There Will Be Blood (not mine)

31. Paradise Lost

But alas, I was sitting here on a comfy couch, reading an epic poem while my eyes darted over the porch in search of rouge sand dunes. I would sweep the wooden deck every morning when I woke up but by lunchtime, the sand was always back. It was relentless.

I felt someone next to me and looked up through my sunglasses at Jaxon who was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"You stayed in late," I sighed, noting the mid-day sun.

"I'm on vacation so I'm taking it for all it's worth." He sat next to me.

"There's only five more days," I said and to him; it might have sounded morose, but I found that statement slightly uplifting.

"Where're the parents?"

"I think they went on a deep sea fishing thing this morning."

"I haven't seen much of them since we've been here."

"Yeah, because they're fucking like rabbits. You can't hear them at night?" I closed my book and looked at him.

He shrugged. "No, once I'm out; I'm out. Alarm clocks don't even wake me up anymore."

"That's dangerous."

"It's not my fault," he replied innocently and leaned back.

We stayed quiet for a couple of minutes and I went back to my reading, but wasn't really paying attention to the words.

Next to me, Jaxon sighed heavily and stretched above his head and got up. "I think I'm going to go for a swim."

"Whatever." I didn't lift my gaze from my book.

He pulled off his shirt, and I saw him stretching some more, which was really annoying me.

"What the hell is wrong with you? Stop moving," I snapped.

"Oh, sorry." He lowered his head, but his eyes shifted towards the beach.

I looked out in the direction that Jaxon was focusing on, and that's when I saw the group of about four girls. They were all giggling and staring at him like he was some gift from the Gods. He was soaking it up for all it was worth. Sure, in the past few months, Jaxon had gained a considerable amount of weight and most of it was muscle, but I had never really paid any attention to how much like a normal teenage boy he looked. Until today.

I had to laugh while I was watching him peacock himself in front the girls who were playing out in the ocean.

"What?" He asked.

"You're embarrassing yourself."

"No, I'm not. I think they like me."

"Of course they like you. You have a dick," I said simply.

The girls looked to be about eighteen or nineteen and probably here for the break from college. Hell, they looked older than Maddie did. If only they knew that they were lusting after a barely-there teenager.

I knew they weren't looking at me because I was hidden behind a palm tree that was conveniently blocking their view. My dear brother, Jaxon, couldn't get enough of this new found attention. I guessed that his libido would start to catch up with him soon. I bet he had started to take hot showers that were longer than necessary to perform certain self-defiling acts. It was inevitable. I was going to have to tell Jeremy so that Jaxon didn't go girl crazy like I did when I was his age. That got me in a lot of trouble.

"What should I do?" Jaxon sat back down but didn't rip his eyes from the females, who were now basically licking their chops. But there was one girl in particular who was blushing furiously under Jaxon's gaze. She had blonde hair, and that was the only feature I could really see from behind my tree. Jaxon was looking just as hard at her.