How It's Going To Be [h.s.]

Chapter 55

                 

My eyes were closed and I could feel the hot sun on my face. My skin was beginning to tingle the way it does before a sunburn develops. I propped myself up on my elbows and blinked into the intense sunlight. I sat on a beach towel spread over white sand. Ahead of me was an ocean so blue that words like azure or cerulean didn't quite fit. Between the waves, three boys took long backstrokes as they raced each other and the current.

"Want to swim?" Louis asked. He was lying on his back on a towel beside me with an arm draped over his eyes to shield him from the sun. This torso was slick with sweat and sunblock. "You can. I'm fine up here alone."

"You don't want to come?"

"Not when I'm trying to get a tan."

"More like a sunburn, Lou," I giggled as I pushed myself up.

I strode through the sunbaked sand toward the waves lapping at the shoreline. I waded out into the water until it covered my knees then I dove into an approaching wave. The surf stunned my body, but wasn't too cold. Water swirled around me as the wave moved backward for mere seconds before I surfaced spitting salty water out of my mouth.

"Come out here farther!" Harry's voice came from a short distance away where he was bobbing between Niall and Liam.

"No! I can't touch the bottom out there," I shouted back.

"That's okay! You can touch my bottom!" Harry wiggled his eyebrows suggestively as the two boys swimming near him burst out laughing. My face burned red and I glanced back to shore. "Come on! I'll be right here."

Against my better judgment, I began swimming toward Harry. I felt waves raising and lowering my body as I went along. Saltwater filled my mouth and I spat it out in a rhythm between arm strokes. Finally, I reached Harry. His usually curly hair was smooth and straight and sopping wet. The edges of his eyes were red with irritation from the saltwater. He flashed a dangerous smile and held out his arm to me. As soon as I grabbed hold of his hand, Harry pulled me to him. I noticed that Niall and Liam had started swimming in the other direction in a vicious race.

I put my arms around Harry's neck and he kissed me. Our mouths tasted salty together. I wrapped my legs around his hips and held on tightly as he stopped kissing me. Harry's strength held up both above the surface as he treaded water effortlessly. I wondered how deep the water was below us. Louis had become a small dot on the shoreline, sunning himself in the distance. We were drifting away.

"I'm nervous this far out," I mumbled into Harry's neck.

"I'm right here."

"Okay."

We let the waves toss us around for a few minutes in the quiet. The murmuring of the ocean and privacy of an empty beach made the moment tranquil. I listened to Harry's breathing and felt his cool wet skin beneath my fingertips as I traced the back of his neck idly.

"Sweetheart, I need you to hold yourself up for a moment. My swim trucks are slipping."

"Okay," I stuttered. I pushed away from Harry.

"See? You're doing fine." Harry began drifting away from me as his hands disappeared under the water's surface to pull up his swim trunks. He tipped his head back and drenched his hair making it fall in a thick curtain over his eyes. When he pushed it away, his gaze went somewhere over my left shoulder toward the open ocean.

Suddenly, something powerful locked around my ankle. Terror erupted inside me and I let out a short scream before I was tugged below the wobbly surf. The grip on my ankle loosened some as I began frantically kicking my foot. Only a few seconds passed before I resurfaced. I coughed up water in a panic. Nothing held my ankle any longer. I began swimming with all my strength to Harry whose face was nothing but amusement. Had he not seen me being nearly drowned by something underwater?