An Endless Summer(83)

“I’ll meet you in there,” she said, and she let me go with a smile.

Running in bunny slippers up a staircase was no easy task, but I managed to ditch the slippers, reline my lips with balm, check the hair, and spray some Fire and Ice perfume in record time.

“Sean’s downstairs.”

I jumped at the unexpected voice. I spun around to see Adam leaning in my doorway munching on an apple.

“What have I told you about sneaking up on people?” I said. “And why are you telling me Sean’s downstairs?”

Adam bit a big chunk out of his apple with a grin, before backing out of the door without a word.

“Adam?” I ran after him. I followed him down the stairs, trying to get him to elaborate. Instead, all I got was Adam throwing his apple core over his shoulder for me to catch.

“Ugh, Adam! You are so gross!” I juggled the apple core to the bin in the restaurant bar, grabbing for some hand soap to scrub boy slobber off my hands.

The sound of laughter echoed out from the main bar and caused my heart to slam against my chest as I built up enough courage to make a grand entrance.

I had to act cool and confident, as if nothing was amiss, as though his evening with Tammy hadn’t kept me up all hours of the night, graphic images floating through my thoughts. I had to just be normal … whatever that was.

I breezed into the bar sporting my best winning smile, causing everyone to turn and look my way.

Toby, Tess, Stan, Adam, Ellie, Tammy and Ringer all looked at me like something was wrong. I then met Sean’s eyes that had the same puzzled expression.

Oh, my God, did I have something on my face?

Tess broke the silence. “Someone’s happy.”

I scowled. Was the fact that I smiled so utterly shocking to people? Was I such a sad sack in life that the mere thought of being upbeat and perky was so hard to fathom?

“Must be love,” Adam said with a wink.

I chose to ignore him entirely.

“I am happy,” I shrugged. They didn’t need to know that I was almost confined to a blubbering mess beforehand at the thought of Tammy and Sean.

“It must have been that joke I told you in the beer garden?” Tammy laughed.

“Oh, yeah, that was hilarious.” I glared at her.

Ringer piped up. “Joke? What joke? Tell me, I love a good joke.”

I went to change the subject but was distracted by Sean as he moved towards the bar, placed his empty glass on the counter, and looked directly at me.

“You ready?”

My heart stopped. “For what?”

Tammy jumped off her stool and headed over.

“Oh, Amy, I was just telling Sean that I forgot I had something on this afternoon so I can’t go waterskiing. So I said you would be happy to take my place.”

I stared blankly at Tammy wondering what the hell she was playing at.

“I spoke to Chris before and he has your shift covered.” She sported a wide-eyed ‘just go with it’ look that actually freaked me out a little bit.

“Amy… waterskiing?” Adam said with a laugh. “Now that I’ve got to see.”

“It’s not a spectator sport, idiot!” I snapped.

I met Sean’s serious gaze; it was as if the thought of me wanting to go waterskiing was so utterly unbelievable to him, and it was, or maybe all humour had left him because he was disappointed Tammy wasn’t coming. All of a sudden, I felt really uncomfortable. Tammy had meant well, but just because she was certain she knew how I felt about Sean, how could she assume it was mutual? Because from the look he was giving me it was clear it wasn’t.

“You really want to go?” he asked in all seriousness.

I swallowed, straightening my spine. “Sure.”

“We’re going out on the lake.”

I looked around, uncomfortable with all the questions in front of an audience.

“I know,” I said quietly.

Sean studied me for a long moment as if he was gauging whether or not I was telling the truth.

He shrugged. “Let’s go then.”

Oh shit.



***



Sean chucked me a life jacket that awkwardly engulfed my face. I wrestled it off my head and threw Sean an aggravated glare, but he was too busy whistling and clearing some space on the boat by picking up empty soft drink cans and other bits of rubbish; he was such a boy.

After quickly disposing of the evidence, he dusted his hands on his boardies and looked at me expectantly as I stood on the jetty. I clasped the life jacket across my chest like a shield, warily looking on at the sleek speedboat, bobbing on the water as Sean’s heavy frame took up most of the space.

I felt like such an idiot; it was so long ago and although my near drowning was a distant memory, being back, being with Sean, washed all the underlying fear I had of this vast stretch of water right over me.