to a girl. It’ll be okay.”
We walk in silence, trailing behind the group a few steps. My mind wanders back to the conversation we shared on the phone last night.
The whole team and every student who rode down for the tournament went out to celebrate last night’s win. I danced with my friends; Jamie sat back and watched.
I wanted nothing more than to spend my night congratulating him. Seeing his eyes locked on my body as Dani and I swayed on the dance floor only made me hotter.
Unfortunately, being surrounded by his entire team and a huge chunk of the Saint A’s student body, we had absolutely zero chance at being alone.
After getting back too the hotel, however, we stayed up late into the night on the phone—facing one another from our opposing balconies across the courtyard.
I told Jamie how proud I was that they were going to the championship. He told me about what happened in the locker room, and how he thinks he’s ready to bury the hatchet with my dad.
I might’ve teared up a little.
Walking down the sidewalk with him now, I can almost pretend we’ve fast-forwarded our lives and that we’re here on vacation—in the future. Pretend him and my dad are on speaking terms again, pretend Ross Booker is out of the picture.
Pretend that we’ve got the rest of our lives to take beach trips and celebrate hockey wins and crawl in bed together at the end of the day.
“Maya!”
Chloe calling my name pulls me from my thoughts, my head snapping up to find her in the crowd ahead of me. She weaves her way through the group of hockey players, intertwining her arm through mine.
Jamie makes to walk head, giving us space to talk, but Chloe clicks her tongue at him. “Not so fast, rock star. I want to talk to both of you.” The corner of Jamie’s lip pulls up in sync with the rise of his eyebrow, giving him a cute amused-but-confused look.
Chloe lowers her voice when she speaks next. “Drew had the brilliant idea to come sleep in our room tonight.”
Now it’s my turn to look confused. “Why would he sleep in our room?”
Jamie, innately understanding the antics of his best friend, catches on immediately. “He doesn’t have to do that. Maya and I aren’t…desperate.”
“We know you aren’t desperate. But we’re on a trip to the beach, about to be celebrating the last game of your college career—win or lose—and it’s not fair that you two can’t be a normal couple.
I mean, look at them.” Chloe waves her hand to the group in front of us.
Colt and Stella, Noah Gallagher and his girlfriend Skylar, and the other happily taken players holding hands with their partners, framed by the glittering ocean view.
“Dani and I can share your bed, and Drew can take mine. You sneak up to their room and spend the night with your man before the championship game,” she finishes, looking at me expectantly.
My gaze flicks from her to Jamie, who shrugs nonchalantly, but I can see the longing in his eyes. He wants what our friends are offering, but doesn’t want to put anyone out.
Finally, I nod and a flirtatious grin breaks across my face. “Alright. I’m not going to say no to a good time.”
Chloe tosses her head back with a short laugh. “You never do, Maya Girl.”
A few hours later, our big group is pleasantly buzzing, enjoying the sunshine. Stella and Dani are both lounging on their towels, tanning and reading. Nora, Drew, Chloe, and Peter Simmons are drunk and doing chicken fights in the ocean.
Beau, Jamie, Colt, and a few others started up an impromptu game of football, and have attracted the attention of many wandering eyes.
I lounge back in my beach chair, drawing Jamie’s shirtless form in front of the ocean waves like I’m some obsessed fangirl.
His golden skin glowing in the sun, beads of sweat making their way down the lines of his perfect torso.
The dark ink on his arms and chest and legs all beautifully on display.
“Watch out!” I hear, and I look up from my sketchbook just in time to see their ball flying right toward me. Instinctively, I drop my pencil in the sand and catch the ball right before I end up with a bloody nose.
“Nice hands, Winchester!” someone hollers.
“My bad, Maya,” Beau calls at the same time.
Jamie jogs a couple steps closer, wanting to check that I didn’t get hit. Before he can worry too much, I stand and wind my arm back, throwing a perfect spiral down the beach back to Beau who hops up to catch it, falling into a back-roll in the sand.
“Holy shit,” Gally says, clapping at my throw.
“Maya, come play!” Colt suggests, giving Beau a hand up from the sand.
“I don’t know,” I say, reaching up to tighten my messy bun.
“Come on,” Beau adds in. “Fischer is a shitty QB. You can take his spot.”
“Fuck off, Warren!” Will Fischer complains, throwing out his hands.
“I’ll play if you play,” Stella says, walking up next to me, grinning at her boyfriend mischievously.
I laugh at the challenge in her eyes, agreeing to join the game. The two of us jog over to the group of boys.
“Drewski!” Jamie calls out toward our friends in the water, waving them over. The four of them join us, then teams are re-picked.
“Let’s play ball!” shouts Gally with a clap.
The football game is the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Laughing, watching the boys fight, throwing perfect passes and seeing them be impressed every time as if I’m not the daughter of their coach—of course I know how to throw a damn football.
Jamie and I ended up on opposite teams, and every time I throw to Beau or Drew or Simmons, he tries to intercept with a shit-eating grin, purposely trying to pester and annoy me.
A good ways into the game, Jamie changes tactics.
Laughing, he runs right toward me—my defender, Austin Butcher, nowhere to be seen—picks me up around the middle and takes me to the ground in a “tackle.” Although, he rolls, positioning himself so that his shoulder and back hit the ground, and I land, sprawled on top of him.
“Damn it!” I hear Drew call from down the beach—knowing it was the fourth down and our team just lost the ball. But I’m too busy laughing my ass off to care about the turnover.
“Jerk!” I say, gently swatting Jamie on the chest.
“What, you thought I’d take it easy on you because you’re a girl? Get real, Winchester,” Jamie tosses back, throwing his arms out to the side so he’s starfished out on the sand with me hovering on my forearms above him.
I push myself up from the ground before we draw too much attention, but I don’t miss the way Jamie’s eyes linger on my chest, my bikini-clad body literally hanging in his face.
“Fuck me, I can’t wait to take that off of you later,” he whispers as I stand, and I have to bite my lip to fight the smile threatening to break free.
I offer a hand to help pull him up and we rejoin the game, hopefully looking more innocent than I feel.