That Blue-Eyed Boy

6. CRAZY

"You'd have to be blind to not see the chemistry between the two of you. Even I can see it. And the only reason I'm telling you that you have my permission to date my daughter is because I do trust you, Beau. I've gotten to know you over the last two months, and I think you'd be good for her, if I'm being completely honest. Also, cut the Mr. Hawkley crap. My name is John, so use it." Mr. Hawkley, I mean John, says, completely taking me by surprise. "You just better not abuse my trust, Mr. Morris." John says, heading to the house while I continue to stand in the middle of the driveway dumbfounded.

Maybe this is a test. Maybe he wants to see how far I'll actually go with Stella. Maybe he's looking for a reason to fire me now that she's home. Eventually I make it inside, where I head to wash my hands in the sink while my stomach is doing flip flops. Now I'm not going to be able to look at either one of them.

"Beau, is Gunnar coming up tomorrow? I know you said you invited him." Stella says as she puts the stir-fry pan on the table when I walk back into the room and take my seat. The only seat left at the four-person table is beside Bryndle and across from Mr. Hawkley, so I sit down, avoiding Stella's gaze.

"Yeah. He said he'd be up after lunch sometime." I mumble, dishing my share of food out of the pan, moving it around the plate without really eating it. My stomach is too knotted to eat anything right now.

"Do you not like it? Did I put too much salt in it?" Stella starts fretting, noticing I'm not eating. I glance up at her, afraid I may have hurt her feelings, and scoop a bite of everything onto my fork before forcing myself to swallow it.

"It's delicious, don't worry, Stella." I manage to give her a small smile while I'm avoiding Mr. Hawkley's gaze. It takes me a while, but eventually I manage to eat everything on my plate before excusing myself to my loft. I have a lot of thinking to do tonight.

-

"Beau, watch this!" Little Sammie Mock calls from where she's running on the dock. The six-year old executes an impressive cannonball into the lake, and I smile and hold up all ten fingers when she climbs back up and takes her life jacket off. As soon as Sammie's mom, Cynthia, who runs the local feed store that I've visited several times, introduces her little girl to me, she practically latched herself onto my leg and hasn't left my side much since this whole day started.

So far, I've refed at least six games of yard pong – a drinking game similar to beer pong, only with feed buckets and small sponge balls – ate my body weight in watermelon that was supplied by the local farmer's market, and had a cannonball contest against Bryndle that she actually won fair and square. It's not even noon yet, either, plus I managed to do all of this while avoiding Stella as much as possible. I mean, she's wearing a tiny American flag bikini top and bottoms with the pair of jeans shorts from the first night I met her that are unbuttoned. There in the middle of her stomach is a belly button ring I never noticed before, glittering in the sunlight and catching my attention every time I'm around her. She's going to be the death of me.

Colt said he'd come by later tonight, and Gunnar should be here soon. Apparently, he and some of his friends were planning on going to the beach to celebrate the holiday weekend, but they decided that a lake party would be more fun. Mr. Hawkley already said it was fine if they come and camp here, as long as they don't cause any trouble.

Looking around the campsite, I sigh when I see Stella open another Palm Breeze can when she and Bryndle take on a couple of their friends in yard pong. This is her sixth or seventh one already – not that I've been keeping track or anything – and like I said, it's not even noon yet. Apparently those Palm Breezes are supposed to be loaded with alcohol, a lot more than a regular beer has at least. Somehow, I manage to pry my eyes away from her, and instead turn my attention to the little kids who are chasing each other with color smoke bombs that they're holding in their hands. I smile as I remember memories from my childhood, chasing Gunnar with sparklers and the color bombs. One time, I even put those snappers under the toilet seat in our bathroom thinking that Gunnar would find them, but then that plan backfired on me when I forgot about them. I grab the beer that I've been nursing for a while now and chug the rest of it before it gets too hot and disgusting to drink, and stand up and head to find another piece of watermelon. While I'm cutting a good-sized chuck of watermelon for my pleasure, I stumble forward when a sudden weight appears on my back, giggling while her long hair falls over my shoulder and tickles me.