Chapter 15
“Let her go. Come on, let’s go join the others,” Chris said, then he guided me towards the dock where the others were just making their way towards the ladder.
“Was that Brooke and Amy?” Isabelle asked within earshot of the other two, who were still in the water.
“Yeah,” I replied with a shrug.
“What did they want?” yelled Watson, who was treading water at the front of the dock.
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” I replied, as I set down my tote on the weathered boards, spread my towel out, and lay down on my belly. Then I rested my head on my crossed arms and closed my eyes, inviting the sun to warm me.
Chris stood there watching me for a moment, and his shadow sent a chill across my damp body so I looked up at him, squinting with the sun in my eyes.
“You’re blocking the sun.”
Without speaking, he took a step to the side and set his towel beside mine.
I reached into the tote and dug to the bottom for the sunscreen.
“Will you put this on my back?” I asked as I passed him the sunscreen, then reached behind my neck to move my hair off my back.
Kneeling next to me, he took it, and I squealed as the cold sunscreen landed in a glob on my back.
His fingers painted shapes and then smeared them around like they were footprints being washed away by the tide.
His hands were warm against my skin as he massaged my sore muscles.
“That feels so good,” I said, as I closed my eyes again.
“Yeah?” he replied, as he applied a little more sunscreen and worked underneath my bikini strap, and then made his way up onto my shoulders. The pressure of his hands felt amazing. That’s where I carried constant stress, and my muscles were always so tight, which he seemed to notice.
“Damn, Allie, you’re covered in knots,” he said as he kneaded his knuckles along my neck, and I sucked in a breath at the intense, nauseating pain.
“Can I get some of that?” Isabelle asked, gesturing for the sunscreen just as Chris was flipping the cap shut.
“Sure,” he said, and then he passed it over to Griffin.
“Do you need help with that?” Griffin asked her.
“I got it,” said Watson, as he intercepted to take it from Chris.
My eyes shot open, and I pushed up on my hands when he said that so that I could see Isabelle’s reaction.
I couldn’t tell if her cheeks were pink from the sun or the sudden attention from someone she had been vying for.
I caught her eye, and she gave me a look that told me she was pleasantly surprised.
“Okay, sure, just trying to help,” Griffin said, unbothered. He wrapped a towel around his waist, sat down on the dock, leaned his back up against a piling, and closed his eyes as the sun beat down on his face. “What do you all want to do after this?”
“Let’s grab Slurpees at 7-Eleven on the way home,” said Watson. Isabelle nodded as she sat cross-legged, holding her hair out of his way while he applied sunscreen to her back. I watched him as he focused, carefully covering every inch of her to be sure he didn’t miss a single spot.
“I think you’re covered, Is,” he said, as he looked over her shoulder with a smile.
“Thanks,” she said, shyly, then she glanced over at me, and I nodded in approval. Then I lay my head back down on my folded arms, facing away from everyone, looking out towards the water, savoring the sunlight on my face. Just then, I felt a finger trace lightly down my back, and I exhaled.
“I never want to leave,” I said, as Chris’s fingers left my back and gently feathered through the waves of my hair.
“I get why this place is cathartic to you,” he said softly enough that nobody else heard.
“Yeah,” I said, through choked-down tears, as I focused on the water that lapped the rotted pilings out in the river.
One of the pilings was once home to a bustling Osprey nest, now abandoned, with sticks hanging low that touched the water, soon to wash away.
As a child, I used to look forward to the yearly return of the Osprey to her nest to lay her eggs and raise her chicks, but she had since given up and moved on to raise her family elsewhere on this river.
Something so relatable to the season of my own life.
Chris must have heard me quietly begin to cry.
“Hey,” he said, as he reached over my body and rolled me towards him, then he brought a hand to my cheek and ran his thumb lightly below my eye to stop a tear from rolling down my face.
I looked down at his chest. “This place doesn’t have to define you.
” I looked back up at him and I was relieved that the others had fallen asleep in the sun, exhausted from the soccer game, and everything the river had to offer.
I leaned my head forward against his warm chest, and he wrapped his arms around me and held me tight as I began to softly sob.
It was the first time I had let myself feel anything since my Dad had left.
Chris was the first person who seemed to understand what this place meant to me, and the massive crater my Dad had left in my life.
I was grateful for his silence. He just nuzzled his face into my hair, breathing in the essence of the river upon me.
I soaked his chest with the salt of my tears until my emotions settled and he loosened his grip.
I softly laughed as I leaned back and looked at his chest, and he looked down.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You’re covered in brackish water now,” I said, and he shook his head at my silly joke, then reached up to wipe the last of the tears off my face. As he tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, the others started to stir.
“What’d we miss? said Griffin.
“It’s Slurpee time!” said Watson, as he sat up and adjusted the tuck of his towel around his waist.
“Isabelle, wake up,” said Griffin, but she didn’t move, so he knelt down, leaned an arm over the edge of the dock, dipped his fingertips into the river, and then flicked them on her face until she squirmed.
“Watson!” she shrieked, then she opened her eyes, sat up suddenly, and shoved him playfully. Chris and I exchanged a look, and without saying anything, we both knew that there was something blossoming between them.
We all stood up lazily, grabbed our crumpled towels under our arms, I collected my tote bag, and we headed back to my Jeep, barefoot across the jagged gravel.
“What a great afternoon, we need to do that again,” said Griffin.
Chris shot me a look. “Alone,” he mouthed to me so the others didn’t see.
My mouth opened slightly at his suggestion, and he reached over with his thumb, closed it, and kissed me.
We piled back into my Jeep and headed to 7-Eleven.
When I pulled into the parking lot, we got out and barreled through the glass door that flew open so fast, it hit the blue metal newspaper box outside.
The bell crashed into the door, and the cashier looked up as he saw us trail in, a disheveled, sun zapped mess.
“What flavor are you getting? I’m getting Fanta.” Isabelle said before I could reply, and I nodded in approval.
“Coke mixed with Cherry. Same as always,” I said, as I passed the cup back and forth between the two flavors to create the perfect mix, and the others chided me for taking too long.
“I’m getting Mountain Dew,” said Chris.
Once everyone had their Slurpees, we paid, then headed back to my Jeep and sat with the windows rolled down while we drank them.
“Why are these straws always so impossible to get the Slurpee through?” Griffin asked as he used the spoon on the end of the straw to scoop the Slurpee into his mouth instead.
Watson removed his lid and tipped it back as the entire Slurpee crashed into his face and started to avalanche down his neck. We all laughed, and Isabelle reached over and scooped it back up his neck with the lid, stopping it from sliding into his shirt.
“Can someone run back in and grab one hundred napkins?” she said through uncontrollable laughter.
Chris jumped out of the car and ran back in, returning with a fistful of napkins.
He passed them to the outstretched hand from the back seat and then turned back around and continued working on his Slurpee in the front seat next to me.
“Thanks,” I heard Watson say from the back seat.
I glanced in the rear-view mirror to see Isabelle still triaging Watson’s catastrophic mess.
Once it was cleaned up, I started the car and turned on the radio.
Spin Doctors’ Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong came through the speakers, and we all sang along as we made our way back to Watson’s car, which was still parked at Friendly’s.
Once we arrived, they all got out, and Chris leaned across the console and gave me a Mountain Dew-flavored kiss.
“Call you later, Superstar,” he said, then they got back into Watson’s car and headed out of the parking lot, waving as they left. Isabelle switched to the front seat, and we sat there in park as we finished our Slurpees before they melted.
“These straws really are useless,” I said.
“Yeah, they are,” she said as her straw cracked down the side when she tried to scoop Slurpee onto her spoon.
“Well, there goes that!” she said, as she popped the lid off and drank the rest from the rim of the cup until it was empty.
Then she set it into the cupholder, turned to me, leaned against the window, and let out a loud sigh.
“Okay, what was that with Watson today?” I asked, still navigating the remainder of the Slurpee at the bottom of my cup. When I turned to look at her, she was smiling ear to ear.
“I know, right? He was flirting with me, wasn’t he?”
“Um, yes, he was. ‘I’ll do it, Griffin.’” I teased her about his wanting to apply her sunscreen, and her smile grew.
“What do I do now?” she asked.
“Hell if I know. I suck at this, remember? I’m the last person to ask,” I said with wide eyes and a frozen tongue from the final bite of my Slurpee. She laughed at my slurred speech.
“Chris asked me to Homecoming,” I said out of nowhere.
“Oh my gosh, Allie! I’m so happy for you!”
“Maybe Watson will ask you.”
“I’m not going to get my hopes up, but that would be amazing.”
“I guess we’d better get going,” I said, as I shoved the lid sideways into my cup, set it into the cupholder, and put the keys into the ignition. Then I turned to Isabelle before starting the engine to drive her back to her car. “Today was a great day.”
“Yeah, it was,” she said as we cranked the windows closed, turned the radio on, and headed home.