Spellbound

Part 5

Christian

It'd been a few days since I was trapped in the shed with Lera. We hadn't spoken since, and she kept avoiding my eyeline. But it's okay, she won't be able to resist me forever. 

The last couple of days have been well, predictable. Wake up early, swim, have people glare at me, swim again, eat, play beach games with Noah, eat, tease Lera, sleep, repeat. 

Today's going much the same as the others. It's currently 11am, and myself and Noah are playing beach volleyball. The sun is warm on my back, and I'll probably need to reapply my sunscreen soon. I haven't seen any of the girls this morning, which is quite disappointing if I'm being honest. It's so fun to harmlessly tease Lera, because she gets so worked up about it.

Speak of the devil.

I turn my head at the sound of laughter, and I see Lera, Kat and Fern skipping hand in hand down the pathway towards our beach. I stay turned away until I feel a thud on my foot. The volleyball.

"Wow, I didn't realize how quickly you could get distracted, until now that is." Noah says, raising his eyebrows in my direction. 

"Nah, it's just the sun in my eyes, switch sides?" I ask, throwing him the ball as I jog around to the other side of the net. 

"Sure loverboy, you do what you need to do." he replies.

I quickly flip him the finger before we continue on with our game. But he's right, I'm distracted. 

Distracted by her. By the way her face lights up when she smiles. By the way she's sitting so close, yet so far away from me. "You need to stop thinking about her, she hates you, dumbass", I tell myself. But I can't. Not even if I really wanted to.

While I'm busy degrading myself from the inside, the girls have laid out their beach towels, and begin to apply sunscreen to each others backs.

I don't realize I've frozen in my place until Noah follows my gaze. He rolls his eyes before nodding his head in their direction and and walking over.

I follow, as Noah yells,

"Hey, mind giving me some of that sunscreen? I'm burning up over here!"

Lera rolls her eyes at us, exclaiming,

"Go get your own! We don't want your germs on our sunscreen," she narrows her eyes in my direction at that last point.

Kat just laughs though. 

"Here Noah," she says, tossing the bottle at him. He squirts a generous amount of sunscreen in his palm before... attempting to spread it across his back. Kat laughs again, gesturing him towards her. She stands up and walks over to him. She squirts another dollop of sunscreen into her own hand before standing on her tip toes to reach the very top of his back. 

I look back over at Lera, who has an amused look on her face. Feeling my presence, she turns her head my way, and a flush of red overtakes her cheeks under my stare. She quickly looks back down to Fern, who, by the looks of it, is currently trying to build the worlds biggest sandcastle. 

I slowly make my way over to them, bending down to eyelevel. Lera, again turns her head to face a still struggling Kat. 

"Go away Christian! I don't want your help with my sandcastles, only fun people can help." Fern says, pouting.

I pretend to have a confused look on my face as I reply.

"Wait, if only fun people can help, why is Lera here?"

I earn a smack on the arm from each of them.

"Okay, okay, I'm leaving," I say, letting out a deep laugh as I stand back up.