Eenie Meenie Minie Mo

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I didn't know whose bright idea it was to go swimming.......but it wasn't mine. The beginning dilemma was that I didn't own a bathing suit that actually fit me, which meant I had to go around town and hunt down a bathing suit; in August. Eventually I found one at Goody's, though it didn't quite fit me right. I had a thing against bikinis but hated that tankinis were so darn hard to find that fit you right. By all this drama alone I should have known this was a bad idea.

My friends actually weren't cool enough to own their own pool, so we all had to shell out four bucks each to get into the rec. center's outdoor pool. It was pretty big; twelve feet deep with a diving board and all. I hadn't felt the need to tell my two friends that swimming wasn't really my thing. Actually, large bodies of water as whole weren't my thing. But with my brother's wedding only two and a half weeks away, I needed something to remove the stress. Apparently that meant drowning myself in an attempt to look cool and sexy; as if I could actually swim properly.

My heart sank when I saw that it was crowded with only half of Lewisburg. Who'd go to the pool on a hot Saturday evening, anyway? Didn't these losers have anywhere better to be?

As if karma hadn't bitch slapped me in the face enough, Leander and his cronies were there. They were going off the diving board nonstop, acting like the complete morons they were, while their too-hot-to-jump-into-the-water-and-get-my-hair-wet girlfriends sat with their feet in the water, shrieking when they got splashed. Like, duh! You sit that close to the freakin diving board and you're bound to get a little bit of water on your precious skin.

"I like the shallow end anyway," Sawyer offered with a smile.

I grinned back, silently thanking the crap out of him. Because one, I liked the shallow end better, too. And two, well.....that much was obvious anyway.

We were lucky enough to get a table in the shade to dump all our crap on as we waded in the water. And I really, really tried not to gawk at Sawyer when he took his T-shirt off. But damn! Where the hell did he get abs like that? It was perfection; he was like an unnatural lithe but muscular British god or something.

I was pretty sure I was the only awkward one there. Maddie looked gorgeous in her sporty but flirty bikini with the cute skirt bottoms. Her top filled out a helluva a lot more than mine did. It didn't help that the obnoxious sherbert tankini top of mine made my hair stand out even more. I should have gone with the aqua one.

In any case, I was quite proud that I still had a bit of my Californian tan and didn't stand out like a white ape when I did finally decide to stop staring at Sawyer long enough to get in the water-even daring to get my hair wet; I guess when you didn't dye your hair, it didn't bother you as much.

I probably stayed under for longer than was necessary. If I could have made myself drown, I seriously might have done it. I mean, it was better than watching Leander and his stupid slutty girlfriend-wearing a bikini that left very little to the imagination-do the under water make out....thing. Beyond tacky!

Maddie had her blonde hair piled on top of her head in a tight bun and was very careful not to dunk all the way under the water. She smiled sheepishly when she caught me raising a brow. "Hey, blonde doesn't stay in very well very natural red heads and chlorine is a killer. So I don't wanna hear one word from you, missy."

I held my hands up in surrender before falling back inside the water. It felt really good to be immersed in water and everything, but there was something about public pools that was so.....public. I wasn't the greatest swimmer there ever was, and it felt kind of silly to act like I was. That, and you couldn't really be yourself in the public eye of the lifeguards. Leander and his group didn't exactly help matters.